The Welding Institute upcoming events

Eastern Counties Branch Online Presentation: Energy Storage Solutions (18 Nov 2026)

Wed, 18 Nov 2026 18:30:00 GMT

The Eastern Counties Branch invite you to their November online technical presentation: Energy Storage Solutions

Download the poster here:

Benefits from attending the event:

Join online A friendly, low-pressure way to see what the branch is like (join even if you don’t know anyone.)
Meet peers virtually and make useful connections wherever you join from. It’s a welcoming, inclusive space for new voices and first-time attendees.
Practical takeaways you can use straight away, shared by people working in the industry right now. Accessible to all members.
Interactive discussion and Q&A with questions taken from the online chat. Bring your real questions and get honest, helpful answers.
Get involved at your own pace. Attend online, and help shape what the branch does next.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD):

The Welding Institute awards points towards CPD for delegates attending this webinar. Every hour attendance of an event will earn 2 points towards your continuing professional development.

Southern Counties Branch November In-person Technical Presentation: Catastrophic Failures - Revisiting the John Thompson Pressure Vessel (26 Nov 2026)

Thu, 26 Nov 2026 19:00:00 GMT

The Welding Institute Southern Counties Branch invite you to their November Technical Presentation: Catastropic Failures - Revisiting the John Thompson Pressure Vessel

The presentation will take place on 26 November 2026 at 7pm at King Rufus Pub, 135 Winchester Road, Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh SO53 2DU

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT ONLY

Presentation Overview:

As engineers, we try at every stage to ensure that catastrophic failures don’t occur. This presentation revisits one of the key failures from 1965, after which many changes were made to ensure that such failures do not occur again.

John Thompson Pressure Vessel

Our industry expert:

EUR ING Joanna Nicholas CEng FWeldI, Consultant Welding Engineer at TWI Ltd

Meet the speaker:

Joanna joined TWI Ltd in 1999, and has been involved in research, materials selection, and failure investigations, mainly with ferritic steels, alongside welding consultancy. She has also been involved in various aspects of computer modelling of weld phenomena and welding software supporting standardisation of weld procedures and welder qualifications.

Joanna has a broad knowledge of ferritic steels with particular emphasis on hydrogen cracking and hydrogen diffusion, HAZ hardness, mooring chains, fasteners, in-service welding and 9% Ni steels. She has carried out numerous investigations in these areas including failure investigation as well as production qualification and research.

Benefits from attending the event:

Attend in-person For a friendly, low-pressure way to see what the branch is like (come along even if you don’t know anyone.)
Meet local peers and make useful connections wherever you join from. It’s a welcoming, inclusive space for new voices and first-time attendees.
Practical takeaways you can use straight away, shared by people working in the industry right now.
Interactive discussion and Q&A with questions taken from the room. Bring your real questions and get honest, helpful answers.
Get involved at your own pace. Attend in-person to see what events and branches are like, and then you can help shape what the branch does next.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD):

The Welding Institute awards points towards CPD for delegates attending this webinar. Every hour attendance of an event will earn 2 points towards your continuing professional development.

Back-to-Basics: Fitness-For-Service Methodologies (27 Nov 2026)

Fri, 27 Nov 2026 09:30:00 GMT

What will you learn?

Across a range of industries, equipment operates at the limit of its design every day. In some cases, equipment may be operating outside its original design basis, whether due to higher operating loads, unexpected temperatures, or degraded material properties. Damage may have occurred over time, or fabrication flaws may have been uncovered during commissioning, threatening the integrity of the equipment.

Fitness-for-service methodologies allow engineers to take these “beyond design” considerations into account and determine whether equipment can continue to operate safely, without resorting to unnecessary repairs or shutdowns.

This presentation will provide an introduction to fitness-for-service methodologies, along with examples of how these techniques have been successfully applied.

Who should attend?

This presentation will be useful for engineers, operators and owners alike who are not familiar with fitness-for-service methodologies, to give them insight as to when it may be appropriate for these types of studies to be carried out, and what the benefits could be.

Meet the speaker:

Dr Rob Kulka

Section Manager – Fatigue and Fracture Integrity Management, TWI Ltd

Rob Kulka is a chartered mechanical engineer and undertook an engineering doctorate at the University of Manchester, developing the understanding of fracture mechanics behaviours in complex configurations. He has spent twenty years as a structural integrity expert and is now Section Manager for Fatigue and Fracture Integrity Management at TWI.

