The Institution of Certificated Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, South Africa

In accordance with clause 3.4 of the constitution: The President, Vice Presidents and Honorary Treasurer for the ensuing year shall be Members of the Institution and shall be elected by the Council. Their election shall be announced at the Council Meeting of the Institution immediately preceding the Annual General Meeting.

At the Council meeting held on 7th November 2007 the following members were elected to serve council for 2008:

President: Chris Schnehage
Immediate Past President: Vaughan Townsend
Senior Vice President: Jack Cunnington
Vice President: Obed Letsholo
Honorary Treasurer: Robbie Holmwood

Elected Council members:
Keith Potter
Klaus Schönteich
Du Toit Grobler,
Andre du Plessis,
Rob Higgo,
Ian Buchanan

Branch Chairpersons:
Klerksdorp District Branch
Rustenburg District Branch
Western Cape Branch
KwaZulu-Natal Branch
Free State Branch
Eastern Cape Branch
Central Branch

Financial Status 2007

The financial situation of ICMEESA remains sound with the financial year of 2007 ending on a positive note. Thank you to our members for their prompt payment of subscriptions which, combined with good control of expenditure by the secretary, has resulted in us ending with a surplus of funds. We have managed to maintain this healthy trend for the past few years. Subscription income is our main source of income with the only other income being interest from investments, and income from the WP Jones Bursary Trust Fund. The financial statements will be submitted to the auditors for presentation at the Annual General Meeting in 30 March 2008.
The operational expenditure includes a total of R24 000 which is paid to branches as a percentage of annual subscriptions received from members of that specific branch. This is to assist the branches with the expenditure incurred in running branch activities. Due to the ongoing positive response from members for prompt subscription payment, subscription increases for 2008 will be minimised.
Still to be ratified by council at the time of going to print, the subscription increase will not exceed 4%, which equates to a R21 increase for Members and Senior Members.
The proposed subscription for 2008 is:

Senior R 538.00
Member R 538.00
Associate R 538.00
Student R 403.00
Patron R 1075.00
Retired <20 R 269.00
Retired >20 R 134.00

Membership Trends

There has been a continued positive trend by breaking a new record in 2007 for new membership figures for the previous number of years. A total of 66 new members were recruited in 2007. Considering the number of engineers emigrating and the reducing numbers of engineers in the gold mining industry, this is an encouraging trend.
The membership graph displays the number of members that “joined” that specific year, with the adjacent bar on the right displaying the number of members from that years recruiting, which are paid up members as at December 2007. Taking the members recruited in 2001. A total of seven are no longer paid up members. One member resigned, while the other six are reflected on our database as “lost”. We record members as “lost’ when we are unable to contact the member. This normally occurs when members fail to update their contact details when changing employers or relocating.
The “lost” member problem is also exacerbated by subscription payments being made without the correct reference number being used. The reference number shown on the invoice is the member’s membership number, preceded by the year invoiced. This mostly occurs when payments are made on behalf of the member by his employer without using the correct reference number. Certain companies make bulk payments on behalf of a group of members. In this case, the secretary will have difficulty in associating the payment to the specific member. We request members to have the employer fax or mail a remittance note to ICMEESA, listing the names of the members paid for, if they are unable to use our requested reference number.
Members are encouraged to regularly update their contact details on our website at www.icmeesa.com. New members can also sign on by completing the online application form which takes a few minutes to complete.
Should a member wish to resume membership, as a result of having lost contact due to omission to update his address, Council will review continued membership without the member having to pay arrears subscriptions.

New Members 2007

ICMEESA welcomes the following new members who have joined since July 2007:

Initials Surname Membership Grade Branch

J J Du Plessis Senior Mpumalanga

G Boshoff Member Kwazulu

S E De Villiers Member Westcape

R Kandhai Member Kwazulu

A Pretorius Member Gauteng

D M Stols Member Mpumalanga

A J Spamers Member Gauteng

I A Manwatha Student Gauteng

M Whibley Member Eastcape

G C Fourie Member Gauteng

J M Monteiro Member Mpumalanga

E Ueckermann Associate Gauteng

F Nortje Student Klerksdorp

M A Tladi Student Gauteng

P Naidu Student Kwazulu

S M Moerane Student Gauteng

T S Hlalele Student Freestate

S Narainsingh Student Gauteng

R Buijs Senior Kwazulu

S P Dlamini Member Swaziland

B R P Mayer Member Kwazulu

R Rajoo Member Kwazulu

R Moeketsi Member Kwazulu

J L Mynhardt Member Rustenburg

D Reddy Member Kwazulu

R Engelbrecht Student Westcape

A M Goba Student Gauteng

P L Marabe Student Freestate

K M Mpuru Student Mpumalanga

F J Tshikomba Student Gauteng

H A Wentzel Student Eastcape

T P Mabuya Student Gauteng

Study Bursaries

Members are reminded that ICMEESA does have a bursary scheme for student studying mechanical or electrical engineering. Although bursaries are not restricted to our members’ families, they will be given favorable consideration. Bursary application forms can be obtained on the website, or, from the secretary.
Council will review the continued support for bursars depending on the results achieved for the past year. Previous bursars have received support for the entire course. Should the bursar not perform academically the continued bursary will for obvious reasons be reviewed by council.
The bursary covers the costs of tuition, books and other associated cost with approval of council.

Certificated Engineers - Member feedback (in response to the article in the July newsletter:)

Dear Chris:
I would like to thank Niresh for writing the letter and you for publishing it with your reply.

