November
Dear All
I am now happy to report that I survived my first annual dinner as Chair...no bread rolls were thrown and everyone was very kind in not assassinating my performance which was....shaky. It was my first public speaking engagement and possibly my last, I will hire a stunt double next year. I would like to thank all who attended our event and hope you all consider attending next year and bring some friends – 200 attendees would be very nice although daunting!
The evening seemed to be a success and the highlight of my evening, other than seeing a room full of Building Services Engineers enjoying themselves , was the pride in handing out 4 awards to high achieving students.
Over 20 years ago I myself was lucky enough to receive the NE Region award for best final year student and I recall how pleased I was to receive the old A,B and C Guides. I have used them in anger and they still have pride of place today. I hope the awards winners all move on and have long and fruitful careers in the industry. My sort of incoherent theme of my speech was about engagement with the next generation.
If anybody wants to reads a transcript (not word for word as that was incoherent in parts) of the speech a copy is available Here with more importantly the notes of recommendation for our award winners.
Barrie McDermott was very entertaining and I think the format of the evening worked well...but If any attendees wish to offer suggestions how we could improve the event for next year we would be more than happy to hear from you.
We also raised a good amount of money for Children in Need and the generous donation of £600 for the signed Rugby League shirt kindly donated by Barrie certainly boosted the final amount which will be published on the website once we have totted up the total.
So now back to the day job we have a number of technical events planned in the new year so would be grateful if you could attend and support our events. Mark Connor, our webmaster, does a fantastic job of keeping the site up to date so please check in on a regular basis for new and updated information.
That’s about it for now.
Cheers
Derek