General Secretary’s Report and President’s Column GENERAL SECRETARY’S REPORT Dear Members


It is unusual but this journal is being published


so


that it is available at the conference, before it


will


be posted to members. The timing of this year’s conference made it so we could rush the November journal out in time for it to be available at the conference, the other unusual thing is that the paper that is being given by Almatis at the conference is also published in this journal. The journal team keep trying to come up with new ideas.


At the time of writing this note bookings for the conference, training day and the conference dinner are looking good so let’s hope it is as well attended as last years, we have at least 8 papers and also at the end of the day there will be a questions put to a panel made up of some of the presenters and the president of the Institute, we are aware that there may not be time for many questions just after papers are presented so the panel will give another opportunity for questions to be put forward for discussion. The conference day will be very busy so we must start on time, please be early if you are attending. The AGM which will be held at lunch time may also run on a little as Keith Andrews a past president is going to give a short presentation about our involvement with super dream who are a marketing company specialising in social media, we may take this a little further next year but it will cost a lot of money. So all members need to be aware of what the council are looking at to attract new members, at the present time we are investigating the possibility of doing this sort of thing to reach potential members in the Far East, it is estimated we


could reach 70,000 potential members.


And how many potential members would become actual members?


I see this as something for the new young members but not so much for my age group who make up most of our membership. But my personal needs are not important it is the one of the main aims of our Institute. “To foster the science, technology and skills of refractories engineering and to serve the needs of refractories engineers worldwide, and to promote and maintain the character, status of members of the Institute. To disseminate information, facts, ideas news or suggestions that may be of interest to members”. I don’t think our Institute's founders were thinking about social media in 1961 but it does fit, so I think we have to understand what is on offer, how it effects the Institute and then decide what we do about it. I am sure Keith will help us with the first stage. We will put a brief note about this in the January journal.


We have had some difficulties with our sage pay system that resulted in many people being unable to make payments, this issue has now been resolved by sage so our systems are working again. If anyone continues to have issues with the sage pay system please let me know. The issue we had went on for several weeks and I was unaware of the situation, once we were able to contact sage they corrected the issue very quickly.


Time does fly and this journal will be the last journal of the year and my last chance to wish all members Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


Jayne Woodhead


General Secretary & Treasurer Institute of Refractories Engineers


PRESIDENT’S COLUMN


Dear Members and Colleagues


Well, this is my last column before handing the reigns over to the next President, Mr Jan Theron, in November at conference.


The last president 4 26 months as have been


incredible and very busy. Whilst we’ve achieved a lot during this period I suppose it’s natural to have wanted to achieve more, as to hold a position like this in an organisation as steeped in history as the Institute is a great honour.


Before I continue I would like to thank all the members of the Institute exec/council for their commitment to the Institute as well as all the great work they have done and help they have all provided over the last couple of years. Special thanks to Dave Woodhead and Jayne Woodhead for their support and patience. Jan Theron certainly has a great


ENGINEER THE REFRACTORIES November 2017 Issue


www.ireng.org


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