Seminars prove a great success with our customers
ALcontrol Land division ran a series of very successful seminars, organised by Hazel Davidson, in 2008, culminating in one per week during November and December.
Our seminars are basically training sessions for our customers to help them understand the data we provide, and give a better interpretation for the risk assessments they perform on the potentially contaminated sites under investigation. The presentations included sessions on:
- Sampling and preserving the integrity of the samples
- Understanding bias, precision, uncertainty and detection limits
- Sample prep and inorganic analysis
- Volatile organics
- Total petroleum hydrocarbons
- Polyaromatic hydrocarbons
- Semivolatile organics including PCBS, phenols and pesticides
- Recent legislation
- MCERTS
Alcontrol have run seminars since the early 1990’s. Since moving to the new site at Hawarden, they have been run on a monthly basis and give our customers an opportunity to see our impressive laboratory facilities. In June 2008 we held our first seminar in Langley and now run monthly seminars alternating between Langley and Hawarden.
In addition to the seminars on ALcontrol sites, we also run bespoke seminars at customer sites, which allow them the opportunity to include several staff without the need to travel to one of our laboratories.
We have also run seminars in Dublin (30th September), Belfast (27th December) and Edinburgh (10th December) each attracting over thirty delegates plus a special seminar in Sheffield (19th November) for a large group of Contaminated Land Officers from various local councils and a few Environment Agency staff.
On 2nd December we ran a very successful seminar at the Natural History Museum entitled ‘Analytical Innovation – what does the industry really want?’ The day consisted of five presentations - Legislative Drivers, and MCERTS in the morning, with three sessions on potential new areas: Screening Tests, Cyclodextrin extraction, and Direct Toxicity Assessment, in the afternoon. After the presentations, in the morning and afternoon, the delegates were split into three breakout groups and asked for their comments, feedback, and ideas on the presentations, plus any other input. This feedback has been collated and is being reviewed by the management team to see how best to implement many of the suggestions.
Seminars for 09 are already being booked, and include the following:
15th January - Langley
29th January - Peter Brett Associates
18th February - Hawarden
25th February - Cork
We are hoping to include a new seminar this year, specifically on soil and water sampling, to tie in with MCERTS requirements which will also include practical demonstrations. Our sampling team in Hawarden has applied for accreditation to ISO 17025 in 2009, and hopefully to MCERTS for waters in 2010, when this new standard goes live.
Throughout 2008, we have talked to almost 500 clients through the seminars, which provide an excellent forum to promote our expertise and technical support capabilities. We hope to surpass this target in 2009.
For further information on our seminars please contact:
Hazel Davidson
Technical Sales Manager
Tel: +44 (0)1244 528700
DDI: +44 (0)1244 528703
Mobile: 07850 804292
