West Midlands Branch Annual Banquet

Members and guests met at the Holiday Inn Birmingham-Bromsgrove in May to celebrate the 25th Annual Banquet of the West Midlands, Birmingham and Coventry Branch of ICME. Branch president, Dean Millington of J & J Siddons, in welcoming members from a number of branches to the banquet, noted that the highlight for him during the previous year had been the visit to the branch by international artist Antony Gormley who had spoken about his ideas for what is art and about his respect for those engineers who continued to help him realise his ideas. He also reminded members that industry apprentices are able to take advantage of free membership of ICME during their apprenticeships.

Dave Wilkinson, Prof MICME, general manager of Elkem Ltd, was this years’ president’s guest and entertained diners with his thoughts on the state of the industry. He noted that to some degree the UK industry had faired better than some regions which had been almost decimated by the global downturn. He anticipated that the automotive sector would soon start to recover and this would help many foundries. He praised the castings industry for its resilience and for its ability to recycle, to turn scrap into high integrity components – adding value, generating wealth. This was contrasted with the banking industry, for whom it was clear he had a high regard, noting how ‘reckless’ had now become ‘riskless’, thus continuing to cause problems for manufacturing and the wider economy.

Dr Bill Griffiths, outgoing national president, gave a short overview of the year, commenting on the efforts to reduce costs and raise income that ICME, like so many organisations, have had to undertake, the work that institute members have done to help develop the new Foundation Degree in Casting Technology. He also thanked Dr Tom Paterson for his efforts that had helped to recruit so many new members for the institute over recent months.

He, in turn, handed over to new National President, Patrick Helly who extolled the industry to ‘be shy no longer!’ and celebrate the fact that the castings industry can be described as the foundation of modern civilisation, producing components that are integral, nay essential, to the modern world.

We look forward to next years’ event.