This page carries selected releases issued by the MGH Conglomerate and its two operating companies, MGH Production and MGH Defence. Items are reproduced in reverse chronological order and remain as issued. Some concern festivals, county shows and warehouse openings; others concern trials, software and export-managed equipment. The group sees no contradiction in this arrangement and therefore offers none.
Group results for the year ended 31 January 2003
, London
The MGH Conglomerate today announced audited turnover of £184.2m for FY02/03, compared with £171.66m in the preceding year. MGH Production contributed £61.7m and MGH Defence £122.5m. Permanent staff numbered 2,300 at year end, with seasonal event staffing peaking at approximately 3,400. Group Finance Director Marguerite Loh said the result reflected disciplined contract selection, firm cost control and the continued preference, in both divisions, for equipment that returns from site in a usable state.
MERIDIAN™ 4.2 released for supported customers
, List X
MGH Defence has released MERIDIAN Analyst Workstation v4.2 to customers under support. The principal change is an exportable audit package allowing queries, result sets and entity merges to be produced under a warrant reference without engineering attendance. A representative deployment ingests 4.1 million records, resolves 91,447 entities and reports a mean merge confidence of 0.972. Technical Director Dr Ingrid Sollberg said the objective was not a more decorative interface but a report that could be handed to an oversight officer without a separate technical explanation.
Production retains SIA Approved Contractor status
, Dunstable
MGH Production Ltd has been re-approved under the SIA Approved Contractor Scheme following its annual assessment, scoring 137 out of 176 indicators against a pass threshold of 96. The assessment examined licence checking, roster control, training records, incident handling and supervisor availability during the 2002 season. Managing Director Susan Okonjo-Reid said the result was welcome, though in her view clients remained more interested in whether gates opened on time and closed only when necessary.
KESTREL-3ER completes first guided firing at Aberporth
, List X
The extended-range KESTREL-3ER precision effector completed its first guided firing on 27 November during trials at Aberporth. The round flew a 96 km profile against a manoeuvring target, demonstrated handover between imaging and semi-active modes, and executed a commanded terminal wave-off before re-attack. KESTREL-3ER remains in development and is not offered for export pending SPIRE licensing and FCO clearance. Dr Peter Vane-Latimer described the firing as correctly uneventful.
New 118,000 sq ft kit store opened at Dunstable
, Dunstable
The Chairman, Dame Helen Ashcombe-Wray DBE, has opened a new 118,000 sq ft equipment store at Bellhouse Park, consolidating seven leased units into one racked and barcoded facility. The building includes 46 loading doors, a dedicated LOLER inspection bay and a cable hall sized for festival-scale preparation. Operations Director Barry Vosper said the practical gain was that crews would spend less time locating truss, feeder and barriers, and more time loading them on the correct vehicle.
SHOREBIRD™ Dover Strait trial results issued to agencies
, List X
MGH Defence has issued the final report of the SHOREBIRD Dover Strait trial to participating agencies. Over 84 days the system fused AIS, coastal radar, port state control records and vessel manifests into a single track picture, achieving measured track continuity of 94.1 per cent. Of 11,208 observed transits, 312 carried a static record inconsistent with the lodged manifest. SHOREBIRD records such discrepancies, preserves the reasoning chain and leaves the subsequent conversation to the customer.
Board appointments announced
, London
The Board has appointed Marguerite Loh as Group Finance Director with effect from 1 August 2002. Ms Loh succeeds Douglas Wrenfield, who retires after twenty-one years with the group and will continue as a trustee of the MGH Foundation. Rosalind Teague joins as a non-executive director on the same date. Company Secretary Alan Fitchett remains in post and, by common agreement, continues to be the only officer who can locate every version of the statutory books without assistance.
Cheltondale County Show appoints MGH for nineteenth consecutive year
, Dunstable
MGH Production has been appointed for the nineteenth consecutive year to provide crowd safety, stewarding, temporary structures and public address services at the Cheltondale County Show. The planned 2002 deployment comprises 96 SIA-licensed operatives, two grandstands totalling 1,850 seats, 14.2 km of temporary cable and one GOLDCELL™ control room. Head of Crowd Safety Ray Tunnicliffe said continuity matters less because it is sentimental than because each summer begins more efficiently when the gate plans, livestock routes and weather procedures are already known.
LATTICEWORK™ benchmark note published
, List X
MGH Defence has published a benchmark note showing LATTICEWORK deduplicating a 2.4 million-record reference corpus in 11 minutes 04 seconds on a four-way Sun Fire. Every merge carries both a confidence score and a reason string, enabling an analyst to ask why two records were joined and to receive a sentence rather than an instruction to be impressed. The benchmark pack, including all 1,943 adjudicated failure cases, has been circulated to supported customers and selected evaluation teams.
MGH Foundation expands engineering apprenticeship scheme
, London
On the eightieth anniversary of founder, the Board has endowed the MGH Foundation with a further £250,000 to support six engineering apprenticeships each year across the group. Placements will rotate through event power, rigging inspections, secure systems integration and workshop maintenance at our List X site. Group Chief Executive maintained that most avoidable failures were prepared for only in theory; the programme is intended to correct that habit while staff are still young enough to listen.
Media enquiries
Media enquiries for either division are handled centrally by the office of the Company Secretary at the registered office, not by operational staff on event sites, test ranges or customer premises.
press@mgh.org.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7946 0812 (09.00-17.30, Monday to Friday)
Out of hours: +44 (0)7700 900 118 (duty officer only)
MGH does not comment on customers, contracts, export licence applications, trial participation or market speculation; no comment should be taken to imply agreement, disagreement or encouragement.
Pre-2001 releases are not held online. The archive is available by written request only to the Company Secretary at Sceptre House, 12-14 Farringdon Row, London EC1M 3JQ; requests should quote the year and subject where known, and are answered by first class post.
Page last updated 12 March 2003. Visitors since 01/01/1998:
press@mgh.org.uk
