Eng. Nihal Fernando – Chair

Eng. Tissa Wijayasinghe – Vice Chair

Eng. Mahinda Karunaratne – Secretary

Eng. Maya Amaraweera – Treasurer

Eng. Dayantha Jayaratne – Editor

Eng Athula Amarasinghe – Committee Member

Eng. Anuradha Wijayasinghe – Committee Member

Eng. Shantha Fernando  – Committee Member

Eng. Yaso Yasodharan – Committee Member

Eng. Prathapa Ravindra – Committee Member

 

The Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) NSW Chapter was formed on 19th July 2009 to serve the IESL members residing in New South Wales, Australia. This is the first IESL Chapter formed outside Sri Lanka. The Chapter initially started as an unincorporated association at the beginning and later was incorporated under the New South Wales jurisdiction in February 2010.

The first year of operations of IESL NSW Chapter was very successful and opened up the vision for many years to come. At the end of first year, the committee with the support of members, managed to lay a good foundation for the Chapter.

A brief summary of events including the highlights, in the Management Committee’s term of office

  • Development of the constitution
  • Essentials to operate such as bank accounts, post office boxes, domain names, email addresses and basic processes were setup
  • Hosted six evening lectures by distinguished professionals with good attendance
  • Hosted a well praised Engineers Nite 2010, with the presence of President of IESL, Eng Dr. Dharmasiri de Alwis, Past President of IESL Eng. Ranjith Gunewardena and Sydney Consul General Mr. Dayasiri Fernando. 300 engineers and their guests participated.
  • Facilitated 35 IESL membership reinstatements and 5 renewals
  • Published five newsletters and distributed to approximately 270 engineers in New South Wales
  • For the financial year 2009/2010, reported a gross income in excess of $20,000 and a net surplus of $4330. The main contribution to the income and the savings was from the Enginers Nite
  • Initiated the IESL NSW Chapter web site development
  • Initiated discussions with Sri Lanka Consul General’s Office in Sydney for future engineering projects in Sri Lanka
  • Started to build up the relationship with IEAust

 

1.  Association Setting up

As this was the first year of operation for IESL NSW Chapter, the initial setting up tasks such as opening a bank account, acquiring a PO Box, setting up email addresses was carried out.

  • Bank Account

A standard association type bank account was opened at the Commonwealth Bank (Sydney city branch) with four signatories (Treasurer, Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary) in accordance with the constitution. Two out of four signatories were required to sign for any account withdrawals.

  • Post Office Box

A PO Box was acquired from Australia Post, Parramatta. The PO Box address of the Chapter is as follows.

PO Box 1239, Parramatta NSW 2124.

Domain Name and Email Addresses

The Chapter acquired the domain name “www.ieslnsw.org”. The following email addresses were setup for general communication.

chapter_secretary@ieslnsw.org         –           For all general communication

memberservices@ieslnsw.org           –           All membership enquiries and correspondence

Insurance

Due to the financial position of the IESL NSW Chapter and considering the risks associated, the committee decided not to purchase a public liability insurance policy initially. All the events conducted by the Chapter were covered either by one off insurance policies or other relevant second party insurances.

Purchasing appropriate public liability insurance for the Chapter was considered as a high priority for the next year committee.

2.  Membership Services

Providing membership services was one of the primary tasks of the committee. The service included the following.

  • Maintaining the IESL NSW Chapter contact list. In addition to IESL members resided in NSW, this list had potential members who have varying associations with the Chapter.
  • Facilitate IESL membership renewals, reinstatements and new memberships
  • The membership service statistics for year 2009/2010 were as follows.
Statistics No
Number of IESL membership reinstatements facilitated 35
Number of IESL membership renewals facilitated 5
Number of potential member contacts in the register 277

The following membership processing procedures and instructions in the context of IESL NSW Chapter, were produced and used.