Living in the comfort of the UK for the past 5 years, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the first part of Niresh's letter, suffice to say that not withstanding the 'truths' Niresh refers to, these are perceptions. Unfortunately perceptions are the 'realities' of life. As you rightly point out at the end of your reply; letters such as Niresh's should inspire thought and action. Every Certificated Engineer who read the letter and reply should be asking themselves "What should I be personally doing in the workplace to change these perceptions?" and "What can I do for ICMEESA and the profession to that will change the perceptions?"
The second half of Niresh's letter reminds me of the letter a wrote a couple of years ago in reply to a suggestion that the Certificated Engineer was no longer required and only existed because of outdated legislation and perhaps job protection and reservation. At the time I said that the Certificated Engineer was endanger of extinction because our safety education is purely limited to regulation and compliance. I suggested that the Certificated Engineer should be educated on the management systems and techniques that will ensure continual improvement and compliance. As a Certificated Engineer and a GMR 2.1 appointee who attended a couple of NOSA (now defunct) courses I thought I knew all about safety.
Unfortunately, this assumption appears to be one that is widely held throughout South Africa and is perhaps the root of some of the safety issues the country has. I was transferred to the UK as the Occupational Safety Manager for Europe Middle East and Africa in 2002. In my new job I was dealing with real safety professionals and required to influence high level managers on the appropriate strategies that would reduce risk and improve safety performance. I soon realised I knew enough about safety to be dangerous and I needed to get a proper safety education. I enrolled for an MSc Occupational & Environmental Health & Safety Management at University of Portsmouth. I still have my thesis to write, but in July this year I became a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety & Health. The ten items Niresh requests are included in most Bachelor's and Master's programs in safety. They are also key components of Environment Health and Safety (EHS) Management systems. They are out of scope of the GCC and most of the NOSA type courses.
South Africa and its businesses are often criticized for their appalling safety record. Recently in the UK business press, Anglo American was specifically criticized on its safety and that safety performance and the reduction of fatalities would be a key priority for Cynthia Carroll the new CEO. I recently made a presentation to ORC International members in Washington USA about the safety challenges for businesses in Africa. My background research for my presentation revealed that the SA Institute of Safety Management (SAISM) had 500 members and the SA Institute for Occupational Hygiene (SAIOH) had only 200 members at the time. There were less than 900 Certificated Engineers in 2006. The other consideration is the geographical dispersion of these members which inhibits networking and the exchange of knowledge and experience.
So, to build on Niresh's comment about the absence of safety articles I would ask, "Who's going to write them?" Niresh is vocalizing that there is a dire need for education in these areas. It would be fair to say that Niresh is probably looking for this subject matter in order to educate himself and therefore it would be a bit unfair to ask "How many articles have you submitted?"
So here's a couple of questions: "What can ICMEESA, SAISM and SAIOH collaborate on to address the needs highlighted by Niresh". "What technical articles can the individual members of ICMEESA, SAISM and SAIOH submit to start educating our members?"
With this in mind, perhaps we should discuss this further and see what I can do to pass my experience on to people like Niresh who need this help through the compilation of technical articles.

Sincerely,

Peter S Knopp Pr. Cert. Eng. CMIOSH

Editors Comment - on Certificated Engineers - feedback

I must apologize for the lack of a newsletter in September. Unfortunately a combination of work pressures and washing your memory stick, made it impossible to publish in time. From experience, and now being an expert in this subject, I can advise that the latter option of cleaning the memory stick is not advised. Inserting the memory stick into the PC and either formatting or deleting the files is the preferred option and promotes longer life. Not to detract from the effectiveness of the washing soap manufacturer, the product does clean as effectively as advertised. Nothing left on disc after recovery.
Member feedback received on articles published in this newsletter is encouraging. The intent of this newsletter was more to encourage membership participation and to be publishing extracts or articles from members, expressing their views, as opposed to me writing personal comment on the various subjects. So I appeal to members to put finger to keyboard and express your views; opinions or questions to us. The last newsletter, July, contained an article that appeared in Vector magazine, from which I received the above response. Thanks you Peter for the positive conclusion.

I was particularly interested in the reference to “safety education being purely limited to regulation and compliance.”
It is unfortunate that we have this contradiction of regulation and compliance contradicting everything we learn in the motivational textbooks about thinking out of the box. Unfortunately it will be difficult to distinguish between responsible and well researched change and irresponsible gay abandon resulting in disaster. The result is that both regulators and engineers are reluctant to change anything, as our systems inherently make it onerous to do so. It becomes preferable to leave an outdated procedure in place and let the operator bear the consequences of not strictly adhering to it, however onerous it may be for him.
Also, a comment with reference to the writing the articles. I agree that written articles and papers are a sound source of reference to the new engineer. But where and how does he source them? This Institution should be the conduit through which engineers have access to this wealth of information. Our sister organizations, involved with the mines, traditionally published a bound hardcover edition of all the papers presented during the previous year. Let me confess, they did nothing more than adorn my bookshelf for years and were rarely referred to. I recently handed these volumes over to a promising junior engineer so I trust that they are now put to good use. The modern engineer will preferably surf the internet for the necessary information before laboriously searching the library. So our website should be a good source of information from engineers willing to contribute.
I believe that most value is gained by young engineers actually writing the article, paper, or presentation, than by reading what others have done. The lack of papers or presentations from members is an all too common complaint from all professional and voluntary associations. Let me confess, those I have done over the years, excluding one, were as a result of some gentle persuasion from my superiors. How do we stimulate a different culture?
Getting more branch activity from members is perhaps the key. Any comments from members on what needs to change to achieve that will be welcome and stimulate an interesting debate.

Unidentified Subscription Payments

26 Sep Klerkdrp 0055314
08 Oct Magtape 217543294755980
08 Oct Magtape Modipak Epping
12 Oct Magtape Credit SAB10110671000

Please contact the secretary if these refer to your subscription payment.