News

AGS Supports GE Next Generation Awards 2015

- by
Tags: AGS EMAP Ground Engineering next generation awards

The AGS is pleased to announce they’re supporting the 2015 GE Next Generation Awards which will take place on 19th November at the Bloomsbury Hotel, London.

The awards are an excellent opportunity for Members to put forward their most talented and ambitious young engineers and apprentices to ensure they are recognised for the work they do. The evening event showcases the breadth of talent in the industry – so make sure your best team members enter today to highlight the opportunities your company offers and celebrate their achievements.

Entry forms for the seven categories that recognise the broad range of skills that are essential to the ground engineering industry are now available to download.

Candidates have until 4th  September to submit their completed application forms to GENextGeneration@emap.com . Shortlist candidates will have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and understanding to the judging panels through interviews, which will take place in London on 14th and 15th October.

Guest speaker for the event, which will take the form of an evening drinks reception on 19th November, has been confirmed as Crossrail Chair Terry Morgan who is a strong advocate of developing opportunities in construction for young people.

The judging panels are in the process of being confirmed but Thames Tideway Geotechnical Manager John Harris, British Tunnelling Society Chair Roger Bridge and Geotechnical Asset Owners Forum Chair Graham Holland are among those that have already agreed to take part in the process.

 

 

News

Tier2 Work Permits reach monthly ceiling

- by
Tags: EU Home Office Recruitment Shortage Occupation List Tier2 UK

It has been announced, for the first time, the number of Tier 2 work permits (for skilled workers from outside the EU) has reached the monthly ceiling.

Fortunately Ground Engineers (Geotechnical Engineers, Engineering Geologists, Contaminated Land Engineers and Tunnelling Engineers) are on the Home Office Shortage Occupation List and therefore get priority over non shortage occupations. Invoking the Shortage Occupation List also removes the obligation to prove that it has not been possible to recruit a suitable candidate from within the UK or elsewhere in the EU. Anyone recruiting from outside the EU should therefore consider this route. For further information please click here.

News Laboratories

AGS Quality Results in Ground Investigation Seminar

- by
Tags: AGS Laboratories Seminar

The AGS are pleased to announce their Quality Results in Ground Investigation seminar is taking place on Wednesday 14th October 2015 at Hamilton House, London. This full day conference is aimed at clients and consultants and focuses on what laboratories can provide, as well as the importance of sampling.

Open to both Members and Non-Members of the AGS, the conference will see a series of industry experts present on a number of specialist topics including:

  • Ensuring Quality of Testing in the Geotechnical Laboratory – Proficiency Testing and what goes Wrong – John Powell (Technical Director, Geolabs)
  • Quality laboratory data – are consultants bovvered? – Hugh Mallett (Technical Director, BuroHappold)
  • The replacement of BS1377 has begun – Roger Brown, (Associate Director, Laboratories – Fugro)
  • Sample Extraction – Matthew Baldwin, (Technical Director – Soil Engineering)
  • Sampling Standards – Chris Swainson, (Principle Engineer, Geotechnics)
  • Double Standards: Accreditation and Transition to New Standards – Graeme Thomas, (Assessment Manager UKAS)
  • Good Result/Bad Result – Chris Wallace, (Technical Manager, Geolabs)

Tickets are priced at £50 for AGS Members or £85 to non AGS Members. All Prices excluded VAT.

Quality Results in Site Ground Investigation Seminar is sponsored by;

DETS
DETS offer a wide range of quality accredited analytical testing services for the environmental, construction, waste, fuel and engineering industries. Our range of testing services cover the analysis of Land, Groundwater, Effluents, Waste & Gases, Fuels & Biomass, and Asbestos using a modern, well equipped laboratory, with highly skilled staff.

Envirolab
Multidisciplinary organic and inorganic testing services. Offering the UK’s most comprehensive laboratory testing analytical service for Soil and Water contaminants. Tailored TurnAround. UKAS and MCERTS accreditations guarantee our commitment to quality. In-house courier service and complimentary sample collection equipment. Waste classification expertise.

Geotechnical Engineering
Geotechnical Engineering Limited was incorporated in 1961 to provide ground investigation services. We remain the largest privately owned ground investigation contractor in the UK providing quality data to the construction industry. We employ approximately 160 salaried staff. This includes NVQ qualified drillers, site technicians, surveyors, laboratory technicians, engineers and consultants.

Keynetix
Keynetix KeyLAB software is the leading laboratory management system built specifically for geotechnical and construction laboratories. It will improve your laboratory’s efficiency at every stage of the testing process from sample and storeroom management, through to electronic scheduling, testing and reporting. Clever integration with Microsoft Excel® allows you to easily customise worksheets and reports whilst staying in complete control of your laboratory data.

