Member Associations

IMI Member Associations provide opportunities for members to attend seminars and learning events, meet fellow professionals and exchange ideas and views.
Many events count towards IMI CPD, Continuing Professional Development.

Details of regional contacts, forthcoming events and Member Association news can be found by clicking on the links to the left.

Member Associations are formed where there is sufficient support. Most are based on counties, with some on larger metropolitan areas.

If you would like information on the nearest Member Association to you, please contact Membership Services on 01992 511521 or via the contact us page on this web site.

Member Activity Report

Cheshire MA Annual General Meeting turned into total surprise for Chairman, Ernie Bates when  principle speaker, Sarah Sillars, IMI CEO, presented Ernie with a Distinguished Service Award.  Ernie was elected Fellow of the Institute in April 1986.  At this time he was Manager of the Service Centre at Rolls-Royce Motors Ltd, Crewe, the company that he had originally worked at for six months on leaving school.

After this short introduction to the motor industry, a long held enthusiasm for dentistry diverted his attention, resulting in a period as a dental technician, something that came in handy later in life, when he made a set of teeth for his mother! After completing his national service in the medical corps he returned to Crewe and to Rolls-Royce, working his way up to Manager of Service and Repair.

During his time in this position he dealt personally with royalty and many eminent personalities of the day – being a friend and confidant to a number of household names.  Clients, wives, chauffeurs and ‘lady friends’ all brought their problems to Ernie – big and little mishaps that had to disappear!

Ernie was respected by his colleagues and customers alike, he ran a ‘tight ship’ under tremendous pressure.

In 1992 he took early retirement, but was soon back in harness when he was asked to weave his magic again at Rolls-Royce distributors, Strattons of Wilmslow.

Throughout his time in membership Ernie has been a great supporter of the IMI serving on the Cheshire Member Association committee for many years, becoming Vice Chairman and eventually Chairman, and through his infectious enthusiasm and devotion has made the Cheshire MA the great success that it is today. Ernie is also a member of the Representative Member Assembly of the IMI.

An evening reception and lecture for members from Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, followed the IMI Representative Member Assembly hosted by Fleet Auction Group in Coalville.  Peter Leake, Manager, Network Training and Development, Jaguar Academy, gave his new presentation, 'The new Jaguar XF, the beginning of the future for Jaguar', to a totally absorbed audience .  Having been involved with Jaguar for 33 years  Peter’s enthusiasm and passion for the marque and the new XF was infectious. The presentation tells of how the XF came about; delving into Jaguar’s heritage, the preceding models and the concepts surrounding the development of the new model.  Local distributors, Sturgiss of Leicester, kindly supplied a display XF which was also joined by the car that Peter had brought from Jaguar, an XF SV8 – the 4.2 Supercharged car, top of the XF range, which emitted a significant growl on entering the showroom, very suited to heritage of Jaguar. A raffle raising £115 was held in aid of BEN.

At the May meeting for Shropshire and West Midlands David Farmer MIMI from Delphi Diesel After-market gave a presentation on the current state of the diesel fuel injection market. During the evening one of the attendees spoke of a friend who had tried to diagnose a fault on a running common-rail engine without using any test equipment. He  slackened one of the high-pressure injector pipes only to confirm what David had said earlier; the rod came straight through the crankcase when he tightened it back up! proving shortcuts can be very expensive and there is still no substitute for sound knowledge and proper training in any subject undertaken.

In June members heard from Duncan Bellinger, Technical Sales Representative from Hickley's,  who explained the background to key transponder and immobiliser technology. To the surprise of many, Duncan told how many key transducers do not require a programming machine to do the work, providing you still have the master key, as this can be used to programme a replacement. So called dead keys are often blamed for immobilising cars, but are rarely the true cause. In Duncan's experience, blown fuses are still the main cause of key(s) not working, or replacement keys that have been cut, but never programmed properly, or at all.

This again underlines that experience and proper training are vital; the machines haven't taken over yet. The moral appears to be "Read the handbook, stupid" the editor so succinctly put it the June MIM, albeit for a different reason!

Good support for the new MA in West Wales at Coleg Sir Gar continued with Pico Technologies experts Vikki Bateman and Dave Hewson giving a very good presentation on the uses of oscilloscopes within the field of diagnostics in the motor industry. John Morrissey from Coleg Sirgar and Chairman of the new MA stated there is a great demand for additional training in this area as was gauged by the amount of feedback from the well attended meeting, and they hope to continue to provide a full programme of seminars to cater for such needs. Pico also featured at a very well attended lecture for local members at Bridgwater College in Somerset.

In Yorkshire Region Health and Safety in the motor repair industry,  by Rachel Brittain of the HSE was the subject for a well attended meeting,  despite the disadvantages of very warm weather, an important football match, together with a maze of new roads, road works and a major gas pipe laying road digging exercise adjacent to the venue.  Rachel gave an informative presentation with a touch of humour throughout. Starting with what the HSE was and what it was not, gone are the bad old days of the ‘Inquisition’.

The HSE has an understanding approach to enforcement, and are prepared to discuss with a company what a realistic time scale would be to make the necessary changes, as it is realised that there is no point in driving a company out of business by making unreasonable demands. 

Rachel went on to say there were 44,000 business in the industry employing 170,000 people, but 58% had less than 10 staff and 83% less than 50.   In 2005 there were 5 fatalities, 450 major injuries and 1500 that resulted in a member of staff being off work for more than 3 days. This is costly to every one concerned. Rachel then gave a short but concise briefing of 12 different Acts and legislation that effect our industry, explaining that the four major industrial accidents and diseases the effected staff are preventable by adherence to these Acts.

Andrew Vaux (pictured) returned to Norfolk give the second part of his presentation on timing belts and the complexity of fitting them.  Graeme Fulton of Automotive Advantage visited Ulster to lecture on lean management procedures.

During July and August there are very few IMI member activities but plans for the coming season starting in September are well advanced,  We have commitments from Land- Rover, Jaguar for a series of lectures, Pico, Snap-on, TechnoQuest and many more are in the pipeline.  Companies and individuals who offer their help by giving speakers, venues visits and any other assistance to the IMI can now earn ‘Skillmiles’  Please see the Skillmiles area of the IMI website for more detail or contact Suzanne Barsby at IMI HQ,  suzanneb@motor.org.uk, tel: 01992 511521 to make any offers of help or to learn more about the scheme.