Council of Gas Detection and environmental monitoring (cogdem) - John Saffell & Leigh Greenham

A BRIEF HISTORY: The Early Years
In 1974 the British Standards Institute held a meeting at Hemel Hempstead, inviting most of the of flammable gas detection equipment manufacturers, plus BASEEFA and SIRA. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a draft document in preparation, titled “Technical requirements for Automatic Combustible Gas Alarms”. During the meeting a BSI representative said that it was a pity that the industry did not speak with one voice, rather than contradicting each other. Following this comment, several manufacturers held an informal meeting at the IEE building in London and agreed to form a trade association.

An inaugural meeting was held on 11 December 1974 at the offices of Becorit (G.B.) Ltd in Nottingham, where the Council of Gas Detection Equipment Manufacturers (CoGDEM) was formed. The founding company members were: International Gas Detectors, Becorit (G.B.), Detection  Instruments, Draeger Safety, Electrical Remote Control Co., Neotronics Ltd. and Teather Inter Continental Gas Detection (U.K.). The subscription was fixed at £100 per annum, rules were agreed, Tom Bird of I.G.D. was elected Chairman and Jimmy Farrow of Becorit was elected Vice Chairman. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Company were appointed Council Secretary and a programme of publicity was agreed to both attract additional members and make national bodies aware of our existence.

The appointment of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell was a decision that proved to be too expensive. Whilst they did an excellent publicity job, the first year expenditure was £2221, balanced against an income of fees of just £1000. Mrs Goodall, a part time secretary, rapidly replaced PMW and Eric Jones was appointed the second Chairman in early 1977. Despite the financial limitations of those early days, the presence of Becorit (G.B.) as a member was a significant asset. Becorit subsequently became part of NEI and provided a large hospitality suite which was the venue for the first CoGDEM AGM. Fifteen people attended the dinner for which Becorit charged only £60 in total, which included one bottle of gin, half a bottle of whiskey, five bottles of white wine, three bottles of red wine, one bottle of port and one bottle of brandy. All who attended agreed that it had been a splendid AGM.

In the second year of its life, CoGDEM increased its membership by a further two companies: EEV and GMI. Unfortunately, Becorit, having by now acquired IGD, stood down, leaving the total membership at seven. It was decided to hold meetings in London, but the location had to be cheap because of the limited available funds; so through the good offices of George Chuchla of ELREMCO, we were able to use rooms at the National Liberal Club in central London, and later on, meetings were moved to the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. By 1982 membership had risen to fourteen.