Retiring SPRA President, Fergus Hardie reflects on another good year for the SPRA

It has been another good year within the SPRA and I am very pleased to be able to report on a number of positive achievements through the session.
Firstly our membership has risen to a record high and we have again been delighted to welcome a number of new Corporate Members to the Association. 

We have held our usual series of technical lectures and attendances have again hit record numbers with some excellent speakers and range of topics covered. Our programme for 2010/2011 kicked off again with our highly successful schools lecture ‘Fantastic Plastic’  presented by Professor Averil MacDonald. This year we had over 750 school pupils and their teachers attend from over 21 schools across Scotland. Feedback was great and  hopefully we have started to get some of our youngsters thinking about the possibilities in our Industry We also organised the first prestige RW Thomson Lecture in conjunction with the Scottish Association of Metals (SAM) and the Mining Institute of Scotland (MIS).

Our recent Annual Dinner Dance was again well attended and a great success, enjoyed by all. Our guest speaker Sandy Strang was a real hit and knowing the breadth of his repertoire, we will definitely have him back again !

My sincere thanks to all the members of the Council for their work and contributions throughout the time of my Presidency and notably Charlie Geddes our Honorary Secretary again for his invaluable service.  I want to wish my successor Barry Coughlan the very best as he takes over the Presidency and have no doubt that he will continue to advance the interests of the SPRA and its membership.

Finally, my thanks to all our members for their support - I wish you and your Companies all success going forward.

Fergus Hardie, SPRA President   March 2011