Firstly I would like to thank Adrian, on behalf of the Committee, and all our Members, for the effort and enthusiasm with which he has carried out his role as President.  He agreed to extend his tenure of office to “hold the fort” and see us through the pandemic, and that continuity through what has been a difficult period has been invaluable.  Thank you Adrian

It is with mixed feelings of honour and trepidation that I take over the role of President.

For the benefit of Members who don’t know me, I joined Perkins as a Student Apprentice in 1962, and stayed for 43 largely enjoyable years, all of them in Engineering.  After doing a 4 year sandwich course at Lanchester College (now Coventry University), I qualified as a Metallurgist, and worked for Tom Wilshaw in the Materials Laboratory, initially at Queen Street.  I stuck that for 14 years, before breaking out to join, and eventually manage, the Project Office, which planned and monitored all the Engineering & Joint Venture Projects.  When the Project Office closed down in one of the large redundancies, I moved into Total Quality work, devising processes and procedures for LRQA and BS 2000-and-something, and Logistics & Option Control, before retiring in 2005.

The trepidation that I feel is due to being cocooned in Engineering for 43 years, with not much contact with people in the wider Perkins world, and a lifelong inability to remember names!  So I will be reliant on Adrian and fellow Committee Members, who seem to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Membership, and the senior people in the Company that support the Club.

The drive to involve more of our Members who are still in employment in the activities of the Club has been stalled by the difficulties in contact and communication within Perkins caused by the pandemic.  The Committee will continue to try to involve all of our Members more deeply in the Club’s activities, and to improve the recruitment of new Members.  We can sit and discuss what we think are the activities and benefits that would be attractive to Members and prospective members, but this would be easier and more effective if we had some input from the Membership.  Our work, and the Club, would also benefit from some new faces on the Committee, to bring some fresh ideas and opinions to the discussions on the way forward.

Thank you

Garth Perry