Friday 9th December 2016, 7.30pm - NSK Offices, Northern Road NG24 2JF - “Brexit, Parliament and Industry - a discussion” – Robert Jenrick MP

Following significant recent events in the UK and now, possibly abroad, Robert Jenrick, MP for Newark, has kindly agreed to attend our December meeting which will be an opportunity to hear the latest updates, question Mr Jenrick on Parliamentary options and opinions and discuss any concerns you may have.

Wednesday 9th November 2016, 7.30pm - NSK Offices, Northern Road NG24 2JF - “Intellectual Property : Getting Commercial Value from Bright Ideas” – Victoria Yeomans

What is IP?  How do you stop others from pinching your bright ideas?  How do you extract commercial value from your bright ideas?  Just some of the questions Victoria will address in her talk.  Be prepared to get involved as we find out what makes an invention patentable.

Graduating with a degree in Maths with Engineering Victoria was briefly one of that rare species: a female engineer.  She moved into Intellectual Property more than 10 years ago and qualified as both a Chartered and a European Patent Attorney.  She works for Rolls-Royce in Derby protecting inventions in the aerospace sector.

Wednesday 5th October 2016 – 7.30pm - Visit to Kirton Brickworks, Station Road, Kirton, Newark NG22 9LG – Forterra

Forterra is one of the leading manufacturers of building products for the UK’s construction industry. They provide the materials for life’s essential structures, helping their customers build with ease and confidence.

The brickworks at Kirton was opened by the Butterley Company in 1955, and has subsequently been in continuous operation, transferring to Hanson Building Products in 1989, now owned by Forterra.  The quarry site currently spans 2sq.km, with the extraction and transport of over 170,000 tonnes of clay per year.

This visit has a maximum of 12 visitors, on a first come first served basis.  Sturdy footwear will be essential, and hard hat / hi-viz vest if you have them.

Thursday 8th September 2016, 7.30pm - “Newark Waste and Water Improvement Project” – Severn Trent Water – NSK, Northern Road

The team behind the major investment in Newark’s sewerage systems will present the background to, and progress of, the project, which will protect 1,000 customers from sewer flooding, with storage capacity equivalent to 14 Olympic swimming pools being provided for during severe rainfall.

A new trunk water main will provide potable water to Newark with the capacity to support the 45% increase in population predicted over the next 25 years.

A tunnelled sewer will be driven 15m below the streets of Newark, big enough for a transit van, outfalling to Crankley Point STW, north of the town. New sewers and water mains will also be constructed across the town to provide the long term solution Newark requires.

Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 7.30pm - “The Big Bang Fair” – Sarah Diggle of Magnus Academy - “Martha Gold Mine” – David Gibson

We have a two part meeting.

One part is a presentation from Sarah Diggle of the Magnus Academy giving feedback on the school’s sponsored (NSK and NES) visit to the Big Bang Fair in 2014, which was followed up by a further visit to the 2015 event.

The second part of the meeting is about the Martha gold mine, at Waihi in New Zealand’s North Island, which is one of the most important gold and silver mines in the world. It was discovered in 1878 and is still working. An underground mine until 1952, the left-hand photograph is a present-day view of the later, now worked-out, opencast pit. Today the gold and silver are reached by spiral shafts sunk nearby.

     

To give an idea of the scale of working: by 1952, when the deep mine closed, around 174 tonnes of gold and 1,200 tonnes of silver had been produced from 12 million tonnes of quartz ore.

The right-hand photograph is of Karangahake gorge, originally the only connection Martha had with the outside world.

We will see two films – the first is an overview of that precarious transport link, from horse teams to modern trains, with some archive film of steam and diesel locomotives traversing the gorge and its infamous rail tunnel.

The second film is a 1949 film (silent, with modern narration) of the old deep Martha mine, following the extraction process from ore to bullion.