IDE President shares a seasonal greeting

IDE President David Darsey has written a seasonal greeting we thought was worth sharing:

With 2016 drawing to a close I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, the members, for your continued support of the Institute over the last twelve months.

We have seen many new members join us this year and attendance at all IDE events, Seminars, Regional Meetings, Annual Luncheon - to name but a few - have exceeded all of our expectations. The IDE 40th Anniversary celebrations in July at the Science Museum was an amazing success and the feedback extremely positive during the whole evening.

The IDE continues to grow from strength to strength and exciting times are ahead for the us in 2017, especially with the introduction of the new Demolition Degree that will be the first of its kind for the industry.

Personally I am looking forward to the next two years as your President and would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Very Prosperous New Year.

David Darsey, FIDE FRSA
IDE President

Teenage Cancer Trust receives first donation from the IDE

Nicola Irvine, Regional Fundraiser South East for the Teenage Cancer Trust was invited to City Temple last month where Duncan Rudall, current IDE President, handed her a cheque for £2,500.

The money goes towards supporting teenagers with cancer through expert care and support. They don't have to face cancer on their own, but the charity needs ongoing donations to ensure their good work can continue. The IDE donation helps, and it won't be the last with future fundraising events already being planned within the organisation.

Source: IDE

Duncan Rudall makes his maiden speech as IDE President

Here at C&D we have regular employees who are members of the IDE and others who come into the company as and when required. It is one of the latter, Duncan Rudall FIDE, who was recently elected to the position of IDE President at the AGM and luncheon held at the Tower of London.

Whilst there, Duncan made his maiden speech and the video camera of KHL DRi magazine was there to record it and make it available for us to share with you now. You can watch it over on the KHL website.

Watch IDE President Steve Jack address the 2013 Demolition Summit in Amsterdam

Regular readers of this page will know that John has been a judge at the KHL DRi World Demolition Awards since their inception. Each year he goes to Amsterdam for the awards presentation and to listen to the wide range of presentations at the Demolition Summit that takes place the day of the awards.

This year John was particularly keen to listen to IDE President Steve Jack who gave a presentation about the current state of the IDE and the plans for the institute during his Presidency.

That presentation can be seen below:-

IDE presidency changes hands

Friday, November 16th saw our own John Woodward step down as IDE President and hand over the reigns to Steve Jack FIDE.

The 2 years that John has been President have flown by, but now he can take more time to grow the business of C&D Consultancy in the fields of CDM-C works and demolition training.

A full report on the changeover at the top can be found at Demolitionnews including video interviews with Steve Jack the new President, and John.

John will remain on the IDE Council of Management as Immediate Past President for the next two years and will be fully supporting Steve throughout his Presidency.

Demolition News Trophy for IDE Fishing Day unveiled

Regular visitors to this site will know that the IDE President's Fishing Day is going to be held on Wednesday 3rd October at Furnace Mill Fishery in Bewdley. Details of the day and a booking form can be found at the IDE website at www.ide.org.uk.

Demolition News have kindly decided to not only enter a team in the competition, but to sponsor the event with a trophy for the winner and that trophy has now been unveiled at Demolition News Towers.

Not only will the competititon winner get to choose from an array of angling products on the day, he will also go home with this trophy to grace the mantlepiece.

IDE President addresses NFDC Convention Business Meeting

It has been tradition that the IDE President addresses the NFDC Convention Business Meeting whenever the IDE are represented at the convention and this year saw the convention in Madeira and John Woodward addressing the meeting.

The IDE Council voted earlier this year to fund the costs of John’s trip to the convention to try to continue with building the closer working relationship with the NFDC and, as such, John gave an update on IDE matters.

John told the meeting that times are difficult for the IDE as we have lost 25 members this year who had not maintained the correct levels of CPD and that we would lose a further 40+ members in March 2013 if entrant members did not take the exam and progress to AMIDE, but he stressed that for the IDE to be continued to be viewed as an institute that believes in quality and competence then there is no other course of action open to the institute. They cannot allow entrants to be viewed, by uninformed clients, in a similar manner to AMIDE, MIDE, and FIDE.