Rob has significant experience in analysis of material performance and the demonstration of structural integrity of components in the power, petrochemical, and transport industries, through the use of complex computational analysis, defect tolerance and design code assessments. He is an expert in a range of areas of structural integrity, including fitness-for-service.

Please note that payment must be made before the event in order to receive the joining instructions for the event.

Fees:

Category	Price
Professional Members of The Welding Institute – AWeldI	£25 + VAT (£30)
TechWeldI / MWeldI / FWeldI	Free
Industrial Members of TWI Ltd	£25 + VAT (£30)
Non-members	£95 + VAT (£114)
Retired Members	£25 + VAT (£30)
Student Associate Members (The Welding Institute)	£25 + VAT (£30)
TWI Staff	Free
TWI Training Customers	£75 + VAT (£90)
TWI Training School Customers with The Welding Institute membership (within last 12 months)	Free: Please contact us with your Training Customer ID Number and membership number

Can’t Attend Live?

No problem - if you can’t join us on the day, you won’t miss out. By registering in advance and completing payment, you’ll receive full access to the webinar recording after the event, along with any presentation materials (subject to presenter consent).

Please note: access to the recording and materials is only available to free and paid registrants.

Associate Membership (AWeldI) of The Welding Institute

Registering on this Technical Group webinar as a non-member or a TWI Training Customer without Professional Membership gives you full Associate Membership (AWeldI) for one year. To activate your membership, just complete the highlighted fields on the event registration form.

You will also benefit from:

Discounted registration fees for Technical Group events (£25 + VAT)
Free attendance at Branch events
Access to our knowledge database including our library and information services

Sheffield Branch In-person Presentation: Bolting Competency Course (30 Nov 2026)

Mon, 30 Nov 2026 18:00:00 GMT

The Welding Institute Sheffield Branch invite you to their November In-person Technical Presentation: Bolting Competency Course

What will the event cover:

The National Highways Sector Scheme 20 for Steel Bridges requires the Bolting Standard training certificates to be in place by the contractor for:

Level 1 Bolting Operatives

Level 2 Bolting Inspector

Level 3 Bolting Coordinator

The competency requirements are met through practical training, E-learning, and Evidence Assessment.

An overview will be given of the training and how it has developed along with future developments.

Our industry expert:

Pete Walker; Health and Safety, and Training Director at the British Constructional Steelwork Association Ltd

Meet the speaker:

Peter Walker is the Director of Health, Safety, and Training for the British Constructional Steelwork Association Ltd (BCSA), providing strategic leadership on health, safety, and workforce development across the steel construction industry.

He started his career in steelwork fabrication at Cleveland Bridge and moved into a full-time health and safety role in 1991 working for Trafalgar House in the Fabrication and Construction of Offshore Modules; he then went on to work in Maintenance and Modification work for Chemical Process and Oil Refinery Plants.

Representing the steel construction sector since 2004, his role at BCSA is to support its members with guidance/advice on all matters related to health, safety, and training to ensure they keep up to date with current regulations. Peter also works with other Trade Associations to influence industry responses to regulatory change, advances in best practice, and works with the Health and Safety Executive and other key bodies to strengthen standards and performance.

Benefits from attending the event:

Attend in-person For a friendly, low-pressure way to see what the branch is like (come along even if you don’t know anyone.)
Meet local peers and make useful connections wherever you join from. It’s a welcoming, inclusive space for new voices and first-time attendees.
Practical takeaways you can use straight away, shared by people working in the industry right now.
Interactive discussion and Q&A with questions taken from the room. Bring your real questions and get honest, helpful answers.
Get involved at your own pace. Attend in-person to see what events and branches are like, and then you can help shape what the branch does next.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD):

The Welding Institute awards points towards CPD for delegates attending this webinar. Every hour attendance of an event will earn 2 points towards your continuing professional development.

Teesside Branch Online Technical Presentation: Clearing the Air - Why LEV in Welding Needs a Culture Shift (7 Dec 2026)

Mon, 07 Dec 2026 18:00:00 GMT

The Teesside Branch invite you to their December online technical presentation: Clearing the Air - Why LEV in Welding Needs a Culture Shift

Presentation overview:

In this session, Craig will explore Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) in welding - one of the most talked-about topics in UK fabrication and shipbuilding right now, and one that's still not well understood on the ground. He will look at the health risks to welders and the people alongside them when fumes are not properly controlled, the impact on project when HSE or a client's safety team stops work, and why off-the-shelf LEV equipment doesn't always suit portable welding applications. Craig will also flag a growing concern: apprentice welders coming through major hubs with little to no proper extraction provided or LEV training given. The session is a call for UK industry to work together and treat LEV as part of good welding practice, not a barrier to it.

