Welcome to the Northern Ireland Branch

NOTE:

** BRANCH PROGRAMME FOR 2010 AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD - SEE NEWS

** BRANCH MEETING FRIDAY 19th FEBRUARY 2010 **

VISIT OF PRESIDENT (Mr NORMAN TRAIN) AND THE CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS

MEETING COMMENCES 6.15pm AT MALONE HOUSE, BELFAST WITH TEA AVAILABLE FROM 5.30pm AT MALONE HOUSE.

** CHARTERED MEMBERS EXAM SEMINAR (26 JAN/02 FEB) - GO TO NEWS FOR FURTHER DETAILS AND BOOKING FORM.

Chairman’s Forward 2010

I would like to wish everyone a happy, prosperous New Year and to welcome you to the 2010 programme of events and activities organised by the Northern Ireland Branch of the Institution of Structural Engineers. I am extremely honoured to be taking over as your Branch Chairman and hope that I too can exhibit the same enthusiasm, drive and sure footed calm while at the helm as our immediate Past Chairman John Lyness. Every Chairman is dependent on the support of his committee and I count myself as extremely fortunate to have Steve Alford and Paul McMurray continuing in their roles of secretary and treasurer respectively.

In now seems a very long time ago that I became a Junior Vice-Chairman of the Branch in September 2007. This was at the start of Kerry Greeves 15 month “year” as Chairman and the Institution was embarking on its centenary year celebrations. There was seemingly no end to the economic boom in sight; our main concerns revolved around how we would address the projected workloads and even the winters were milder! Now at the beginning of a new decade the general mood has certainly changed but there are grounds for optimism out there. Even though 2010 is likely to be another tough year commercially, the worst of the recession is behind us and there are definite signs that the economy has at last turned the corner.

For many of the older members of the Branch economic downturns are nothing new and my own career in Structural Engineering reflects this fact. I am currently employed by Fisher Engineering Ltd but my working life has also encompassed university research, consulting engineering and contracting throughout the UK. These changes in career direction and location were often influenced by the prevailing economic conditions of the time but each new role has in turn offered new challenges requiring the development of new skills to supplement those learnt at university. Structural Engineers have a unique skill set where numeracy and innovative thinking are applied to solving major construction challenges whether as individuals or as part of a team. In order to remain at the forefront of our industry in a rapidly changing world we need to remain adaptable and always prepared to learn new skills. As such, we hope that the programme of CPD seminars and evening meetings that the Committee have arranged for the coming year will be both informative and representative of the state of the art in structural engineering today.

In particular, the evening meetings are intended to highlight some of the major structural engineering challenges that our colleagues throughout the UK and ROI have addressed in the last few years. I have been fortunate to have a personal involvement in two of the projects. The National Conference Centre in Dublin is a landmark exhibition and conference centre within a confined city centre site. Unusually, this building also has an auditorium built over the exhibition halls which provides a multi-use building but offers some interesting engineering problems. The second project is the new Bombardier Aerospace factory currently under construction in Belfast. A two bay factory roof is constructed from 64 m clear span trusses which also support overhead cranes and plant platforms. The rapid construction programme has in turn impacted all aspects of the design. One example of this is the steel connections design with details developed primarily to ensure ease and speed of erection on site.

I hope that you can find the time to attend our evening meetings and other branch activities during the coming year and I look forward to meeting as many of our membership as possible.

Chris