IQ Australia marks centenary with UK study tour
Seventeen-strong group arriving in UK at end of April for 12-day tour of sites across UK and Eire
MEMBERS of the Institute of Quarrying Australia (IQA) are marking the Institute’s centenary year with a 10,500-mile trip to the UK, visiting sites in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Eire.
The 17-strong group will arrive in the UK on 30 April for a 12-day study tour. First stop will be a visit to the Nottingham headquarters of the Institute of Quarrying (IQ) to meet its new chief executive, James Thorne, and his team.
The study tour will be led by tour organizer Danny Duke, who has been member of IQA since 1982, was national president of IQA from 2001–2003, and is an Honorary Fellow of The Institute.
The party includes IQA members and their partners from five of Australia’s six states and includes managers of quarry and related operations, consultants to the industry and a mines inspector.
James Thorne said: ‘We’re always delighted to welcome colleagues from our affiliated national Institutes around the world and this year is all the more poignant with 2017 marking our centenary.
‘It’s clear that the group is here to maximize its time, with a whistle-stop tour of sites all over the UK and Eire. The busy study tour takes in a number of aspects of the industry, visiting quarries and equipment manufacturers.’
Danny Duke added: ‘I’ve been involved with IQA for over 35 years and when I heard it was considering a centenary study tour to the UK, I offered to organize it for them. I’ve organized a number of tours previously to France, Germany and Spain, but not the UK, so this was an opportunity not to be missed.
‘We’re visiting the Terex Trucks factory in Motherwell, then we hop across to Belfast to see the McCloskey, Terex Finlay and CDE factories, and their array of mobile crushing, screening and recycling solutions.
‘After that we cross the border and head south to a quarry near Dublin, before heading on to a Welsh Slate quarry in Penrhyn. It’s a full agenda but one that we’re all looking forward to.’
