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Eastern and East Midlands regions host President’s visits

Institution News Team

Carolyn Griffiths visits Welbeck College 800
Carolyn Griffiths visits Welbeck College 800

Institution President Carolyn Griffiths spent time behind the scenes of Stansted Airport before visiting young defence scholars, presenting them with certificates recognising their achievements.

Chair, Eastern Region, Peter Wotherspoon and regional colleagues including Roy Horrocks, Chair, South Essex area, Carlyne Parillon, Chair, Cambridge area, and Alice Swallow, South Essex area committee member, were delighted to accompany Carolyn to visit Stansted Airport.

Having used the detector arch to pass security checks, the party were shown the workings of the electronic detectors and their constant need for servicing and updating. They descended in a lift to the baggage handling area, an area the size of two football pitches dedicated to a system of moving belts and case carriers, and visited the servicing bay for the monorail system. Two trains were being serviced and they had the opportunity to meet engineering apprentices.

Over lunch, Carolyn and the regional volunteers met members of the Stansted team, followed by a visit to The Welding Institute (TWI). 

“Our tour started in the splendid ‘Street’ an impressively designed space linking the laboratories and offices of TWI where we learned about the Institute’s history." described Peter Wotherspoon. "Next was a look round some of the labs, where we witnessed tiny specimen test facilities, followed by a massive ship anchor chain fatigue machine, and demonstrations of the range of testing at TWI. It was a great opportunity to understand areas of industry outside my career experience. We discussed some of the issues faced, such as Stansted’s imperative to conduct maintenance whilst maintaining a high passenger flow and the difficulties, both for the airport and TWI, of recruiting suitably qualified engineering staff.”

Lara Mallett, Business Development Manager, Eastern and East Midlands regions and co-organiser of the visits added:

“It is always valuable, when building relationships between local businesses, training facilities and the Institution, to have on-site discussions and see engineering in action. Technicians, developing engineers and senior engineers alike are proud to show our Institution volunteers and leaders – who do so much to spread the word about engineering – the great work they do.”

Later in the week Carolyn travelled to the East Midlands region. Her first stop was at an evening ‘Meet the President’ event, organised by the Derby and Nottingham Young Members Panel (YMP). Chair, Mathew Cole, said: 

“The YMP arranged for Carolyn to deliver her President's Address at Derby University to a small group in an intimate environment. She detailed her fascinating career, discussed the key hurdles the engineering world is facing and gave an insight into strategies being taken to overcome them. This was followed by an interactive Q&A session. The highlight for me was when this turned into an audience-wide debate on the topic of attracting future generations into engineering, with the audience suggesting a wide variety of great ideas.”

The following morning Carolyn visited Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College, in Loughborough. During the day she was accompanied by Allan Jones, Chair, East Midlands region and Mathew Cole, and by their regional colleagues Bob Dewhurst and Jonathan Scholey. The day’s events were facilitated by Lara Mallett and Jill Dwyer, Defence Liaison Officer for the Institution.

Carolyn and her party began by meeting the college’s senior leaders and receiving a tour from students. She then assisted the college in presenting awards to fifteen ‘Scholars’ across lower and upper sixth. Each recipient was presented with a small Institution of Mechanical Engineers trophy and a certificate. The college, which is funded by the Ministry of Defence, works to produce the engineering officers of the future. Jill said:

“We are delighted to support the Scholars, who have not only demonstrated outstanding academic achievement, but are also active mentors for other students at Welbeck. We hope that they will retain the Institution as their professional friend throughout their careers.”

The next stop on the tour was Pentaxia Ltd, an advanced engineering business, which delivers tooling and composite component solutions across a range of sectors. After being guided round Pantaxia’s new facilities, the party  had tea with developing engineers and Carolyn presented a gift to thank their host, Stephen Ollier, Managing Director and co-founder of Pentaxia.

The Eastern Region Annual Dinner took place the same evening. During the dinner, Carolyn proposed a ‘Toast to our Guests’  and delivered a short speech in which she also thanked Allan, Jonathan and the many volunteers in the region for all their work. 

Allan later summed up the benefits of Carolyn’s visit to the region:

‘We welcome the opportunity to show the President some of the range of engineering activities in the East Midlands and highlight the efforts put in by our volunteers. It was also great to show some bright, future engineers the benefits that the Institution can give them.’

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