NEWSLETTER
|
UNITED KINGDOM Association NEWSLETTER |
| No 163 | July 2000 |
Last year we visited the fine setting in the Henley Rowing Club grounds on the bank of the Thames. Happily the same prospect beckons this year. All that is required from the social subcommittee, apart from supporting beverages and foods barbecued to their customary perfection, is a cleat fine day.
So put Sunday 6th August into your diary and come along to Henley Rowing Club and forget your worries while dangling your feet in the water and watching a slow moving scene of varied shapes and sizes of boats gliding past.
The details:
| Location: | Henley-on-Thames Rowing Club, about a mile from the town centre across the river and right into Wargrave Road (A321) as shown on the enclosed map. Rail travelers use Thames trains from Paddington or Reading. |
| Date: | Sunday, 6th August |
| Time: | 12.00 noon onwards |
| Price: | £8.00 per head (children free) plus some help please with salads, desserts, and furniture as described below. |
Please gather your guests, complete the reply slip and return it without delay so that preparations for your delectation can proceed in good time. Alison Davidson (Tel: 020 8870 8254 in evenings) will coordinate your offerings to avoid, as far as possible, imbalances in our provisions. Please let her know what you propose to bring. In general, requirements are:
| from committee members and partners | - | a salad or dessert plate |
| from other members and partners | - | a dessert plate if you wish |
| from all of you | - | some garden chairs, tables, sun umbrellas, if you have them, games and a helping hand on the day |
Finally be sure to come and enjoy a nice day out. Don't forget hats, sunscreen, etc.
A new committee was voted in as follows:
| Chairman: | Gordon Weir | |
| Honorary Secretary: | Malcolm Davidson | |
| Honorary Treasurer: | Selwyn Aickin | |
| Committee Members | Grabam Barber [ex-officio] | Ian Kirker |
| Lindsay Barr | Robert Minchin | |
| Rachel Felton | Graham Withers |
Subscriptions Our financial year ended at the end of March and some of you have already renewed your subscriptions. It is understood that there are still quite a few who have not paid your monies. Those of you are will need to send your payment to the new Secretary's address before he deletes you from our mailing list.
http://www.ipenz.org.uk
The old links may still work but the one above will remain permanent.
With the new domain Selwyn has also setup the following email addresses:
Chair@ipenz.org.uk
HonSec@ipenz.org.uk
HonTres@ipenz.org.uk
PRCoord@ipenz.org.uk
Email sent to the above addresses is forwarded to the respective person's regular email address. The benefit is that the above addresses remain permanent while the re-direction address ran be changed as the person holding the office changes.
Whilst on the subject of the Internet, the website
http://www.thepaperboy.com
has links to most of the world's on-line newspapers, including 20 or so from New Zealand.
Tony Gibson wants New Zealand back at the top.
Institution of Professional Engineers president Tony Gibson has set New Zealand the lofty goal of returning to the top of OECD rankings by 2015. Business Editor DENE MACKENZIE talks to him about achieving that goal.
New Zealand will not create wealth by talking about it, administering complex laws it sets itself or counting beans that may not be there to count, according to Institution of Professional Engineers president Tony Gibson.
"We have to make things."
Mr Gibson is concerned at New Zealand's slide down the OECD rankings and can produce many statistics to show had badly the country is operating compared with others. He is passionate about the quest to return the country to the top and is taking the opportunity during his presidential term to tour the country promoting his dream.
To get to the top, New Zealand must develop productive locally-owned enterprises. They must operate in New Zealand and offshore, and be based on the "ingenuity economy".
Mr Gibson's main theme of an address to a Dunedin audience of 60 was not enough engineering graduates were being trained in New Zealand and the ones that were being trained were not involved in problem solving.
In Finland, there were 160 technical graduates per 1,000 people but in New Zealand there were less than 20. Finland spent much of the year covered in ice and snow but managed to have a top-performing economy because of engineers using their skills.
During 1997, commercial and business studies completed in New Zealand outnumbered engineering programmes by five to one.
Singapore produced 3,500 engineering graduates a year compared with 1,000 in New Zealand. But about a third of that 1,000 in New Zealand were graduates from overseas.
Also in Singapore, half of the Cabinet were professional engineers compared to none in New Zealand.
Community Trust of Otago chairman Dr Clive Matthewson, who attended the presentation, was one of only three or four MPs with an engineering background, Mr Gibson said "Not only does Singapore produce more engineering graduates, they are put into business situations. Engineers have a different way of looking at problems than the lawyer or accountant approach."
"The Companies Act talks about prudent actions by directors. That is interpreted to be getting good legal advice or good accounting. It includes making sure the things you do work. When Auckland experienced its power crisis, there were no engineers on the board. Now there were two," he said. "The emphasis had changed from a focus almost solely on financial matters to how long plant would last and what would happen if it failed," he said.
Although there were successful examples of economic development around the world, including Ireland, New Zealand had to come up with its own version for improvement. One of the main things to do was creating a culture change in New Zealand. There were very few Maori or Pacific Island engineers.
"We can't have 20% of the population not being involved in wealth creation," Mr Gibson said. The four areas where the business environment must be changed were: lowering research and development costs; training more engineers; technology transfer - taking overseas technology, adapting it for New Zealand and beating the world; and creating attractive and compelling reasons for overseas firms to relocate to New Zealand.
"It is clear that no New Zealand government over the past 40 years has intended the nation to finish up in this parlous state where it ranks barely above Spain, Portugal and Greece in national income. Nevertheless, it has happened."
Mr Gibson and institution members received a warm response from Prime Minister Helen Clark and Research, Science and Technology Minister Pete Hodgson at a recent meeting.
| Summer Barbecue | Sunday, 6 August 2000 |
| Joint Technical Meeting with IEAust | October 2000 (To be confirmed) |
| Graduates Evening | October/November 2000 | Christmas Soirée at Australia House | Friday, 8 December 2000 |
| Possible failure/problem evening | To be decided | Traffic Management talk | To be decided |
| Return to Top | *** | IPENZ UK Association Contacts |
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