After one year in the 'hot-seat' at the institute, I am extremely thankful for the amazing contributions of a number of our dedicated team members.
In the last year, the various branch committees and council members have managed to build on the hard work of previous office bearers and further extended the reach of the institute and value that the institute adds to you, our valued members.
Our branches have again delivered on their commitments in hosting regular technology evenings and educational site visits in their efforts to share new technologies and their use to extend the knowledge of our members. In addition, our branches spent a substantial amount of time in providing guidance and leadership to the various educational institutions that we have partnered with and delivered technical presentations to students as well as the well-established annual prizes to top students in the C&I field.
The exceptions to the rule as far as our branches are concerned are the Vaal Triangle Branch and the Rustenburg Branch, who have not been able to grow membership and participation over the last year as expected. As far as the Rustenburg Branch is concerned, it must be clearly stated that this is certainly not due to lack of trying, but for some reason, the support simply did not materialise. There appears to be a certain degree of apathy, which does not reflect the rapid growth of C&I technology being installed in that region. We have all seen what happens when we install advanced technology in an area and do not maintain the skills, competencies and the required focus.
My personal belief is that the institute can add tremendous value to industry in this area, and with this in mind; plan to increase our efforts to bring the institute and industry closer together for mutual and long-term benefit.
Our other regions have worked extremely hard recording sustainable growth and successes and a special word of thanks must go out to them. Offering your personal time and effort while still holding down a normal job, is certainly commendable.
Regrettably, we have again not been able to offer any Negretti Awards for Technical Papers of high quality, but we certainly will place special emphasis on this extremely important initiative in the New Year.
It is with a sigh of relief that I am happy to report that the new SAIMC website is now operational! After many long hours by various SAIMC members and the teams from Star-Sign Systems and Technews, we are now able to offer a site that offers a tremendous amount of added benefits to our members, not least the streamlining of the administration of the institute.
Features of the new website include:
* On-line listing of members which displays the status of their membership.
* On-line membership application aimed at streamlining the application process.
* Downloads of certain institute documents and tools as well as instrumentation application guidance and technical literature.
* On-line viewing of industry events and on-line booking for institute events and functions.
* On-line membership administration to allow members to easily update their details.
* Ad serving for our valued patron members to place advertisements and Internet shortcuts on our website.
* On-line purchases of SAIMC and industry material.
* An expert communications forum where members can interact on-line with experts in a variety of C&I fields.
All you need to do to benefit from the above features is register on-line at www.saimcmembers.org.za. This site can be accessed from and fits seamlessly behind our normal public site: www.saimc.org.za, but will only allow access to registered members.
With the election of the 2005/2006 council, I must start by thanking departing members for their time and effort spent not only during the last year, but also over the last number of years. In particular we say a sad farewell to Dick Perry and Tony Holme who selflessly offered their time on several previous councils. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed, and are highly appreciated.
We welcome new council members and executives in Vivian Macfadyen (honorary secretary) and Paulo da Silva (honorary treasurer), and then an old friend: Eric Carter who after an 'extended vacation', decided to join us again. I certainly look forward to working with you over the next year. In addition to our voluntary members, I wish to extend my gratitude to the team at CTR for their efforts on the administration side in assisting us to make our institute more professional.
Speaking of the next year, we will continue our focus around finding new ways of adding value to industry and our members.
We are currently planning a number of exciting developments including the new SAIMC Mentoring Program, SAIMC courses and functions as well as substantially increased participation in ensuring that our industry is populated with adequately trained young engineers and technicians. We intend to increase our participation with tertiary education institutions and regulatory bodies and will certainly interact more with employers of C&I practitioners.
In closing, I want to extend our sincere gratitude to all our supporters including members, sponsors and partners, and again implore you all to contact the institute should you feel that you are able to assist us in adding value to our extremely important industry.
Have a fantastic April and do not forget to visit us at Process 2005.
Cornu Perold, president
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