NEW president of the Institute of Refrigeration Jane Gartshore speaking to an audience of 700 industry professionals at the institute dinner last week, said 'In my first year as president I've been asked what is the point of the IOR?'
Those gathered at the institute's 108th annual dinner on February 13, held at Grosvenor House, were told a key benefit the IOR provides is 'information exchange'.
Gartshore spoke of the success of IOR's evening papers held at venues that were so well attended, there was standing room only. The She named papers on energy efficiency and refrigeration usage as big crowd-pullers.
The president issued in a new era by promising to keep speeches “shorter than usual”.
She then highlighted the benefits of the IOR awards to recognise the industry's great and good.
Winners announced at this year's IOR dinner included Alan Stoll who won the Service Engineers Section Lifetime Achievement Award. As well as working for Star Refrigeration, during his career Stoll has been IOR secretary and IOR chairman.
Jolyon Thompson won the Ted Perry Award for his work on cooling the London Underground using the heat sink effect
Professor Graeme Maidment and Dr Fuquio Wang won the Lightfoot Medal for best paper in the session for their presentation on Ground Source Heat Pumps
Professor Richard Thome won the J&E Hall Gold Medal and received a prize of £5,000. Professor Thome of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne carried out original work on the development of micro evaporation cooling systems.
Darren Purton of LP Air Conditioning won the Service Engineers Section Engineer of the Year Award and received £400.
Purton, based in Thatcham, has worked in the industry for 22 years. He said 'Twenty-two years ago there was not so much legislation as there is today'.
Purton said 'A key challenge is diagnosing the internal fault and repairing it without any comeback' but the man who has responded to thousands of service calls during his career admitted 'You're only as good as your last service call'.
There were many laughs generated at the refrigeration industry's expense by comedian Dominic Holland who had been warned to be 'funnier' than comics at previous IOR dinners. Holland was happy to oblige and confessed he could not get his head round formulas many industry experts know in their sleep.
The president's table included past presidents of the institute and guests from the BRA, SummitSkills, HVCA and the International Institute of Refrigeration.