Welcome to the Professional Engineers' Club (Exeter).

ATTENTION potential new members. If you are a retired or near retirement professional engineer or related professional and would like to join the club, you will be very welcome. We only mention retirement or near retirement because our meetings are held on Monday mornings- if you happen to be free on Mondays and are not near retirement you would still be very welcome. Email the Club secretary on honsec@rcec.co.uk for information.

Upcoming Event

Our next meeting will be on 13 May 2024 when we hold our AGM. Barry Hayden will also give a short talk entitled "Time".

At the AGM we want to deal with two committee positions that need to be filled as soon as possible, namely Chair and Speaker secretary. Alan our current Chair will, if necessary, stay on for up to another year, but Brian our Speaker secretary would like to step down now. He has prepared a programme up to September this year and is willing to guide whoever steps into his shoes for a few months.

News See news archive for previous entries. See also Blog page where you can find out obout our recent excursions.

On Monday 8th April we were treated to a fascinating talk by John Dike on the first transatlantic cables. John talked about telegraphy from semaphore to morse code and beyond. There was some audience participation with several morse sets distributed to those present, and a mock dragon's den with Brian acting as the dragon and John justifying the need for cash. John talked about the first cable to be laid, and subsequent efforts using two ships starting in the middle of the Atlantic and proceeding east and west. The advantage of this method was that the ships were always in contact by cable. The process became much easier with the use of Brunel's Great Eastern ship which could carry three huge cable drums with the full length of cable required to cross the Atlantic.

Our Club

The Club was founded in 1986 as the Retired Chartered Engineers' Club to provide a social meeting place for retired and semi retired professional engineers and a means of keeping in touch with achievements and developments in engineering. The Club has links with other organisations including the University of Exeter. We meet at the Exeter Golf and Country Club on the second Monday of each month, and occasionally organise site visits and social events.

Membership is open to mainly retired or near-retirement Engineers (we meet on Monday mornings!) and related professionals resident in the South West and currently includes more than 50 representatives from the Aeronautical, Chemical, Civil, Electrical and Electronic, Communications, Gas, Marine, Mechanical, Petroleum, Structural and other disciplines. Prospective members are welcomed as guests at Club events. For further membership information email the club secretary at honsec@rcec.co.uk

You can also download a membership application form here:   

Members assemble from 10.00am for an informal tea or coffee and the meeting starts promptly at 10.30am when short reports concerning Club business are presented by the committee. This is followed by a talk of approximately 40 - 60 minutes on a subject of engineering interest usually given by invited speakers or sometimes by members. Topics have been as diverse as nuclear fusion reactors and Roman aqueducts.

Social events take place throughout the year and technical visits are arranged for the summer months.

The Heritage Trail section researches the achievements of engineers with local connections and where appropriate arranges for the erection of plaques in their memory. The link is at heritage

There are Clubs similar to ours in other areas of the UK and a list of those known to us may be reached via the Links page in the main menu. The LINKS page also has links to pages such as a photo gallery within this web site.