THE LEEDS ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERS
Minutes of the Council Meeting held at 7.15pm on Thursday 4th October 2012 at the Cornerhouse Club Leeds.
1. Attendance. J. Shergill (President) in the chair with A. Kibler, J. Aldersley, B. Yates, M. Murray, T. Ashton, J. Bentley, J. McClarty, K. Hegarty, A. Rogers, G. Toulson, and I. Blakeley.
2. Apologies for absence. None.
3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting, dated 6th September were, approved & signed after adding Mr. McClarty’s name to the list of attendees.
4. Matters Arising. None.
5. Treasurers Report. Mr. Bentley reported the following transactions
Current Account Balance at 25th September 2012 (not disclosed in Council minutes)
Credits: –
Outstanding monies from Golf Day – £660.00 (This Balances Golf Account)
Withdrawals:-
Insurance of trophies (Kevin Hegarty) – £28.38
Room Hire (Council meeting at Headingley Golf Club) – £46.00
Savings Account Balance at 25th September – (not disclosed in Council minutes)
Mr. Bentley opened a discussion on the state of the Associations finances. He said this years audited accounts show a loss largely due to the previous year subscriptions being paid early, this resulted in a smaller contribution than usual for the year. He said we have lost £300 to £400 income due to loss of Corporate Members and we have just spent around £540 on postage stamps. He will create a sheet to show essential expenses such as room hire and other “non – essentials” so that we can see the true picture. It was decided to maintain subscriptions at the current level for the forthcoming session but we may have to make an increase for the following year (2013 / 2014 session).
6. Annual Church Service. Mr. Yates confirmed that our Annual Church Service will be on the 12th May 2013 and will not be a shared service with the Military Police.
7. Correspondence. Mr. Toulson said he received an email from Francis Atkinson saying he liked the new website. Mr. Yates said he attended the opening of the 3M Buckley information centre a subsidiary of Huddersfield University created to support industry and managed to get our name on their database.
8. Current Programme. Mr. Murray reminded council that they need to book places for factory visits just like the rest of the membership. He has only received 5 applications for places to Boxford Lathes.
9. Membership. Mr. Murray said he has a Design Engineer from his work interested in becoming a member. Mr Aldersley is trying to persuade his father to join us.
10. Next Session. Mr. Murray is looking to get a visit to a company in Leeds who convert vans into motor homes. Mr. Shergill suggested a company in Brighouse who process cotton. Mr. Yates is investigating the possibility of visiting the new Press at Forgemasters.
11. Website. A new article is on the website written by John Bentley where he talks about model making and his latest model locomotive LMS Dreadnought. It was suggested that this could be the first of many items written by the membership for the website. One suggestion was that senior members of the association might write a brief account of their life in engineering. Mr. Rogers proposed that we might have a forum on the website where people can discuss new ideas or ask for help in solving engineering problems. Mr. Toulson and Mr. Kibler agreed to look into the possibility of setting up the forum. It was agreed that whilst anyone should be allowed to ask questions the answers should only come from members of Leeds Association of Engineers to avoid anything too controversial being published with our name on it. Mr. Shergill said that his brother Kally had refused to take any money for his work in transferring the website. It was voted upon that we ask Kally to attend our Annual Dinner as a guest, council asked Jazz (Mr. Shergill) to extend our invitation to Kally.
12. Golf. Mr. Hegarty commented that the date for the 2013 golf Tournament on the website is not factual and is only there because in order for a heading to exist in the events list, it must be assigned a date.
13. Annual Dinner. Mr. Rogers said we have secured a very interesting speaker for the 2013 Dinner. He was the Senior Engineer on Concorde and will give us a superb talk. He will need a big screen to display his power point presentation. It was suggested that we might use the screen in conjunction with the projector to advertise Leeds Association in the background in the intervals. It was suggested that we create a power point presentation for our advertisement so we need to get pictures from our coming factory visits where possible. Mr. Rogers said he has already invited the Lord Mayor to the dinner and will be writing to Hull, York and Keighley Associations asking their respective presidents to attend our Annual Dinner as honoured guests. We agreed to ask the people who are making the toasts to keep their speech down to a minimum in order to keep the momentum and avoid long delays. Mr. Toulson suggested we should ensure we get the running order sorted out well in advance of the dinner and eliminate unnecessary intervals. Mr. Rogers will ask Leeds Seventeen if they can supply additional bar staff to avoid the sort of delays we have had in the past. Mr. Hegarty said we should start thinking about after dinner speakers for the future dinners because they are very hard to find at reasonable cost. Mr. Yates said that some of the retired professors from the universities are prepared to speak for free. The question was asked about the results of the survey of the membership issued to our members in the summer regarding the annual dinner, Mr. Rogers said he only received six replies, so we are no better placed in terms of making changes.
14. Lecture Venue. Mr. Yates said he has been talking to Leeds University and they say we would be able to have a small lecture theatre at the university for free. The charges that were applied to us for Porterage only apply to groups of 40 or more people. This option might be useful in future although people seem quite happy at the Cleckheaton venue.
Any other Business. Having no other business Mr. Shergill closed the meeting.
……………………………………………President. ……………….. Date