Review of Branch Meetings 2000

Demonstration of Thai Cooking, 16th August 2000, Corkys, Stoke. Social Event

On the evening of 16^th August, 30 members and guest attended Mr. Bobs / Corky’s London Road, Stoke when Mr. Bob entertained us by giving us a demonstration of Thai cooking with the help of “volunteers” handpicked by Mr Bob.

Gail Owen, the first “volunteer” to help prepared a range of ingredients, Mike Smith helped with a very hot/spicy curry and David Baggaley prepared the vegetables.

With the sample tasting and the excellent and interesting instructions by Mr Bob.

The evening concluded by a delicious Thai banquet, I could honestly say we were all well and truly full by the end of the evening.

All in all an excellent start to the years events, Paul McCormack the newly elected Chairman proposed a vote of thanks to Mr Bob, which was acknowledged in the usual manner.

September Wednesday 13th, Late afternoon Visit to Oakamoor Quarry Buffet
kindly sponsored by WBB/Sibelco

On the evening of Wednesday 13th September at 18.00, the North Staff’s branch started the year’s program with a visit to Money Stone Quarry at Oakamoor. Before the tour of the Quarry Mr Farrell ceramic’s manager, gave us a brief presentation about the Quarry and its owners.

A multi million pound privately owned Belgium company Sibelco minerals and chemicals, which have only recently purchased from Hepworth minerals and chemicals, own the Quarry.

The Quarry produces silica sands, cristobalite sands, and cristobalite flours, clay bodies, all in various grades for the construction industry, cement manufacturers, glass industry, sports and agricultural and the ceramic industry.

13 members and guest split into groups as we toured the Quarry, the tour started with the Extraction of the very low graded material through the crusher, airofoil, Leaching, Kiln, Mills to produce a very high-grade product. After an excellent tour the evening concluded with a delicious buffet kindly sponsored by Sibelco minerals and chemicals.

Paul McCormack asked the newly elected deputy Chairman Mike Gould to give a vote of thanks.

October Wednesday 4th, Alan Beeston - Thermal Ceramics
"Superwool Fibres"
Evening sponsored by Thermal Ceramics

November Wednesday 8th, Additives used in heavy clay by Mark Riley
Evening kindly sponsored by Castle Colours

The North Staffs Branch Annual Dinner took place on the 25^th January 2001 at the Stakis Grand Hotel, Hanley.

The attendance was excellent as always, 188 members and associates being present.

Deputy Chairman Mr Mike Gould had taken the role of chairman for the evening due to a family bereavement for the chairman Mr Paul Mc Cormack. We all send our deepest condolences to Paul and is family.

At 7.30pm sharp Mike took the honour of leading in his officers and guests to the usual slow handclap welcome.

An enjoyable meal of Tomato & Basil Soup and Chicken Forestiere was served, ending with Apple pie and Coffee.

The toastmaster for the evening, Mr Edward Whitfield announced the top table and introduced the North Staffs Deputy Chairman, Mr Mike Gould; Mike thanked the committee for all their hard work and commitment for the year, the toastmaster and especially all the sponsors.

The Chairman’s appeal for the year was for the Douglas McMillan Hospice and Mike invited the president of the hospice, Mrs Marjorie Machin, to give a short talk explaining how it provides an essential role as a specialist provider of palliative care for the people of North Staffordshire and surrounding areas. The cost of running the hospice is around £2.5million a year most of this being provided by fund raising.

Later in the proceedings the money kindly donated had been counted and to our delight £1100 was raised.

To help raise the money various companies kindly donated prizes, which were raffled.

Mr John Sandford National Chairman proposed the toast to the Institute with the response from Mr Jim Edwards, National President. After welcoming his guests the North Staffs Deputy chairman, Mike Gould, took great pleasure in introducing the chief guest for the evening Mr Paddy Greene.

Paddy, a zany Irishman with his overflowing talent for making people laugh, certainly did that on the night, a very physical and energetic performer using every available inch of space, and anything to hand as a prop, an excellent end to a very entertaining and enjoyable evening.

February Wednesday 21st, Bipartite visit to Eternit Building Materials Keele Works
Buffet kindly provided by Eternit

On the evening of Wednesday 21^st February the North Staffs Branch and the West Midlands Branch met for a site visit to Eternit Building Materials, Keele Works.

