Maidment delighted at IoR election

UK: Current IoR president Graeme Maidment has welcomed the forthcoming Institute presidential election and paid tribute to the capabilities of both candidates.

Nominations are still open – the deadline is tomorrow (December 31) – but it seems likely that Bob Arthur and Steve Gill will be the only two candidates vying to be the next president in 2016.

“I am delighted that two candidates Bob Arthur and Steve Gill have agreed to stand for election as president-elect,” Graeme Maidment says in an end of year message to members.

“Both bring many but different attributes to the Institute and would make a fantastic contribution to our Institute and indeed the RACHP industry,” he added.

In his end of year message the current president also emphasised the Institute’s training successes amongst a number of achievements, many of them in response to members’ demands.

“Many of the highlights reflect priorities identified by members such as greater access to technical information, leadership on the training agenda, more on heat pumps, air conditioning and heat recovery technologies and better engagement with young people to support them at the beginning of their career in the sector,” he says.

Maidment particularly mentions the IoR education and training committee, re-established under the leadership of John Skelton with support from past president John Ellis. The committee, in collaboration with ACRIB, has secured government Trailblazer status for an apprenticeship standard that will become the benchmark for industry technicians. 

In addition, in response to changes in the F-gas regulations, the IoR is working with partners in Europe to provide a free learning programme to address the safe use of hydrocarbon, ammonia, carbon dioxide and low flammable refrigerants. This will be released early next year.

Persuading young people to consider a career in air conditioning and refrigeration in the first place has not been neglected. “To better engage with young people we have been holding a series of roadshows at vocational colleges and universities. Members of the Service Engineers’ Section have presented to students at Birmingham, Eastleigh, Glasgow and London so far with return visits and more talks planned for next year. 

“The marketing group under Jo Thompson are in the process of developing a new Fantastic Fridges website with games-based educational material for school aged children. We have also brought on board a marketing student to help update our communications.”

The IOR is also supporting member Chris Vallis who is putting together a refrigeration presence at a careers science fair called The Big Bang on 11-14 March in Birmingham. The Big Bang Fair will be attended by over 70,000 young people interested in science and engineering.

A mention is given to the technical committee which, in addition to reviewing and updating existing guidance notes, will be producing new guidance notes on the topics of refrigerant glide and R407F use, synthetic oils and Ecodesign implications.

The adoption of web technology is also bringing Institute proceedings to a greater number of members. “Our programme of live and recorded webinar presentations is reaching many more of our members who can’t attend local meetings in person, even those based overseas.

“Our papers’ chair Colin Vines has developed a broader range of topics and style of meetings for this season’s evening talks with some events specifically targeting design engineers, providing introductions to the topics (as well as the detailed technical papers) and some different styles of events such as a history paper on the Grimsby Ice Factory site. 

“The Service Engineers Section continues to issue practical bulletins every quarter to our 1,000 members – all available free to IOR members from the website as well.”