Since becoming Australasian Branch President, I would like to thank and acknowledge our global President, Mike Lamkin and the global committee for welcoming me into the Institute’s international council and I also thank them for their invitation to attend the 2025 UK conference in Sheffield in November this year where I met with the global team and members in person.
As reported in the last issue, the Australasian branch implemented a recent membership drive and we are pleased to announce this has resulted in the signing up of twelve new members from our region into our Institute. We extend a welcome to these new members and value your commitment and support. We hope you enjoy the benefits that membership of our Institute provides.
I would like to specifically thank the Assistant Secretary and Membership Officer of our branch, Navin Singh and our Administration Officer, Georgina Nicol in the UK, for their efforts in implementing this membership drive and making it a success. As the year progresses, we are committed to encouraging more new members and are looking to develop more initiatives in this area.
On 4 November this year our branch had a Training Day at the Mercure Bunbury Sanctuary Golf Resort in Western Australia. We also have set aside a half day the following day as a practical training day. Our National Training Coordinator, Wayne Wright has led the effort on making this day a success with the assistance of Garth Johnson and Lee Button, who are active local State Representatives for our branch, and we thank them for their support. We also acknowledge the organisations and others that are supporting our training day, which at the time of writing, include Ref Met, 4D Delta, Refractory Management Services and Gavin Thompson from Shinagawa Refractories Australia.
We are expecting a turnout of up to fifty delegates attending and the training will include theory and practical sessions with an emphasis on thermal design. The training will also address some of the unique and specific safety challenges that we are exposed to in the refractory industry along with some of the mitigations and initiatives to manage and control these risks. Of course, by the time you are reading this, the event will have been held.
Looking forward to the early stages of 2026, we will begin the planning of our next Australasian Conference, which we expect to schedule for September or October 2026. As planning progresses, we expect to announce the venue and date by mid-2026. Further training initiatives for our region are being discussed with our committee locally and we expect that late 2025 or early 2026 we will be announcing these.
Finally, I take this opportunity to advise our Australasian members that we are still seeking assistance from those interested to participate more actively in the running of our branch. We currently have vacancies in our local branch committee for the positions of Vice President (Mario Taddeo is currently acting in this role) and for an Assistant Treasurer. If you would like to nominate, please get in touch.
David Hollott MI Ref Eng
President, IRE Australasia You can join the IRE here at https://www.ireng.org/join/.
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