We1 have a couple of IChemE events planned for later this month, or rather had. Today we have postponed our Troubleshooting Distillation and Absorption Column Internals event that was scheduled to be held in Glasgow on the 19th. Many businesses are cancelling all but essential meetings and the presenter …
Below is an email sent to the members of the IChemE Scottish members group
Hi Everyone,
We have been busy organising the first few events of the year, but we haven’t really gotten around to publicising them. The events are now live on the Scottish Members Group events page …
Last night we held our final disastrous dinner of the year. This month's topic was the Kegworth air disaster when a passenger aircraft crashed into the M1 motorway just outside East Midlands airport.
Not long after takeoff, one of the engine fan blades failed, causing lots of vibrations. The pilots …
The next Disastrous Dinner will be held in Glasgow in two weeks time! It is a bit last minute this month, but signups are available on the IChemE website
The topic will be the Bakkan fields oil disaster 2008, by Christopher Laughlan. The talk will focus on the actions of …
Last night's disastrous dinner involved a plant that had been operating only a short while before the disaster struck. The process involved fermentation and so the equipment had to get steamed out to sterilise the process. After the sterilisation step of the broth receiver was completed, the broth from the …
Tonight's disastrous dinner nearly was a disaster in its own right. I phoned up the venue at lunchtime to confirm the final numbers. There was a bit of confusion when I talked about the event. They kept referring to "the show" while I was talking about "the talk".
It eventually …
I need a new venue to host a Disastrous Dinner in Glasgow.
We held a talk last March in the Griffin, but we must have gotten lucky last time. The room is used for pre-theater dining so we can’t get the venue till after 8pm (at which time the …
The following is roughly what I intended to say during last nights Disastrous Dinners talk.
I didn't stick too strictly to the script, but you get the idea. There was a good discussion after the talk with extra questions.
If you want to attend the next talk in September, sign …
I am just in from presenting my second disastrous dinner. Here are my initial thoughts:
I have just had the realisation tonight that my Disastrous Dinners series of events have, so far, been fairly sugar industry focused.
The very first talk was on the Boston Molasses Flood - Molasses being a byproduct of the sugar industry.
I then had 3 presentations that did not involve the …
You can now sign up for July’s Disastrous Dinners Event.
I have decided not to host one during June due to a couple of other IChemE events including our AGM. The next talk will be by myself and will cover how sugar managed to blow up a factory. My …
Last night David Sparks gave a great presentation on the Smiler Rollercoaster accident that happened at Alton Towers in 2015. This was the latest in my disastrous dinners series of events that aim to provide a talk about process safety in a social environment that everyone should be able to …
Tonight I have admitted defeat. It is the third Wednesday of the month, the night I had penciled in for this month's Disastrous Dinner. The problem being that I still haven't organised it yet.
I could have organised an event for next week, but I want to move away from …
Last Wednesday, Iain Clenahan gave a presentation on an incident that happened in February 1997. This post is my attempt at summarising the talk.
Hunterston B is an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) nuclear power plant commissioned in the late 1970s. To cool the reactors, carbon dioxide (CO2) is circulated …
Last night was the second disastrous dinner and the first one I presented. When I first came up with the concept for the dinners, I was fully expecting to have to provide all the talks, at least for the first year. I felt that producing 11 talks wasn’t too …
The following is an aproximate transcript of my talk that I delivered this evening.
The main reference for the talk was the official report by Desmond Fennel OBE QC
Good evening and welcome to the second Disastrous Dinners. My name is Alistair Marshall and I am the organiser of this …
Someone has been in contact with me regarding the name of my series of talks: Disastrous Dinners. They have suggested that it may be insensitive and asked if another name might be more suitable. I understand the concern and I had discussed it with a few fellow iChemE members prior …
Just a quick review of tonight's meeting. It went brilliantly.
We had 20 people for the talk and 14 stayed for dinner. I am really happy with the attendance and the atmosphere was great. Lots of socialising and discussing the talk itself, engineering in general and many other topics.
It …
I am spending some time this evening preparing for the first Disastrous Dinners talk that will be given tomorrow night. I believe that about 10 to 15 people have signed up. Not a massive number of people but hopefully a good number to encourage discussion and socialising after the talk …
Firstly, apologies for the last minute planning here. The first Disastrous Dinners Event will be on the 15th of January (a week on Tuesday). The reason for trying to get it organised in such a short period of time is to consider with the 100 year anniversary of the event …
Since the survey has been shared with IChemE members, there have been a over 70 responses, the vast majority of which have been very supportive. There seems to be a great deal of interest for such an event, mixing both a technical aspect and social setting. It was also …
The Disastrous Dinners Survey was emailed to IChemE members in Scotland today and the response has been good.
Members of the IChemE committee got access to the survey last Tuesday, the survey was posted to Facebook and LinkedIn yesterday and I got the email from IChemE at lunchtime today.
So …
I presented the suggestion to members of the IChemE committee tonight and the feeling was positive. The next stage is to publicise the survey:
Disastrous Dinners: Part social event, part technical talk and part workshop. Something for everyone!
We are looking to host a series of these events next year …
I have just come up with an idea this evening for a regular IChemE event. I will take the time in this post to get my idea into the screen before deciding if it is a good idea or not.
There are a few challenges that occur when trying …