Geolabs
Geolabs Limited are a wholly independent testing-only company whose staff have a combined total of 350+ years of soils testing experience, from classification testing through to advanced triaxial and direct simple shear. They are accredited by UKAS for a wide range of tests including: effective stress, shearboxes, consolidation, permeability etc.

Equipe Group
Incorporating Equipe Training and Equipe Geosolutions, the Equipe Group are one of the leading lights in the sustained development and growth of the geotechnical and drilling sectors. Equipe Training offer industry specific Health and Safety training, along with geotechnical and drilling courses, whilst Equipe Geosolutions provide new, ground-breaking technologies such as KeyLogbook.

Structural Soils
Structural Soils Ltd, a site investigation contractor, based in Bristol, with branch offices in Castleford near Leeds, Hemel Hempstead and Glasgow and overseas. Soil samples are tested in the company’s own well-equipped UKAS-accredited soil laboratories in Bristol, Castleford and Hemel Hempstead and chemical samples in our lab in Hyde.

Concept Consultants
Concept specialises in geotechnical, geoenvironmental and structural investigations and associated laboratory testing. Formed over 18 years ago we have grown to occupy a leading role in the UK. Concept have been awarded the GE Award for Best Ground Investigation Specialist (2014) as well as the ICE London Civil Engineering Award.

 

For further information or to register your attendance, please email ags@ags.org.uk

News

AGS Sponsors NCE Tunnelling & Underground Space Awards

- by
Tags: awards NCE Tunnelling & Underground Space Awards NEC tunnelling

The AGS is proud to announce they are supporting NCE’s hugely popular Tunnelling & Underground Space Awards. Taking place in London this December, the awards showcase the very best tunnelling expertise and is regarded as a premier networking event for the global tunnelling community.

The awards attract entries from the tunnelling industry’s elite and our judging panel is packed with world-renowned tunnelling specialists representing clients, designers and contractors – and so to win is to truly excel.

Shortlisted contenders converge on London in December to join key clients including High Speed 2 and Thames Tideway Tunnel in a 400-plus audience with one thing in mind – who are 2015’s outstanding tunnellers? Winners are recognised in NCE, the official magazine of the world-renowned Institution of Civil Engineers, with our global audience of 80,000+ professional engineers.

As ever there is range of categories to suit the entire industry, from the biggest, multi-national contractor to the smallest specialist supplier. Categories include Tunnelling Project of the Year, Product/Equipment Innovation and Specialist Tunnelling Project of the Year.

New categories for this year include Tunnelling Team of the Year – recognising collaborative working in the tunnelling and underground space industry – Tunnel Operator of the Year – recognising the on-going efforts of operators to provide safe and reliable infrastructure – and the Fire Safety Award – recognising innovation in the fast-developing world of fire suppression.

For full details of categories and deadline details, please visit http://bit.ly/TunnelAGS

News

AGS to Exhibit at Geotechnica 2015

- by
Tags: AGS Geotechnica

The AGS is proud to announce that they’ll be exhibiting and sponsoring the UK largest geotechnical conference and exhibition; Geotechnica.

Taking place at the Warwickshire Exhibition Centre between the 8th and 9th July, Geotechnica celebrates the geotechnical and drilling industry in its entirety, helping to promote the specialist services, products and innovations that the industry has to offer.

This two day event brings together all industry sectors including suppliers and manufacturers, and will feature live demonstrations, technical presentations as well as equipment and services.

As well as exhibiting, the AGS will be sponsoring the afternoon presentations on Thursday 9th July, entitled, how AGS data makes organisations more efficient. This segment will consist of a series of short presentations about advances in the use of capturing and using Geotechnical Data from site, through the laboratories to report and beyond. The talks will also discuss the use of AGS data through the process and will include a number of case studies to show how it works for real projects. Guest speakers will include, Ben Armstrong (Ground Technology Services), Simon Miles (Atkins) and Dr Roger Chandler (Keynetix).

For further information on the event or to register, please visit the Geotechnica website or contact the Equipe Group by calling 01295 670990.

News Loss Prevention

AGS Chemical and Legal Helplines

- by
Tags: AGS Association of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Specialists Beale & Co free chemical advice free contractual advice Marquis & Lord

All Members of the Association of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Specialists are entitled to free chemical and contractual advice through the use of Loss Prevention Committee Members, Marquis & Lord and Beale & Co.

 

For advice on chemical safety and best practice contact Marquis & Lord where the first 30 minutes of advice will be free of charge to all AGS Members.

