THE LEEDS ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS Minutes of the Council Meeting held at 7.30 pm on Thursday 1st October 2026 at The Corner House Club Leeds.
1. Attendance. G. Roper in the chair with S. Wilkinson, J. Aldersley, A. Kibler, R. Town, S. Stacey, N. Burchall, G. Toulson, A. Rogers, J. Bentley & M. Murray.
2. Apologies for absence. H. Soutar, B. King & I. Blakeley.
3. Minutes of the Previous meeting dated 3rd September 2026 were approved & signed.
4. Matters Arising. Mr. Roper asked for the minutes to record as to whether Mr. Town wished to remain on council. Mr. Town reconfirmed that he would continue and it was mentioned that he had previously agreed at the AGM a week before this meeting. Mr. Rogers asked if we still had the use of the association’s projector for lectures. Mr. Roper confirmed that the equipment is in his care and is in good working order.
5. Treasurers Report. Mr. Kibler advised that he had paid a deposit of £100 for the 2027 Anniversary Dinner. He also said he had settled the £40 for flowers for Mrs. Pat Scholes following the passing of her husband, our council member Ian Scholes. Mr. Kibler advised that he had also received two subscriptions recently. Mr. Toulson raised the point of thanking Tim at WDS for hosting our AGM and the need to reimburse Mr. Wilkinson who had provided some beers for Tim as a thank you from the association. Mr. Kibler had previously expressed a desire to relinquish his role as treasurer but had since decided that he would continue his role for another year. September’s transactions are detailed below:-
| Balance brought forward | 382.09 | ||||
| 01-Sep-26 | Subs | Peter Baker | 0.00 | 20.00 | 402.09 |
| 07-Sep-26 | Dinner | The Manor deposit | 100.00 | 0.00 | 302.09 |
| 15-Sep-26 | Other | Room Hire – Corner Club House | 180.00 | 0.00 | 122.09 |
| 21/Sep/26 | Other | Shield badges & engraving by John A. | 18.25 | 0.00 | 103.84 |
| 21/Sep/26 | Subs | A. Kibler | 0.00 | 20.00 | 123.84 |
| 22/Sep/26 | Other | Flowers – L. Murray – paid 2 x 20 | 40.00 | 0.00 | 83.84 |
6. Correspondence. Mr. Aldersley reported that nobody had replied as yet from the following leads he pursued; ARLA, Bradford College, Sulzer or Millers Oils, although all the organizations had earlier agreed to host a visit. He had also spoken with Mark Moody, Managing Director of WDS Components who had asked if the association would be interested in joining in with their 75th Anniversary celebrations. Mr. Aldersley confirmed that we would be pleased to join in the celebrations. Mr. Roper had spoken with John Sugden asking about the possibility of another lecture. Mr. Sugden had agreed, but at the moment he did not have a topic for another talk. Mr. Aldersley suggested we might try a different tack when contacting companies and instead of using email he thought a proper letter with the association letterhead might yield a better response. To further this he had brought a couple of letterheads for selection by council. The traditional letterhead with monochrome logo was selected over the more recently used colour letterhead with two small logos. Mr. Murray had contacted Mackintosh’s in Halifax but had been turned down for a possible visit. He mentioned that he had also been in touch with Corrocoat of Hunslet, yielding a similar result.
7. Membership. Mr. Murray had sent a letter to Thomas Irish confirming his membership of the association. He advised that he had produced lists of the membership categories and complied statistics of those who had not paid subscriptions. Mr. Murray said out of fourteen students members only one had settled subscriptions. Mr. Kibler pointed out that our current account balance was getting low and might be in need of a transfer from the savings account unless subscriptions started to come in soon. Mr. Murray said he would be requesting payment of subscriptions in the next week. He also raised the question as to whether the ‘Rules of the Association’ allow a Corporate Member to become vice-president. Mr. Wilkinson kindly offered to pay a personal subscription to eliminate this problem. Mr. Aldersley clarified the situation by advising council that when Mr. Wilkinson joined the association he was voted in as Full Member.
8. Orion Project “The Mars Rover”. Nothing to report until Mr. Soutar is available.
9. Current Programme. Mr. Roper confirmed that he will be giving the October lecture on ‘The Ornamental Lathe’. Mr. Aldersley advised that new member Tom Irish had kindly offered a lecture with a topic on Medical/Biological Engineering for the November lecture slot. He also advised that we had a visit to Greyhound Box planned as our end of January event. Mr. Toulson requested details of these forthcoming events so he could post them on the website. He also mentioned that he had emailed Michael Fitzpatrick at Spooner in Ilkley but had not received a reply, citing that Mr. Fitzpatrick may no longer be with the company. Mr. Toulson had also been in touch with John Pankhurst of Keighley Association of Engineers with a view to mutual exchange of suggestions for lectures and visits. Mr. Pankhurst had passed details to their new secretary Grant Hewitt to pursue the exchange of information. Mr. Murray suggested ‘Vantage’ (campervans) in Leeds for a possible visit and offered to contact them, but said this might have to be a daytime visit.