Meet the speaker:

Craig Cameron, Lots of experience and a well qualified technical team at SA Equip.

What the event will cover:

Craig leads UK Projects at SA Equip, where they design and supply portable ATEX-certified ventilation, lighting and local exhaust ventilation (LEV) for hazardous and industrial environments.

Craig's role put him on the front line of customer conversations - spending most of his time talking directly to welders, supervisors, and safety teams on site, understanding where LEV is falling short in practice.

Included in this is the project management of their work on Hinckley Point C and with Babcock, where they have worked closely with clients to design solutions from scratch for sites that don't fit anything off the shelf. Those conversations feed straight into SA Equip's design and field service team who do the technical heavy lifting.

This talk draws on that experience: a view from the front line of what welders and their employers are actually dealing with, rather than a technical deep dive from a qualified assessor.

Our industry expert:

Craig Cameron is Head of UK Projects at SA Equip, a UK based manufacturer of, among other things, portabel ventilation and local exhaust ventilation (LEV) equipment for hazardous (ATEX) and industrial environments. Craig's role is at the sharp end of customer conversations, including project managing SA Equip's work on a major nuclear new-build and defence ship building accounts, where he has worked closely with clients while SA Equip collaboratively designed LEV solutions for their complex welding scopes. While his role isn't technical in nature, he has unique experience aroung welding LEV from manufacturer to weldin and all the HSE, C-suite, and procurement perspectives involved inbetween.

Benefits from attending the event:

Join online A friendly, low-pressure way to see what the branch is like (join even if you don’t know anyone.)
Meet peers virtually and make useful connections wherever you join from. It’s a welcoming, inclusive space for new voices and first-time attendees.
Practical takeaways you can use straight away, shared by people working in the industry right now. Accessible to all members.
Interactive discussion and Q&A with questions taken from the online chat. Bring your real questions and get honest, helpful answers.
Get involved at your own pace. Attend online, and help shape what the branch does next.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD):

The Welding Institute awards points towards CPD for delegates attending this webinar. Every hour attendance of an event will earn 2 points towards your continuing professional development.

Branches Online Presentation: Psychological Safety in Engineering: Creating the Conditions to Speak Up, Learn, and Perform (10 Dec 2026)

Thu, 10 Dec 2026 18:00:00 GMT

The Welding Institute extends an invite to all Branches for this completely different online presentation covering one of the 'softer skills' in engineering: Psychological Safety in Engineering: Creating the Conditions to Speak Up, Learn, and Perform

Presentation:

This is an interactive engineering-focused session exploring how psychological safety supports speaking up, learning, constructive challenge, and high performance.

Overview:

What happens when an engineer sees a concern but does not feel able to raise it? This session looks at psychological safety in engineering teams and why the ability to question, challenge, admit uncertainty and learn from mistakes matters. Drawing on Challenger, Google's Project Aristotle, and Royal Academy of Engineering work, the session connects the evidence to practical behavious that can strengthen technical decision-making, quality, learning and team performance.

Our industry expert:

Dr Gervasio (Gerry) Salerno, CEng MWeldI MRAeS

Special Processes and Manufacturing Laboratory Manager, ITP Aero UK

Meet the speaker:

Dr Gervasio (Gerry) Salerno, CEng MWeldI MRAeS, is a Special Processes and Manufacturing Laboratory Manager at ITP Aero UK. His career has developed from hands-on welding and manufacturing engineernig into technical and people leadership. He leads multidisciplinary engineering and laboratory activities supoprting special manufacturing processes and has a particular interest in how leadership communication and team culture influences engineering quality, learning, and performance.

Benefits from attending the event:

Join online A friendly, low-pressure way to see what the branch is like (join even if you don’t know anyone.)
Meet peers virtually and make useful connections wherever you join from. It’s a welcoming, inclusive space for new voices and first-time attendees.
Practical takeaways you can use straight away, shared by people working in the industry right now. Accessible to all members.
Interactive discussion and Q&A with questions taken from the online chat. Bring your real questions and get honest, helpful answers.
Get involved at your own pace. Attend online, and help shape what the branch does next.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD):

The Welding Institute awards points towards CPD for delegates attending this webinar. Every hour attendance of an event will earn 2 points towards your continuing professional development.