Branch Meeting Notices and Reports

Meeting Notices

Some, but not all, Branches produce annually a booklet or card showing meeting dates for the year ahead.  These are mailed to the branch membership from headquarters at the time they become available; a few are retained at Nottingham for reference purposes and the remainder are returned to the branch secretary concerned.

 

In addition, it is the practice for members to be notified shortly before each meeting.  This meeting notice is prepared by the Branch Secretary (or other designated person) and sent to headquarters for distribution.

 

Beginning in the Autumn of 2005, The Institute, in collaboration with the Lancashire Branch, has been conducting a trial of distribution of Branch notices by email.  It is the intention that all such notices will be distributed by email from September 2006.  For this purpose, the subscription reminders for 2006 included a specific request for email addresses.

 

Whenever possible, notices should reach headquarters as final ‘artwork’ for photocopying.

 

  • the notice should confirm the meeting date, time, venue, speaker and topic or other activity
  • in some instances the notice may need to incorporate a return slip confirming the member’s attendance and meal requirements (if any)
  • limiting the notice to one or two sheets allows it to be inserted rapidly into the envelope by machine

 

Some branches prepare meeting notices in the form of a letter, others in the form of an A4 sized ‘poster’ which may be attached to company notice boards.

 

Notices are normally mailed by second-class post, so this should be taken into account when preparing notices. It is usual for headquarters to be handling several meeting notices at any one time during the autumn and winter months (100+ are dispatched in the seven month period).  Accordingly, ‘artwork’ should reach Nottingham as a general rule TWO WEEKS before the meeting date, and earlier if members are expected to respond to the Branch Secretary before the meeting. 

 

Meeting notices should be sent to Alicia Thain, Membership Assistant, who is responsible for their distribution.

 

Branch Meeting Reports

The Institute’s activities are normally covered month by month in the ‘Institute News’ section of Quarry Management.  Branches may submit reports of technical meetings, site visits and social activities.  Photographs greatly enhance the report and preferably should be colour prints or in electronic format such as J.PEG (minimum resolution 300 dpi).

 

Reports should be concise, but may give a reasonable indication of the content of the presentation. If, however, the technical meeting related to a similar subject or, indeed, was addressed by the same speaker, at another branch meeting which has been already published, the report should be kept as brief as possible.

 

There is no lower limit to length of the report, but the recommended upper limit is 400 words, with a norm of around 300 words. 

 

Under normal circumstances, if a report is received by 10th day of the month, it could be expected to appear in the following month’s issue (At this point in the Journal’s production schedule the layout and typesetting of the editorial pages is being finalised, prior to out-putting to film).

 

As circumstances vary from month to month, there can be no guarantee that reports received by the middle of the month will always appear in the following issue.  In June 2001, however, a new more flexible system was agreed with the editor of the Journal in order to reduce to a minimum the time-lag between reports being received, and their subsequent publication.  Also, it would be normal practise for the report to be edited into a style and length consistent with the rest of the section. 

 

All copy should be forwarded to headquarters for the attention of the General Manager, preferably by e-mail to:- mike.smith@quarrying.org