The report reflects the difficult times that the Institute has been through in 2013.
Mr. President, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It has been a tradition in recent years at NFDC Conventions that the IDE President gives a brief report as to the current state of the Institute as part of the business meeting, but this year we must break with tradition as our President Steve Jack is unable to attend the convention as he and his wife Jenny are at the wedding of a daughter of a close friend. Vice President Duncan Rudall is also unable to attend owing to a previous engagement so the delivery of the report is in my hands.
When I handed the President’s jewel to Steve Jack in November 2012 neither of us could have imaged the turmoil that would hit our institute in a few months after the AGM. Valerie Stroud had agreed an exit strategy with me to take her to her retirement at the AGM of 2014 with some of her workload being moved to her team and her successor to implement a seamless transfer of duties to the new National Secretary over the two year period.
Shortly after the first council meeting of Steve’s presidency Valerie made the decision to leave her post at the institute.
Steve, Duncan, Richard Comley and Stuart Accleton then took on the responsibility of recruiting a successor to Valerie along with all the works required to change bank mandates, notify the charities commission, and keep the institute running whilst all the changes took place and I can assure you all that this was not an easy task.
However the sad passing of Richard Comley during this work put all of the IDE issues into perspective and made us all think of what a great service he had given to the IDE.
We now have a new National Secretary in post, Maureen Tong-Ralphs, and a new team to assist Maureen with her duties. The website will be re-launched shortly, along with the long awaited revamped Demolition Engineer magazine, and we have now resolved all of the issues and will continue to go forward under Steve’s leadership.
The majority of members have now fully embraced CPD and have realised that attending the regional meetings and the highly successful DemoExpo this year gave them sufficient CPD hours to fulfil their requirements so we do not have to terminate so many memberships for non-compliance with CPD.
The DemoExpo was an outstanding success and clearly demonstrates that when NFDC and IDE work together we can show the construction industry the way to do things. Special mentions must go to Adrian and Noel McLean of Armac Group for their hard work and personal commitment in making DemoExpo a success and to both Howard Button and Duncan Rudall for their help in making it work both on the day and financially. I am pleased to say that the event will be repeated in 2015 at the same venue.
IDE membership continues to grow in difficult times and we now have:-
18 Fellows
135 Full Members
385 AMIDE Members
388 Enrolled Members
Those figures, whilst healthy, reflect the next issues facing the Institute in that we have to get the enrolled members to take the exam within the next twelve months or they will be expelled from the institute, and the AMIDE members need to be encouraged to submit their portfolios and sit the professional interview to upgrade their membership to MIDE.
If the enrolled members do not sit the exam in the allotted period they will have to be expelled from the institute and that will have serious implications for IDE revenue going forward, and this potential loss of revenue is high on the list of tasks for the President during his term.
New membership applications continue to grow and it is pleasing to see many NFDC companies actively encouraging their managers to become IDE members, which of course reinforces their competency under CDM2007 Appendix 4.
I would now like to say a few words about IDE events between now and March 2014.
If you have not booked tickets yet for the Autumn Seminar at OGGS on Friday 27th September please do so as they are selling fast.
The AGM this year will be on Friday 15 November at Altitude 360, Millbank Tower, Westminster, London with panoramic views of London on all sides.
The Spring Seminar returns to Royal Armouries, Leeds on Friday 28th February 2014 with a full exhibition from NFDC ISP companies who support both NFDC and IDE.
Finally to sum up a few difficult months for the Institute I would like to mention the motto of a football team that plays in Gold and Black:
“Out of Darkness Cometh Light”
Thank you.
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