Mr President, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great personal pleasure and privilege to be accorded the task this evening of proposing the first toast. As you will see from the official menu card, it is one of those toasts that speaks for itself. It is to the Institution, and that is surely as it should be. However, when I think of the wording and substance of the toast, it is for me, and I know for many of you, something much more than an institution. We honour, in the toast, two generations and two groups those who, down the years, have found it to be to their advantage professionally (to their professional calling and to the work that they have done in society) that there should be an Institution, and those who share common aims, responsibilities and tasks, be it as engineers, architects or as of that myriad of professions which go to make up the collegiality of the practice of which you are justly proud in cement, glass, plastic, and other things. (I hope that those of you who
are in your inner councils will recognise what I meant by that last remark.)
Dr. Robert Eames