The newly awarded bursary to Loughborough University for assisting students in preparing end of course assignments on demolition related subjects was well received and viewed as a positive step forward in getting demolition engineering recognised as both a career and a university course.

The admission into the Engineering Council was also well received though John explained that a fully chartered institute was some years away as IDE are a long way short of the 6000 members needed for chartered status at the moment.

John explained the new entry route for persons needing assistance with the exam process and explained fully how the system will work, how to apply for the route, and how IDE will adapt the route to meet the needs of overseas members wishing to progress from entrant to AMIDE.

The address ended with a call for those present to attend the Autumn Seminar at OGGS on Friday 28 September and the AGM and Luncheon at Lords on Friday 16 November to see Steve Jack installed as the new President.

A slideshow of pictures of the Convention can be viewed at http://t.co/5NTB3t4s. Video courtesy of Demolitionnews.

Words from the IDE President

Our own John Woodward has had a new article go live over at the PDWorld website. The article forms part of the Words from the IDE President column and this time carries the title "You get what you pay for."

Below is an excerpt from the article:

"In these austere times in which we are all currently living, it seems that clients have all too readily abandoned the need for value in exchange for an almost compulsive clamour for the lowest possible price.

But in demolition, as in so many other walks of life, you get what you pay for. If a client searches long and hard enough, they can always find someone willing to do demolition work for a little bit less. But that apparent cost saving has to be achieved by the low cost demolition contractor somehow..."

Head on over to the PDWorld website to read the rest.

Mark Rea to speak at the IDE Seminar

As regular readers of this site will know John is the President of the IDE and a member of many other institutions related to the demolition industry. One such instituition where John holds a membership is The Institute of Construction Management.

So John is particularly pleased that the President of the IConstM, Mark Rea, has confirmed that he is willing to speak at the IDE Seminar at OGGS London.

Full details of the event that will see a Meeting of Presidents are on the IDE site at www.ide.org.uk.

A biography of Mark Rea can be found at demolitionengineers.net

IDE President's blog discusses CPD and calls for contributors

Our very own John Woodward, who also holds the position of IDE President, has had his most recent Presidential Blog entry go live. The focus this time is on contributors to Demolition Engineer and some reminders about CPD.

Publication of Demolition Engineer relies on and benefits from contributions from the demolition community. It needs more such contributions which can take the form of articles, photographs, comments, or letters.

As for CPD, John hands out a few reminders about how to achieve the necessary CPD hours which are broken down into 5 key areas. For Non-IDE members there's another set of things you can do that are also detailed.

Head on over to the Presidential Blog entry using the link below to get all the information.

Source: Demolition Engineer

John Woodward: A Man with a Plan features in PDi magazine

Two things have happened recently with regards to our own John Woodward. The first is that he became President of the IDE. The second is that he appears in the latest issue of PDi magazine.

The article is entitled "A Man with a Plan" and was written by Demolition News' Mark Anthony. The magazine is free to download from this link, and John appears on page 64.

The introduction to the article reads:

The Insitute of Demolition Engineers has a new man in the presidential hot seat. PDI's Mark Anthony spent some time with new president John Woodward to look at his hopes and ambitions for the IDE over the next two years of his reign

IDE President's Blog: An awful week in Construction & Demolition

John Woodward has posted a new entry on the IDE President's Blog over at the IDE website. It covers how 6 people have died in accidents in the construction and demolition industry needlessly over the past week.

You can read the entry here.

IDE President's blog now live

As John Woodward has now transitioned into the role of IDE President, he also gets the privilege of writing an IDE President blog.

That has now been setup as part of the Demolition Engineer website, and you can view it here.

The new blog will run alongside continued posts on DemolishDismantle.