 

Additionally, if you’re an AGS Member and are looking for legal advice, please speak to Beale & Co where the first 15 minutes of legal advice will be free of charge.

 

 

CHEMICAL SAFETY HELPLINE

Marquis & Lord

Telephone: +44 (0) 121 288 2386

www.marquisandlord.com

 

 

LEGAL HELPLINE

Beale & Co

Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7469 0400 (Please quote ‘AGS Helpline’)

www.beale-law.com

News Contaminated Land

National Quality Mark Scheme for Land affected by Contamination open for consultation

- by
Tags: AGS CL:AIRE Contaminated Land Contaminated Land: Applications in Real Environments Land Forum QMLC

The proposed National Quality Mark Scheme for Land affected by Contamination (QMLC) is a scheme that has been developed by the Land Forum to provide visible identification of documents that have been checked for quality by a Suitably Qualified and experienced Person.  It is hoped that this will provide increased confidence and improved quality of submissions made under regulatory regimes, particularly planning applications, related to previously used land.

 

Through endorsement by the Land Forum and through joint ownership by Land Forum members the scheme can be considered to have support and acceptance across the community and to be nationally recognised.

 

The initiative is supported in principle by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. A positive response has also been received from individual devolved administrations. The scheme is intended to be launched in autumn 2015.

 

The consultation is being led by the Land Forum to gather stakeholders’ feedback on the proposed National Quality Mark Scheme for Land affected by Contamination (QMLC) (www.claire.co.uk/qmlc) will run to May 15th 2015. To participate in the consultation please follow the link:

www.claire.co.uk/qmlc-consultation

News Contaminated Land

Panel debate on Asbestos in soil

- by
Tags: AGS Members' Day Asbestos asbestos risks C733 CIRIA Contaminated Land Dr Ogden panel panel debate Richard Ogden risk

Understanding the risks posed by Asbestos in soil will be explored  through a panel discussion that brings together Dr Richard Ogden (co-author of CIRIA’s C733 document) and members of the AGS Contaminated Land Working Group. The panel debate will take place during AGS Members’ Day, on 18 March and is scheduled for 3.30pm.

Dr Ogden will be giving a presentation to put the discussion in context and introduce the known issues and inferred risks surrounding the presence of asbestos in soils. These include topics such as the risks on construction sites during and post works, what laboratory tests are required and the international effort to understand the soil-air relationship.

Following this presentation AGS Chairman Seamus Lefroy-Brookes,  Chris Swainston, Steve Moreby, and Contaminated Land Working Group chairman Neil Parry will join Dr Ogden to discuss the issues.

 

News Data Management

Do you have AGS data format questions?

- by

The AGS data format comprises  a dictionary of codes denoting different categories and types of data commonly used in the geotechnical and geoenvironmental industry. Through it different software applications can exchange information allowing, for example, site investigation data to be passed from a contractor to consultant to client.

The data format is evolving all the time, so if you have a question, want to learn more or as an experienced user wish to submit a code for consideration to the working group please visit the AGS Data Format Microsite here.

 

News

Fairer AGS subscription model

- by
Tags: affiliate fees member members membership membership categories personal member practitioner practitioner definition subscription

As you may be aware, the AGS has been significantly restructured to suit the demands of today’s members, and to ensure that it continues to play a central key role in improving our industry for the future. At the AGS AGM of 19th March 2014, the AGS Byelaws relating to membership were changed[1] and there are now only 3 classes of membership:

  1. Member,
  2. Affiliate,
  3. Personal Member.

To become a full AGS Member, you need to either be a Practitioner or employ one full-time Practitioner;

Definition of Practitioner: for the purposes of AGS membership, a Practitioner shall be actively practising as a geotechnical or geoenvironmental specialist, and will comply via one of the following minima criteria:

  1. a RoGEP – Professional grade;
  2. a Chartered Member or equivalent of the Institution of Civil Engineers, The Geological Society of London, The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, The Royal Society of Chemists, or other appropriate Institution approved by the AGS Membership Panel, with a minimum of 5 years’ relevant post-graduate experience; or
  3. 15 years’ relevant experience minimum if not chartered as in 1 (E) (i) or (ii) above, coupled with the ability to demonstrate a long-term, high level of commitment, dedication and professionalism to the industry.

As AGS Members employ from 1 – 500 practitioners, 14 subscription ‘bands’ have been created, to ensure a more equable subscription system.

Members should have received a letter in the post with full information listed.

The AGS would like to thank you for your continued support and to remind you that the AGS is a not-for-profit organisation and your subscription goes entirely towards the running of the organisation.

Full information was listed that Members should have received in the post, but if you’d like any further clarification, please email ags@ags.org.uk