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IT WAS with deep regret and sadness that I heard of the death of Mick Bitcon. When close colleagues and friends leave in such an untimely way, we all like to be reflective, and I thought about the work that Mick did for the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) and the vast contribution he made to the way in which the Examinations and Education Committee conducted its business and how the examinations themselves evolved over time. I was chairman of that committee for some time and was fortunate to sit on it with some extremely enthusiastic people, but none more committed and enthusiastic than Mick.
Mick first came onto the Examinations and Education Committee as a co-opted member to help out with such things as syllabus reviews, the introduction of new papers at Membership level, the creation of the new Intermediate Examination, and the ‘routine’ setting and marking of the Institution’s examinations. It was not long before Mick was a fully elected member to the then IFE International Council, during which time he continued his work refining the examinations and contributed to the general debate at Council level on all matters to do with the Institution.
Committee work
There were a number of important issues to which Mick contributed, which changed the examinations directly. The first was the introduction of the fire investigation paper at Member level. Mick, together with a team from Greater Manchester Fire Service, wrote the syllabus for the paper and continued for a number of years to set and mark the examination papers for that subject. He was never just content to mark his own paper; he always made himself available to mark other papers and other questions when the need arose. He always unselfishly stayed behind after the marking sessions had finished each year to help me and the Board of Revisors to carry out the difficult task of setting pass marks and poring over the borderline cases. When dealing with these, Mick always showed a wonderful mixture of compassion, knowledge, understanding and professional judgment to make sure that those candidates who really deserved a pass gained one. There are many members of the Institution who owe their examination passes to Mick’s qualities in making that final decision.
Most of us will remember that one of the ‘big deals’ in management in the 1980s was the need for every organisation to have a business plan. The IFE was no different, and the discussions and debates went on long and weary in Council and the various committees. A decision was taken that each committee would produce its own business plan every 12 months. Mick volunteered to write the Examinations and Education Committee’s plan, to keep it up-to-date and to review it each year. This he did, and the Examinations and Education Committee, along with the Membership Committee, were the only ones to continuously produce this document in the format that was originally designed by Mick.
Part of that business plan was a commitment to a syllabus review every five years, and this was a continuous process. Mick sat on the Syllabus Review Sub-Committee and was responsible for organising meetings on Saturday mornings at Bolton Central fire station. Typical of Mick, he also organised the tea and toast and bolted on to the meeting the regular review and progress check of the business plan.
However, Mick’s commitment to the Institution and the examinations went beyond the work on committees. He encouraged young fire engineers to attend courses that had been set up by Greater Manchester Fire Service at the North Trafford College. He was always keen to ensure that all these students got the most from the courses.
I, like many others, have many lasting memories of Mick, but two really do stick in the mind. The first was the trial of the Intermediate Examination in Dublin, with IFE members from Dublin Fire Brigade taking the examination and Mick, Alan Farghar and Martyn Long, together with John Lehane and John LeStrange from Dublin, supervising. Mick had volunteered to photocopy the exam papers as well as the marking sheets, and he packed then into his suit carrier. We flew to Dublin in the evening and waited at the carousel for our luggage. After half an hour, the only items left on the carousel were a single trainer shoe and a black suit carrier which Mick insisted was not his. Eventually it dawned on us that someone had taken the wrong suit carrier. Mick took the carrier off the carousel and opened it to see if there was any identification, but there was only what was obviously the wedding outfit of a mother of a bride to be. Slowly it dawned on us that all the examination papers were on their way to a wedding somewhere in the Republic of Ireland and we spent the rest of the night contemplating what we were going to do.
In the morning, Mick outlined his plans to save the examination, including one where we could think up some more questions and get someone in Dublin to type them. We were nearly going down that route when the many contacts in Dublin Fire Brigade, together with John Lehane, managed to locate and recover Mick’s suit carrier, and a grateful mother was reunited with her wedding outfit. The rest of the weekend and the examination went without a hitch. Needless to say, the trial was a great success and the Intermediate Examination was introduced the year after, with Mick taking the lead role in its formulation.
External courses
The second memory I have was Mick’s involvement with the accreditation of external courses, particularly a trip we made to Botswana to accredit some courses.
While we were in Gabarone, the chief fire officer of the city thought he would take the opportunity to use these representatives of the IFE to put forward his case for education and fire engineering to not only the City Council but also Government Ministers. We therefore found ourselves whisked around the city and put in front of a number of politicians in various meetings, where Mick was particularly passionate and persuasive about fire engineering, the Institution and the examinations. I am sure that his talks to those representatives have resulted in continued support from Botswana for students from that country who have come through the ‘system’ and have eventually graduated in fire engineering from the University of Central Lancashire.
Mick made a significant contribution to the Institution and there are plenty of members who should be grateful for his dedication and passion in the arena of education and examinations. He was a lovely person to be with and I, like many others, enjoyed his company. He will be sadly missed.
Dr Bob Docherty QFSM, PhD, CEng, FIFireE, MEI, FIFSM was IFE international president in 1999/2000 and is a former chair of the Examinations and Education Committee
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