President's Page - December 2011

Dear friends and professional colleagues,

What an exciting month it’s been as I commence the second half of my presidential year.  My year has flown to date and I’ll be a “past it” President in a flash! Many of our past Presidents warned me of this and boy were they right!

ABE Council Member Inductions and Council Meeting
On the afternoon of 6 October I travelled down to our HQ in Northampton with my Northern Region colleague and ABE Junior Vice President Stan Barker. We travelled on the Thursday to enable us to
get an early start on the Friday at HQ; and we spent the morning saying hello and touching base with our excellent staff team at HQ.  I sympathise with the staff in trying to understand two Geordies, one’s bad enough I would have thought!
I also took the time liaising with John Hooper our CEO in making final preparations for chairing my second ABE Council Meeting on Saturday the 8 October. On the Friday afternoon John Hooper presented an excellent and informative 4 hour induction for our new members to the ABE Board, this was well attended by all but one of our full board, who unfortunately was ill. 

The induction was based around the latest version of the “Directors Handbook” published by The Institute of Directors. This is regarded as the manual for the modern Director and covered the following:

  • The duties, responsibilities and liabilities we all have as board members of the association.
  • The basic principles of company law.
  • The memorandum, articles and bylaws of the association.
  • The governance of the association.
  • The composition and structure of the board.

The induction also included a briefing from the association’s Auditors on the accounts publication annual process; and the core accounting concepts of the association. All in all the afternoon was excellent and personally as a board member I feel it’s useful to attend this briefing every year, to refresh and reiterate what is expected of us as your representatives on the association’s board.

The full Council meeting on the Saturday opened at 9.30am prompt and went well in my view, despite another fairly large agenda. I thank all of our council members for their enthusiasm and input to the
meeting, and in particular for not giving me too much of a hard time as chair, which I appreciate.  We ended the meeting at 13.17 pm just 17 minutes past our scheduled time. This was just as well as I had to blast back up to Newcastle to attend a charity ball that evening.  We will keep you updated in due course on ABE council matters.   

ABE 49th Annual Conference in Newcastle

The following is a brief taster on our 49th Annual Conference which took place in Newcastle on Thursday the 3rd and Friday 4th of November 2011. There was also a fantastic technical visit on Saturday 5th to the “Centre for Life” in Newcastle. A full report on the event will be in next month’s journal.

The theme of the conference was “Achieving More than Compliance in the Design and Maintenance of Buildings”; and was formally opened by Councillor Joe Mitchinson the Mayor of Gateshead who was given special dispensation by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle (who happened to be unavailable to attend) to open our conference. Joe welcomed the exhibitors, dignitaries and delegates to the event, instantly winning their hearts with his warm, natural, humorous and sincere words; his passion for the north east is obvious, as is his passion and pride for the role of Mayor of Gateshead. 

Gateshead and Newcastle have an excellent and long term history of collaboration to improve the region and Gateshead Council in particular have a long standing relationship with the ABE, the Mayor of Gateshead has opened the ABE Northern Regional Exhibitions in Gateshead for the last 24 years and the ABE has reciprocated and supported the Mayor’s Annual Charity year on year.

Joe ended his opening speech by stating “in these tough economic times we need to innovate and develop our industry and professional expertise. Life doesn’t stop, business doesn’t stop and innovation shouldn’t stop because of the economy. I congratulate the ABE and commend you all for showing dedication; and coming here to conference to learn, improve and network with other professionals.” Joe also took the time going round and chatting to the exhibitors.

The programme

I must congratulate the team at ABE HQ, in particular Sarah Dennison and Katie Di Stefano, who put together an exciting and extensive programme covering topics such as Applying New Standards to Older Buildings, Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings, Quality in Design & Construction – A Client’s Perspective and many more. These sessions were delivered by a range of high profile speakers, who shared their knowledge, experience and expertise.

There was also a very exciting expert panel debate on the first day about “Building Control and how far can standards go”, this was chaired by David McCullough, Director of Operational Excellence at TPS Consultancy, with panel members Paul Everall CEO of Local Authority Building Control and Nigel Barr Chairman of The Association of Consultant Approved Inspectors. An excellent hour and a half “Question Time” style debate ensued.

This was followed later by an evening drinks reception and formal conference dinner, comprising:

  • A wonderful meal.
  • The usual toasts to the Queen, Gateshead Council and the Northern Region, The ABE.
  • My presidential address where I let out a few secrets about the Presidential and HQ team who were at conference, for example did you know that Stan Barker our Vice President once starred in a move with Kelly Brook!!  Our CEO also used to do aerobatic flying!!
  • The well deserved presentation of The Distinguished Service Award to Past President Chris Dawson.
  • The evening ended with some excellent after dinner entertainment by world renowned “Mind
    of Kennedy”, which was a mixture of humour and mind reading.

The conference in my view and judging from early feedback I received from delegates; was a resounding success. I extend my hearty thanks to all who travelled from far and wide to attend, in particular one member Bala Bawa Kaoje who is a regular attendee at conference and travels from Nigeria.

As I close for this month I’m looking forward to attending the following events in November:

  • 17th - A Northern Region CPD event on Renewable energy in the built environment.
  • 19th – A Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists Annual Dinner in Cambridge.
  • 24th – An NHBC 75th Anniversary Dinner in London.

Kind regards to you all,

Colin

December 2011