Edinburgh hosts first 2009 meeting of the ENS-YGN network

The first European Nuclear Society Young Generation Network (ENS-YGN) meeting of 2009 was hosted by the UK in Edinburgh, from 13 – 15 February. Approximately 20 people from 11 different countries attended the event, which was organised before and after the Core Committee meeting that took place on 15 February. The programme for the three days included a technical visit to the British Energy AGR station at Torness, a meeting of the ENS-YGN ad-hoc Working Group on the redesign of the YGN website, an informal ENS-YGN dinner at the Novotel Edinburgh Centre Hotel, a formal ENS-YGN dinner at Le Monde, the Core Committee meeting itself and, finally, the PIME welcome cocktail at the Sheraton Grand Hotel & Spa.

The technical visit was extremely eye-opening for everyone, especially for the European members as the AGR is a design that is unique to Britain and will be used to power the second generation of UK nuclear power stations.

After the tour, the European representatives attended an informal dinner where they met with members of the UK YGN Committee and shared stories and experiences.

The meeting on 14 February focused on the redesign of the YGN section of the ENS website because its current structure hasn’t proved to be user-friendly. Improvements discussed included having online delegate forms, updating the front page sections regularly and having a password protected area for internal work. It is hoped that the website will be revamped by the end of the year.

The Core Committee meeting on 15 February involved discussions on a number of issues, including the ENS-YGN workshop at IYNC 2008, ENS meetings that have recently taken place in Brussels, the voting for the 2009 Jan Runermark Award and the location for the next Core Committee meeting.

Figure 1: Some of the delegates present at the Core Committee meeting

Both the meetings of 14 February and 15 February were hosted by Halcrow Yolles’ Edinburgh Office. The informal dinner on Friday 13 February and the formal dinner at Le Monde on 14 February were both kindly sponsored by Sellafield Ltd and Halcrow Yolles. The technical visit was organised by a UK representative of the ENS-YGN, Neil Crewdson and his colleague, Priya Shah. A big thank you must go too to British Energy for organising an enlightening technical tour of their AGR.

By Priya Shah