pig chairmans year

2003/2004 Pipeline Industries Guild

Midlands Branch - Chairman’s Year

Other Sponsors : - Subterra and Adas

On the 29th April the first

paper of the year was at the

AGM and was given by John Sykes of John Kennedy, part

of Balfour Beatty. He gave an

interesting insight into the history behind British Gas,

Transco and the Mains Replacement Programme.

John detailed the challenges

before the industry and discussed how contractors

would rise to meet this

challenging target. Nearly 40 people attended and Richard

Glenister gave a brief insight into current HQ activities.

15th May saw the 24th Annual Golf Day

on a warm and breezy day. Andrew Ferguson lifted the Members Trophy

and the day was a huge success. A

massive vote of thanks goes to Keith Mole for organising yet another

memorable event. Previous records for

attendance were shattered with 116 people playing and enjoying an

excellent evening meal. Also of note on

the day was a hole in one by Gerry Cummings of Murphy’s. Richard Frazer

joined the prize giving to round off an excellent day.




29th May saw yet another

triumph for the Midlands YPN Committee with a Summer Ball

held at the Crown Plaza on the

NEC. Headed up by an Industrial Forum, Ruth Allen, Les Dawson

and Paul Stephenson gave

accounts of their careers and advice on how to succeed. The

warm summers evening then allowed everyone to spill out

onto the terrace where

entertainers and games were organised before the main

dinner. Following the meal, the

YPN Chair was formally handed from Nigel Curry to Lloyd Smith

over a ‘friendly pint of lager’.

Dancing and drinking went on into the small hours in true PIG

tradition, some stalwarts were still seen in the bar at 4.30 am.

The last committee meeting before the summer recess was held on 17th June. The

main topics of discussion were the Technical Programme, which by now was largely finalized, and the Dinner. This event would be our 25th Anniversary Dinner

and several ‘extras’ were being planned to make the evening go well. A B Rhead,

Severn Trent and Haswell had already offered sponsorship although it was hoped that additional companies would come forward.

The summer months saw little activity in the Branch. However, planning for the Annual Dinner continued and Invitations to special guests, all past chairmen and

all other members were duly sent. Most guests responded positively and there was a good early response from members.

The 2003/2004 programme was, by now, largely fixed and the first meeting was held on 23rd September at the HQ of Severn Trent, a meeting they sponsored

jointly with Enterprise.




The evening began with a short paper

entitled ‘Shrewsbury Area Drainage Plan – A Case Study. This was

presented by David Kinston of Ewan

Associates and was a very interesting analysis of the measures to mitigate

flood problems in the town of

Shrewsbury. This was David’s first paper and he is to be congratulated on

a concise and well-presented subject.

The main paper was by Louise

Richardson of GWINTO and was entitled ‘Skills Shortages in the

Pipeline Industry’. This was an

insight into the work of GWINTO in developing National Vocational

Qualifications and Industry

Standards for competency assessment. Louise also discussed

how the role will change as the

SSC takes over from GWINTO and expands its responsibilities into the

energy sectors. Approximately 60 people attended the event and

this was an excellent start to our

Midlands programme.

Our next evening in October was at Anglian Water Headquarters in Peterborough.

Raj Kumar presented a short paper about the Water Industry in India at the start of the evening. This was a fascinating insight into the political problems of moving

water from the North to the South.

The main paper by Peter Hancocks of ADAS on environmental issues surrounding cross-country pipelines

was a fascinating insight into the myriad of problems caused

by the large variety of wildlife found in the British Countryside. (Alternatively titled, Badgers, how six small

mammals can completely wreck a multi-million pound project! – BPS) This was an excellent presentation about the

fauna of the UK. 35 people attended the event.

Project Aurora Outcomes – Stoke Programme




The highlight of November was the Nottingham Dinner. 458 people enjoyed a fabulous evening (2 Scottish gentlemen informed me in the bar that they did not

but there is no accounting for taste) with additional entertainment from two

tabletop magicians and the comedian Ian Irvine to round off the evening. The evening started with a bang as the YP table let off 10 party bombs. Two of these

were less than successful but were eventually detonated by prudent use of a fork.

The evening was rounded off with a presentation to Malcolm Ayers after 14 years as Midlands Dinner Convenor and to Gerry Cummings of Murphy Pipelines for his

hole in one at Branston in May.

£4,767 was raised for the charity Children in Need

My thanks go to several people who attended for

taking the time to send notes complementing the

Branch on the evening.

The weekend was crowned by the success in Australia

watched by about 50 people in the Irish Bar of the hotel, some still drinking Guinness at 8.30 am.