John Woodward's Presidential Address 2010

We have included the video above and the text of the Presidential Address John Woodward gave last week on acceptance of his new role of IDE President:

Good afternoon Past Presidents, Fellows, Members and guests.

When I became a full member of this institute and collected my scroll from Charles Moran in November 2000 I looked around the room in awe that day at the talented demolition engineers present who were both inspirational to and respected by new members such as myself, and I thought how proud I was to become accepted into the only institute for demolition engineers in the world.

Today as I stand before you as your newly elected President I again look around this room with awe at the talented demolition engineers, and particularly at those who are newly enrolled or working their way through to full membership as those engineers are the future of the industry that we all love, and I am immensely proud to be doing so as President.

It has often been said that I am a “life long demolition man” but that is not true as I moved into demolition from a career in civil engineering, however you could say that demolition runs in the family as my father, who is here today, spent many hours in 1944 blowing down bridges over the Irrawaddy River to prevent the Japanese over running Burma, so perhaps my love of demolition comes from that.

During the two years of my Presidency I intend to make the following a priority for the IDE:-

Actively encouraging enrolled members to sit the exam as soon as they are confident enough to do so and encourage AMIDE grade members to complete their portfolios, attend the professional interview and become full members.

To do everything possible to expand membership internationally to accept as members some of the demolition engineers in USA, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil and from many other areas of the world, thus increasing both membership numbers and revenue.

This will NOT be done by lowering the standards of the IDE entrance criteria.

The IDE will NEVER be an institute where you can send a cheque and a CV and receive membership by return as that would open the floodgates for site staff from major contractors to become IDE members and try even harder to tell us how to do demolition. Major contractor employees try to tell us our jobs now, just imagine how much worse it would be if we actually allowed them to become members?

Of course to retain membership of our institute we require members to engage in CPD so it is my intention to promote at every opportunity the need for CPD as it is by far the best way to demonstrate to any potential employer or client that not only are you a competent engineer, but you maintain that competence by actively engaging in and recording CPD.

Proof of competence via CPD shows that IDE members fully understand legislation and guidance relating to demolition and I intend therefore for IDE to publish guidance on demolition related subjects such as remote demolition of asbestos cement sheet roofs, refurbishment and demolition management for example.

I intend to encourage greater co-operation and involvement with other similar organisations such as NFDC, IOSH, ICE, IOB, etc and to exchange views, opinions and best practice for the education of everyone who is prepared to listen either via IDE publications or IDE seminars and events where we intend to increase the numbers of non IDE members to encourage people to listen to what we have to say and to realise that what we say is from a base of knowledge, competence and supreme skill.

And finally I intend make all Fridays Presidential fishing days, this of course will not be mandatory but is highly recommended.

Your Council of Management are committed to the hard work required to continue to move the institute forward, profitably and at all times maintaining our professionalism and I am certain that they will be supportive of my priorities.

All members of the IDE, should be immensely proud of the fact that we are more skilled than any other profession in construction and more adept at developing new technology to improve performance, safety and recycling, by investing vast sums of money in new equipment and training for employees to ensure that demolition remains at the forefront of construction related trades.

We recycle the present to make way for the future.

Anyone can put a building up but it takes a trained, competent, skilled demolition engineer to take that building down safely. Anyone in this room who works in demolition should be really proud that we belong to such a highly skilled profession and you should never allow your skills to be under rated and undermined.

It has often been said that when electing a president you never who you have elected until six months into the presidential term and I am sure that there will be times in my presidency when I will express an opinion that you may not agree with, but let me reassure you that I speak from the heart with the passion that I have for both the industry and this institute.

And finally to borrow a few words from another President:

Ask not what the IDE can do for you, Ask what you can do for the IDE.

John Woodward becomes IDE President

C&D Consultancy are delighted to announce that John Woodward was elected to the position of President of The Institute of Demolition Engineers on Friday 19th November at the IDE AGM at the Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden.

John succeeded Terry Quarmby, (Director of Dorton Group) and will hold the post for two years before being himself succeeded by Steve Jack of Erith Group.