10. Next Session. Nothing to report.
11. Website. Mr. Toulson had investigated the possibility of members’ subscriptions being collected through the website, following a question by Mr. Soutar. He had been in touch with our IT expert Kally Shergill, who had pointed to a couple of systems to investigate. Mr. Toulson reported to council that our WordPress website could have a membership plug-in to facilitate this. Each member would need to set up their own account online and login to see when their membership payment was taken and when the next payment was due. The association would need to set up an account with ’stripe.com’ which would accept payment from their personal debit or credit card, or enable a bank transfer. There would be costs involved to the association, e.g. around 1.5% plus 20p for every transaction. Once subscriptions are in the treasurer would need to transfer the funds from the ‘stripe’ account to our current account. Mr. Toulson questioned how many members would be happy to set up such accounts online and how many of the older members would want to. He offered to investigate further but expressed concern that it could be considerable work when we only have around seventy members, and not all might wish to pay subscriptions in this way. Mr. Kibler commented that he did not think it a viable system for our association and noted that his social club with a thousand members continue to pay subscriptions by cash. Mr. Toulson said he would like to update the ‘Council Members Gallery’ on the website, following the recent AGM and new members joining council. He requested a passport type photograph from new council members for the gallery.
12. Golf. Mr. Stacey reported that he had successfully managed to negotiate the same £70 cost for the 2027 golf day with Leeds Golf Club. Also M.A. Ford had expressed that they were still keen to sponsor next year’s event. Mr. Stacey said that there was nothing further to arrange until much closer to the event in the New Year. He said he was also planning on keeping in close contact with Alan Braime, who had also generously sponsored the tournament previously. Mr. Murray pointed out that the £54 loss on the golf account was not really a loss relating to golf and should be in the general account of the association. Mr. Toulson reminded council that the cost was to cover a free day of golf for our friend Kally Shergill, who had not only helped considerably in the past setting up our website but was now covering the cost of hosting the website online. This amounted to hundreds of pounds of cost savings to the association and was on-going.
13. Annual Dinner. Mr. Aldersley reported that Mr. Soutar (our new dinner secretary) had paid the deposit for the 2027 dinner (confirmed earlier in the minutes via Mr. Kibler). He advised that menus and further details would be forthcoming at a later date. Mr. Toulson requested confirmation of the dinner date in order to post the event on the website. This was advised as Saturday 10th April 2027 at The Manor, Drighlington. Mr. Roper said he had been approached by LAE member Barrie Yates who had suggested that we need a prestigious speaker at our annual dinner and he suggested Richard Gibbon OBE (retired Head of Engineering at the National Railway Museum in York). Mr. Gibbon had been a popular guest speaker at a past dinner many years earlier. Mr. Roper said the suggestion had not been pursued. Mr. Kibler proposed that Mr. Soutar might consider offering a different format for the forthcoming dinner. He suggested that Mr. Roper could consider proposing a charity as recipient for the collection at the dinner and that this could be kept for two years, being the term of his presidency.
14. Ian Scholes Funeral. Mr Kibler advised that he had reimbursed Mr. Murray who paid and arranged for flowers for Mrs. Scholes.
15. Church Service. Mr. Aldersley said he would contact Rev. Paul Maybury (soon to retire) to ask if he could advise the name of his successor at Leeds Minster.
16. Student Award. Nothing to report.
Any other Business. Mr. Toulson had said earlier that he would be making a post on the website about our two ‘nonagenarians’ – John Bentley & Alex Rogers – still active on council. He asked for a brief history of their careers for the post, which members will no doubt find interesting. Mr. Bentley had already contributed to the ‘Apprenticeship Memories’ section on the website and said he was working on further memories. Mr. Rogers offered to jot down his memories and Mr. Toulson offered to type up his notes. Mr. Kibler surprised the two gentlemen with a photograph of them at the council table. Mr. Toulson said this would be included in the post which will appear at a later date. Mr. Murray asked if a ‘banner’ could be added to the website header to recognise the sponsorship and corporate membership by our three corporate members; M.A.Ford, WDS Components and Kennametal. Mr. Toulson said he will look into changing the home page header to reflect this. Mr. Wilkinson asked if it might be possible to produce something for the reception area of his employer – WDS Components. Something on the lines of a photo framed certificate to indicate that the company is a ‘Proud Corporate Member of the Leeds Association of Engineers’. This was agreed to be arranged in the near future. In the absence of any further business Mr. Roper thanked those present for attending and closed the meeting.
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