Our last paper evening before Christmas took place at

Conkers in Derbyshire on 25th

November and 35 people attended to see two papers.

Andrew Mustoe of Laing

O’Rourke gave a short paper on the use of Grouted High

Pressure Tees as an alternative to conventional welded tees. This was a first for

Andrew who did extremely well in presenting the technical issues involved.

Norman Howell of Sub Terra gave the main paper on the use of sub-coil insertion

of PE for mains refurbishment. Although mainly in use in the water industry, Transco has put this technique through trials, and it is hoped that it will be used

to a greater extent in the mains replacement programme.

One serious concern I was beginning to have with all the paper evenings to date

was the lack of Gas Industry interest with only a handful of people out of the 130 attendees being from Transco.




Our program continued in the New Year with two joint paper evenings and the Technical Forum in February. The YP Network were organising a five-a-side

competition at Aston Villa and some technical visits starting with one to Corus

Tubes in Hartlepool.

A joint meeting with UKSTT was held on 27th January at Severn Trent’s offices in

Leicester. 50 people attended to listen to three very interesting papers about leakage detection and leakage equipment advances in the water industry.

Committee Meetings were, by now, concentrating on keys issues such as a Midlands Branch Website, Succession Planning and Presentations for 2004/5. A

good response was received from members wishing to present papers next year.

On Saturday 7th February, The Falcon Hotel at

Stratford-On-Avon was once again the venue for the Midlands Branch Dinner Dance. The evening

was convened by John Coyne of Morrisons and as

usual was a testament to his great organisational talents. As always the hotel provided an excellent

venue, this year entertaining a capacity crowd of

174 diners with excellent food, wine and service. The evening continued into the early hours with

dancing to The Likely Lads. A truly memorable time was enjoyed by all. A huge thank you goes

to everyone who made the event such a great

success. Even the Chairman was congratulated for his speech, although this was probably more

for its brevity than its content. Again, many notes

of congratulation were received for a great evenings entertainment.

On 17th February, The Midlands Branch hosted the first Technical Forum to be held outside of London. With the venue set in the Elmdon Building, the old

departure lounge for

Birmingham Airport, and the topic of

Third Party Interference, the

Chairman’s belief

that this combination could not fail was

duly rewarded.




Nearly 80 people representing 38

companies attended and were treated to a host of exceptional papers, spearheaded

by David Dale of Fulcrum Connections

who talked frankly and openly about the Hunton Hill incident and the impact it had

on the company. The papers that followed

brilliantly supported the belief that another incident of this type must be

prevented and that a joint industry

exercise is needed to ensure that this is the case. Feedback after the event

suggested that people were extremely impressed with the choice of subject and the quality of presentations. The venue was to everyones’ liking and, with some

improvements in the facilities, could become a regular venue.

On 29th February, the Young Persons Network

hosted the 6-a-side competition at Aston Villa.

The event was extremely well supported with some companies fielding two teams, although

it must be said that the definition of ‘Young

Persons’ was stretched to the limit in some cases. The

Marauding Rovers won

the day

beating No Good Team

2 – 0 with the best result of the day going to

Haswell Youth with a 7 – 0 victory over A Round of Bacon. An excellent day was had by all and a

huge vote of thanks must go to all of the YP

committee for their efforts.

And finally, my last evening was a joint paper with IGEM at NGT House in

Warwick. Steve Holiday gave an excellent presentation on the future of NGT. Steve talked openly about the break up of the company and answered a range of

questions in an honest and forthright manner. An audience of 70 people ensured it was standing room only.




My thanks go to all of our presenters and sponsors, the Branch Committee, and to Keith Mole, Malcolm Ayers and John Coyne for organising the Golf, Dinner and

Dinner Dance events. I would like to thank my wife and my son for putting up

with the late nights and the endless Friday nights away at ‘another bloody PIG Dinner’. At least we got a couple of days in Dublin to make up for it!

Can I finish by thanking everyone that has helped me enjoy a great and successful year? Nearly 1,100 people have attended Midlands Branch events this

year, a fantastic number. This does not include the YP who have entertained a

further 300. Without all of you we would not have a Guild and I thank you all sincerely. Please continue to give Paul Wallis your support next year and if you

want to get more involved please do; it really can be good fun and very rewarding. I look forward to seeing you all again at future events.

Best Wishes and Thanks to you all.

Brian Spencer

pig chairmans year

Documents

anexcellent day

anexcellent evening

breezy day

main paper

main dinner

summer ballheld

members trophyand

short paper