By Helene Fung

We concluded at the end of 2005 that we should have more technical events in 2006. Since there are many other similar technical engineering groups around (Engineers Australia, Association of Professional Engineers Scientists and Manager Australia, JETP, IEE), we decided to explore working with them to organise joint events.

The committee held a meeting on 30 January 2006 to ‘brainstorm’ event ideas for 2006. through this meeting and other contacts established by committee members throughout the year, we came up with the following list of possible events:

• SmartRider Rollout (technical presentation and site visit)
This event was held on 22 March with a turnout of approximately 10 people.
Perth is currently implementing a contact-less smart card system (SmartRider) for public transport fare collection, similar to systems already in operation around the world such as in Hong Kong and Singapore. The date of the event was carefully chosen to provide a ‘sneak preview’ for members just before the public rollout of the program.

• Professional etiquette (guest speaker workshop)
This event was held on 3 May with a turnout of approximately 30 people. The guest speaker was a former model, classical musician and writer, and currently runs her own corporate training business.

• Sanmina-SCI Production Facility Tour (technical presentation and site visit)
This event was held on 23 August with a turnout of approximately 40 people. The Sanmina-SCI group has manufacturing facilities in 20 countries around the world and runs the Perth plant. Products manufactured include a high level of local content and entails surface mount technology, module assembly, enclosure/mechanical assembly, full system integration and testing of highly complex systems. Manufacturing is carried out at the plant for customers including Nokia, ERG, Vision Systems, Resmed and Tenix with product shipped to export markets world wide.

• Presentation by Darren Lomman (guest speaker workshop)
This event is being planned for 13 September.
Darren is the 2006 Western Australia Young person of the year and 2005 Australian Young biomedical engineer of the year. He started off designing a motor bike for a paraplegic friend as part of his university engineering project and has now founded a group that focuses on designing and building innovative recreational and leisure equipment for people with disabilities.

• Electronic gadgets presentation - PDA's, small computers etc. (possibly getting an electronics or computer shop to host gathering in their shop and showcase the latest gadgets, bring in catering and double as networking event)

• Share market advice, Real estate investments, managed funds (guest speaker workshop)
• Working overseas (guest speaker workshop, possible joint event with APESMA)
• Career options and further education for engineers – eg. Management courses (guest speaker workshop)
• Environmental sustainability (guest speaker workshop)
• How to handle workplace politics (guest speaker workshop, possible joint event with APESMA)
• Water Corporation Desalination Project (technical presentation and site visit)
• Water Corporation Control Centre (technical presentation and site visit)
• Fire Brigade Communications Centre (technical presentation and site visit)