  • Instructions to reinstate IESL membership
  • Instructions to renew IESL membership
  • Process for becoming an Associate Member / Member of IESL
  • IESL Membership  Processing  Procedure  (Reinstatements  and  Renewals) (agreed with IESL)

3.  Professional Activities

Lectures/Seminars

In the year 2009/2010, the Chapter hosted six evening lectures by distinguished engineering professionals at various venues. They were as follows.

Lecture Topic Presenter Date and Venue
Engineering for the new World: Information and Communication Technologies and Social Transformation Professor Athula Ginige 21st October 2009 UWS Parramatta Campus
Robots Everywhere – Recent advancements in mobile robotics Professor Gamini Dissanayake 24th February 2010

UWS Parramatta Campus
Bridge Load Capacity Assessment and Management of Bridge Asset Adj. Professor Wije Ariyaratne 14th April 2010 UWS Parramatta Campus
Fundamentals of Earthing and Lightening for Engineers Mr Tissa Wijayasinghe 27th May 2010 Macquarie University
Capturing, Radiating and Guiding Waves in the Modern Wireless World Professor Karu Esselle 29th June 2010

Macquarie University
Innovative Walling Systems

with special reference to a Modular–locking-System (MLS)

 Dr. Wimal Samarasinghe 25th June 2010 IEAust Auditorium, Chatswood

 

These lectures were hosted by the Chapter and were well attended and well received. The attendance varied from 35~60.

Short Courses

The Chapter planned to conduct short courses but due to the busy schedule and other reasons, this could not be accommodated. A short course was planned on the topic of “Earthing and Lightening for Engineers” by Mr Tissa Wijayasinghe due to the interest shown by many participants on his lecture on “Fundamentals of Earthing and Lightening for Engineers” held in May 2010.

Expert Forums

The Chapter planned to form expert forums to share knowledge among engineers. This was to be web based and the capability was being developed.

Paper Submissions for IESL Annual Sessions

The IESL NSW Chapter publicised and facilitated technical paper submissions for IESL Sessions 2010 which was held in Colombo on October 2010. The paper submitted by Eng. Dr Prathapa Ravindra, a committee member of the Chapter, on “Shakedown Analysis of Road Pavements – Application to Project Level and Network Level Scenarios” was selected by IESL and presented at the Annual Sessions 2010.

4.  Communication with Members

The communication with members was primarily via emails and the newsletter. The email communication was effectively used by the Chapter in all communications.

Further, the Chapter published five (5) newsletters which successfully conveyed the messages and articles to the membership. Many members praised the presentation of the newsletters giving excellent encouragement to the Chapter editor.

The Chapter planned to develop a comprehensive web site to communicate with the members. The specification of the web site was produced and the development was contracted to a professional web development company. The web site was expected to be launched in late September 2010.

5.  Networking and Socialisation

The IESL NSW Chapter actively promoted networking and socialisation among the members with few initiatives. Those included:

  • Engineers Nite 2010
  • Networking and socialisation sessions before and after evening lectures
  • Committee Get-togethers

Out of these initiatives, Engineers Nite 2010 was considered as the prime event.

Engineers Nite

The Engineers Nite 2010 was held in Castle Grand function Centre in Castle Hill on the 20th of March 2010.

The executive president of IESL, Eng Dr. Dharmasiri de Alwis, Past President of IESL Eng. Ranjith Gunewardena and Sydney Consul General Mr. Dayasiri Fernando were the guests of honour of the occasion.

The function was well attended by enthusiastic engineers, their partners and guests. Among them, there were engineers who had come all the way from Sri Lanka as well as those who came from remote areas in New South Wales. The initiative taken to establish the NSW Chapter of IESL was highly admired by the attended engineers and highly appreciated the opportunity they had to meet their fellow engineers.

Considering the success of this event, the general opinion of the committee was to make this function a regular annual event.

 

Further information please refer to the annual report.

Link to the Annual Report 2009-2010