Annual Report 2005

In 2005 the Institute of Rail Welding completed its first full year as a Corporate Membership organisation and significant growth was achieved during the year. At the start of 2005 five organisations from the UK rail sector had signed up as Corporate Members, but by the end of the year this had grown to seventeen:

Amey Infrastructure Services Ltd
Balfour Beatty Rail
BOC Ltd
Carillion Rail
CorusRail Sector
ESAB Group (UK) Ltd
First Engineering Ltd
GemWeld (UK) Ltd
Goldschmidt Thermit GmbH
GPX Engineering Ltd
Jarvis
London Underground Ltd
Network Rail
Railtech (UK) Ltd
SAF Oerlikon UK Ltd
Scotweld Employment Services Ltd
Vital Rail

Three individual members have also been accepted.

Each Corporate Member is entitled to nominate a representative to the Management Committee. Network Rail who, in view of their higher level of subscription, are permitted to nominate two representatives.

Income from subscriptions has enabled IoRW to maintain all the current benefits of membership and to add significant new benefits.

The following benefits have been maintained:

• Members receive Welding Lines, the newsletter of the IoRW, four times a year.
  
  
• The website gives up-to-the-minute news and technical information.
  
  
• Twice-yearly technical seminars. These have been extremely well supported with members having benefited from the sharing of worldwide expertise.
  
  
• Participation in the development of uniform standards for rail welding technology, training and competence.
  
  
• Technical enquiry service for the rail welding community through a network of experts.
  
  
• Automatic access to the benefits of the Welding & Joining Society (WJS), which include Connect magazine, Welding and Cutting, JoinIT^®, an e-mail newsletter, the Weldasearch information service and free access to TWI's library.
  
  
• Participation in WJS national Branch and Technical Group activities.

As a new benefit, IoRW members have been granted exclusive access to Business Briefing events. These are designed to provide a forum for discussion with relevant experts on business matters such as Directives and legislation that affect the industry.

The publication of a welding handbook, under the IoRW badge, is also in prospect.

The first Annual General Meeting was held in April 2005 and the IoRW Management Committee met three times during the year. All these meetings were well attended, with a high percentage of Corporate Member representatives present.

Two successful Business Briefings were organised for members of the Management Committee. The first was held in April on the use, transportation and storage of gases by Brian Dunckley, Safety, Health, Environment and Quality Advisor at Balfour Beatty Rail Technologies. The second was held in October with a further presentation on the storage, use and transportation of gases by Mr Malcolm Moye of British Compressed Gases Association and a presentation by Dr Martin Cosgrove, occupational physician, on vibrations at work regulations 2005.

Two Technical Seminars were held in 2005, the first in June at TWI on developments in training and competence assurance in rail welding, the second in November at TWI on developments in aluminothermic welding processes. Despite the fact that, under the new Corporate Membership arrangements, Technical Seminars are no longer free to members, each of these events attracted approximately 90 participants.

Through IoRW's constitution as a membership organisation, commercial or any other kind of bias is avoided. This has brought about a spirit of consensus within the industry which has enabled technology and competence improvements, and a consequent reduction in rail breaks and weld reject rates. It is believed that, since its inception in 2002, IoRW has contributed greatly to the improvements that have been achieved in recent years.

Following the re-organisation of IoRW at the end of 2004, the IoRW is now on a firm financial and organisational footing to meet the challenges ahead.