As I write this, I am entering the last month of my tenure as President of the IRE before I hand over the reins to Dominic Oates. Dominic has maintained a strong overview and control of our finances, and the institute is at its financially strongest position for several years; I have no doubt that he will be a great President. So, this is my last President’s column.

This part of the year is dominated by the upcoming UK conference. This year we chose a new location  in the Quays Hotel, which is a short walk from Sheffield city centre. It has just finished a major refurbishment as it transitions from being a Great Western Premier Hotel to a Sandman Signature Hotel. It proved to be a great venue for our conference. As ever, we look for constructive feedback from delegates. We have a very interesting and full programme, and I am sure it will prove to be a great success.

I said at the beginning of my presidency that I wanted to increase the relevancy of the institute to members and companies who often fund memberships. Further, I wanted to grow membership, particularly outside the UK, to make the institute more international. Our ever-active Australian branch is at the forefront of this and has utilised several initiatives to boost membership, particularly young membership. As an institute we have grown total paying membership (at time of writing) from around 160 to 221. UK members are now less than fifty per cent of total membership, with around a third of membership in Australia. We also have 26 corporate partners and as always, we are looking for ways to increase the value of these.

The council of the IRE is also more representative of the members, with around half of them from outside of the UK. The time of meetings is intended to make it more convenient to Australian and European members. The council is not full, and due to work commitments, it is rare to get everyone on at the same time, so if anyone believes they have something positive to contribute to the council, then please contact a council member or the secretary, and we will look to get you involved. I will sign off by thanking all those people who give up their time to try and make the IRE a success. I will not embarrass anyone by mentioning names, you know who you are, other than to mention our Admin Assistant Georgina, without whom we would struggle to find the time to make it work.  Over to you Dominic!

Mike Lamkin, President
Institute of Refractories Engineers

You can join the IRE here at https://www.ireng.org/join/

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