THE LEEDS ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS
Minutes of the Council Meeting held at 7.30pm on Thursday 7th October 2021 at the Corner House Club Leeds LS17 6QE
1. Attendance. R. Town in the chair with, J. Aldersley, A. Kibler, M. Murray, G. Toulson, J. Bentley, B. Yates, G. Roper, I. Scholes and I. Blakeley.
2. Apologies for absence. S. Stacey, J. Burton, H. Kingswell, A. Rogers and J. Shergill.
3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting. Dated 2nd September 2021 were approved and signed.
4. Matters Arising. September minutes were amended. The Annual Dinner will be in April 2022 not February 2022 as stated previously.
5. Treasurers Report. Mr. Kibler reported the following transactions :-
Outgoing / Payments
Council Dinner (at Headingley Golf Club) £263.50
Stamps (Postage for flyers etc.) £3.50
Whisky (Frank Smith in lieu of payment for lecture) £24.99
Zoom (Payment for use of online meeting facility) £14.39
Mr. Kibler said he has transferred £1,000 from the savings account into our current account. This is because we have had little income recently (no subscriptions). He has been told that Yorkshire Bank are wanting us to change to a business account which will incur a charge of £6.50 per month. We agreed that if he cannot persuade Yorkshire Bank to forego the charge we will close the account.
6. Correspondence. Mr. Town, our President, circulated a copy of the Thorite Internal Newsletter which included an article on his involvement with Leeds Association of Engineers. This includes details of how to join us (membership). Mr. Kibler said he has cancelled our Zoom membership and has received a letter of confirmation.
7. Membership. We have three new memberships confirmed since our last meeting. Mr. Aldersley has been in discussion with his boss at Leeds City College with regards to them becoming a corporate member. She has agreed in principle and just needs confirmation of membership cost. However she has proposed that we give them free membership (normally £100 / year) in return for use of the college lecture rooms for any prestigious lectures we hold there.
8. Current Programme. The visit to the Whislestop Minature Railway will be the start to this session on Saturday 16th October. This will be followed by a second event in October, a talk by Bill Jagger about R. H. Greaves entitled “A Man Who Built Bridges.” We have a confirmed lecture by Bruce MacDougall in November but currently have nothing planned for January or February 2022, John Sugden is giving us a talk on Anaesthesia in March. Mr. Town will speak to his contact who has built the steam powered motorbike to try to obtain a lecture/visit. Mr. Yates has offered to give us a talk in February. That leaves the January date to fill. It might be possible to get Jayanti Mistry from Sandvik to give us a second lecture. We will ask Mr. Shergill to contact him. Mr. Yates will investigate dates at Forgemasters where they are doing guided tours/open days. He also suggested that it might be possible to get a daytime visit to the Tech Centre at Catcliffe (South Yorkshire). Mr. Scholes said the Tram Museum in Derbyshire would be worth a visit but this would be a daytime visit along with the general public.
9. Next Session. Our intention is to secure the lectures/visits we need for this session and if we are fortunate enough to secure more events than we have dates available to carry them through to the next session. It was suggested that we might arrange a visit to a company in Wakefield who manufacture Canal Lock Gates, however this would be another day time visit.
10. Website. Mr. Toulson to investigate whether we can obtain free software that allows us to identify who visits our website.
11. Annual Golf Tournament. Details of the golf tournament are on the website, the 2021 event was cancelled due to Covid 19. A provisional date of 29th June 2022 has been pencilled in for the next tournament.
12. Annual Dinner. Mr. Kibler said he is hoping to start planning the dinner in January 2022 with a view to holding the dinner in April.
13. Church Service. Nothing to report.
14. Meeting Rooms. Mr. Scholes has booked the meeting rooms for October and November at the church hall in Morley. It is important that we clean/sanitise door handles on leaving the building and return the chairs to the side of the hall. Mr Aldersley will bring the projector and Mr. Town will bring his laptop computer in case we have difficulties with the ones provided.
15. YouTube Videos. Mr. Roper told us about someone he knows who posts videos on YouTube that demonstrate how to carry out various machining operations. He said it has become hugely popular probably due to people finding new hobbies because of lockdown and the Covid 19 pandemic. He said his contact is actually making money from people viewing his videos. It was suggested that with all the expertise within the engineering association it might be worth considering doing something along these lines to either attract new members or if viewing numbers were sufficient to generate more funds.
16. Any other Business. Having no other business Mr. Town closed the meeting after thanking those who attended.
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