Membership Scheme For New Institute

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30793, 3 July 1965, Page 10

Membership Scheme For New Institute

pARMERS or other interested persons and commercial firms and organisations may become members of the new Agricultural Engineering Institute at Lincoln. A membership scheme has been approved by the council of Lincoln College, subject to the agreement of the college’s solicitors.

The scheme provides for two categories of members—affiliates and associates. An affiliate member may be an interested farmer or other person'who will pay a subscription of £2 per year. A commercial firm or an organisation like a branch of Federated Farmers may become an associate member, • for which the subscription charge will be £25 per year.

The director of the institute, Professor J. R. Burton, said that the idea of the membership scheme was to enable persons and firms and organisations to contribute something towards the financing of the institute, and at the same time to become more closely associated with its operations and to derive certain benefits from it. “Our real purpose is to help the New Zealand farmer by applying engineering principles to agricultural problems; and we cannot do this effectively unless we are in close contact with the farmer and unless we know what his problems are. and by the same token he cannot understand what we are able to do for him unless he can come along occasionally to meet members of the staff and see what facilities we have got. This is the real purpose of the membership scheme,” said Professor Burton. Professor Burton said that members would not have

any voting rights, but they would be entitled to attend annual meetings of the institute when the annual report would be presented and the work of the institute would be discussed. In addition they would be able to attend members’ field days and they would receive, free of charge, one copy of each of the institute’s publications, except those that were private or confidential. These publications will include frequent newsletters. To a limited extent, depending on the ability of the staff to handle .it, the institute would also be prepared to help with the agricultural engineering problems of associate members and to help them with literature that might be of interest to them. Professor Burton said that the institute was not going to make money out of the scheme and it was likely that the fee for affiliate membership would have to be increased to cover the cost of publications. Persons interested in the scheme could write to him for more information, said Professor Burton. It was expected that application forms for membership would be available very shortly.