ASHRAE Column
ASHRAE
REGION AT LARGE UPDATE
By Richard Humphrey, president, ASHRAE South Africa Chapter
Each year, each Region in ASHRAE holds a Chapters Regional Conference
(CRC) where all the chapters within a region get together to conduct business
affairs affecting the region, chapter performance and its committees.
T
hese affairs are then reported back to the Society on a yearly
basis along with any actions or motions to be attended to.
The South Africa Chapter belongs to Region-at-Large, the
largest single region within ASHRAE. This yearly event is hosted
by the various chapters making up the Region-at-Large who bid
to host this event on a yearly basis. This year, the conference was
hosted by the Jordan Chapter and held in Amman at the Grand
Hyatt Hotel from 26 – 29 September.
Approximately 300 delegates from all over the Region-at-
Large attended along with myself; president elect, Olu Soluade;
The Regional ASHRAE Conference took place in Jordan, Amman.
Attendees looked at challenges facing each country and
unpacked ways to deal with them.
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RACA Journal I January 2020
the secretary, Russell Hattingh; and the Chapter Training and
Technology chair, Declan Van Greunen. Also, in attendance from
the Society was Mick Schwedhler, the Society treasurer and
Joyce Abrams, the Society director of Member Services.
The programme carried out is intensive and includes some
technical talks but is primarily a business meeting, but well-
attended by local businesses, suppliers and engineers all joining in
the interaction of the talks and meetings.
During the course of 2018 the South African Chapter, as co-
host, in conjunction with India and Pakistan, made a successful
bid to host this Chapters Regional Conference in September 2020
in Cape Town at the Lagoon Beach Hotel. This was approved and
ratified during the Amman Business Meeting.
It is an exciting event in the short history of the South
African Chapter and will be the first time ASHRAE hosts
an international event in South Africa with more than 300
foreign delegates along with Society delegates bound for our
shores in 2020. The Chapter’s Regional Conference will boast
a day of technical presentations for its local and international
members, three days of business meeting and some business-
to-business meetings wrapping up the event. Watch this space
for final dates and make sure you are ready to join in this
historic event.
On 14 November 2019 ASHRAE South African Chapter
and Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) made some
small history with the signing of the first Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) between the Associations and paves
the way for some new activities and collaboration within the
Consulting and Built environment.
Training has once again kicked off with a Medical Gas
Presentation held in October 2019 and a 16-month intensive fire
technical presentation held in Durban November 2019 on the
Practical Application of SANS 10400: 2011 Part T, members in
other regions where able to attend the talk through a live video
feed stream.
On a lighter note we are also proud to announce that our
ASHRAE SA Chapter website went ‘live’ before the December
Shutdown. RACA
www.hvacronline.co.za