Welcomed by Mr Mike Gould, production manager, Keele 2 Fittings plant and also North Staffs Branch deputy chairman, Mike gave a brief talk on how the evening was to progress and introduced Andrew Law and Carl Foster, both lab technicians at Keele who assisted with the tour.

After coffee and the preliminaries, the party of 30 members and guests split into groups and Mike, Andrew and Carl escorted the groups around the Keele site.

Starting at the clay preparation department where a full explanation on how the clay was processed after delivery to site, and into the souring storage hoppers, from their the clay supplies 3 plants Keele 1,2,2+.

We followed the clay through the process into plant 2 (fittings plant) main extruder where an explanation was given as to how the various shaped fittings were extruded, cut and placed onto dryer trays. After the trays were put in the Ceric dryers and dried the process was followed through onto the carousel loading to take the fittings to the setting station where they are set into ‘U’ cassettes and onto cars ready for firing.

The car then goes through the Ceric kiln, firing to a temperature of 1140c, then onto the drawing station, where the fittings are unloaded and inspected prior to putting into pallets ready for despatch.

From Keele 2 the groups went over to the main plant at Keele number 1 plant where over 40 million clay tiles are made per year, using sophisticated equipment and controls to produce the tiles from making to the excellent finished product, which are sold worldwide. The tour concluded with a delicious buffet kindly provided by Eternit Building Materials - Clay Tiles, and thanks were given to Keele staff Mike, Andrew and Carl for a most interesting tour, excellent.

On the evening of Wednesday 21^st March 15 members and guests attended the branch meeting held at

North Staffs Medical Institute to hear Dr David Hills, Ibstock Brick Ltd give his presentation

David gave us an excellent insight on Environmental polices and how Ibstock in general are committed

to environmental standards in excess of regulatory requirements and are currently devolving a company

With five sites already registered and half of the sites to be registered by the end of 2001 this

is an excellent achievement by Ibstock, and the good news is that many companies are following suit.

April Wednesday 25th
Tony Williams of Drayton Kilns
North Staffs Medical Institute

On the evening of Wednesday 25^th April the Branch meeting was held at North Staffs Medical Institute,

unfortunately the guest speaker for the evening Mr Tony Williams of Drayton Kilns was unable to attend, so

Mr Ted Churchett of Kromschroder kindly stepped in to present his paper on Gas Firing of kilns.

for measurement and control of gases, automation of industrial kilns and for control of heat treatment processes.

that can lower energy consumption. Ted also had plenty of sample burners for us all to look at,

20 very difficult questions made up by Mr David Baggaley. Branch secretary Mrs Penelope Ried won first prize

a bottle of whisky second prize went to Mr Damian Waghorn with a bottle of wine.

Vote of thanks by Mr Damian Waghorn, followed by the usual delicious buffet kindly supplied by Kromschroder.

The North Staffs held its Annual General Meeting, the final meeting of the season, on Wednesday 30^th May.

Retiring Chairman Paul McCormack, looked back on a successful year and thanked the committee and branch

Mike Gould of Eternit Building Materials - Clay Tiles. Mathew Pound was elected to the post of Deputy Chairman and

Following the formalities newly elected Mike Gould invited the guest speaker for the evening

a joint Venture between two existing companies. It manufactures (Synthetic Bone)

Calcium Hydroxylapatite and supplies coating services to implant manufacturers and hospitals.

The two holding companies are Plasma Coatings Ltd, which supplies coating services to the

Processing & Chemicals Consultancy Services (PACCS Ltd) who are Chemical engineers

and design and build chemical plants. Sample quantities of synthetic bone were supplied

from 1988 onwards for use in clinical trials and evaluations. It became clear that at that time many

other companies were supplying HA coatings for human implantation without understanding the

available on the market at this time showed that there was a potential to significantly improve the

Distal femoral knee component

Proximal femoral hip component

Spinal component

Dr Morrey gave us a very interesting insight into the manufacturing of synthetic bones

with the aid of sample knee/hip joints and photos not too gruesome to put us off the buffet later.

The North Staffs branch presented a cheque for £1100 to Douglas McMillan Hospice at

North Staffs branch Chairman Paul McCormack presented the cheque to Hospice trustee Mike Firth.

Cricket Match - North Staffs vs Wrexham
Monday 4th June 2001 at Whitchurch C. C.