Latest News (-in last month or so)

Our next meeting will be on Monday 8th February when John Davidson(M) will give us a follow up talk on earthquakes, and how to deal with them. The meeting will start at 10.30 am online, and as usual Ken or Geoff will send out the link.

On Monday 11 January 2021 Alan Bullock gave an excellent talk on health and safety in the china clay industry in Corwall, which he has been involved with from 1967 to 2008 when he finished as global production manager. The china clay industry involves so much in the way of processess and plant that there are innumerable H&S problems. Some of the problems were particular to the loaction in Cornwall, where most of the workers were brought up in agriculture and the size of the quarries made safety more problematic. Instances included sheep triggering cut-off wires on conveyors, lock codes broadcast over radio to all and sundry. Chlorine gas is used for bleaching clay, magnetic separator causing potential pacemaker problems and even radioactive waste from redundant plant due to the particles in granite from which the clay is derived. All electrical equipment was locked off by individual maintenance personnel but in a group of 3 pump starters a fourth pump starter was installed out of sequence i.e 1243 (because there was a space) and the engineer locked off no 4 when he thought it was no 3.

See our News Archive for previous entries.

Forthcoming events

Regular meetings will resume and be held online on the second Monday of each month, until it is safe to return to a live venue. See events page for full listing.

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. (see our Constitution).

The Club has links with other organisations including the University of Exeter where it presents the Flux Award, in memory of our founder Robert W. Flux FIEE, to the student making the best oral presentation of a project.

Membership is open to Retired or Semi-retired Engineers 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 and to contact the club secretary please use the Contact page. For an email membership form please use the Join page.

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.

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.

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