Welcome to my blog. I had one thought in mind when I first expressed a notion to write an infrequent blog of my activities as Chair of BIFM, openness. All too often the workings of an organisation seem distant and irrelevant and I wanted to try and introduce the human element. This is it. Over the coming two years I plan to upload some thoughts, accounts of actions and events and to generally make some comments on the facilities management industry and BIFM. I plan to do this on average every two weeks, we'll see if that idea lasts.
Thoughts on a train journey
05-07-08, 05:14
I am writing this on the train between Glasgow and Manchester where tonight my wife and I will attend the BIFM Northern Region Ball. I did actually do all of the calculations on carbon footprint versus cost versus time and I am pleased to say I think we are travelling the right way, and it is also very comfortable. Also I won’t be running the risk of driving with a hangover tomorrow.
Lorna has just suggested perhaps that should have read “as I wing my way cross country on a beautiful sunny July day”, maybe she should write this not me?
This entry is about the members event and AGM on the 1st of July, which saw me become Chair at the end of the proceedings. So this makes this entry my first one officially in office.
The day started well last Tuesday, Ian Fielder and I had a leisurely breakfast outside the British Library in the baking hot sunshine (you see, I can write like Lorna), where we chatted about the day ahead, which was starting shortly with a press briefing. My relationship with Ian is very good and we communicate well, frankly and with candour which makes it easy to discuss ideas and thoughts.
I recounted the previous day’s event to him when I had attended the All Party Group for Building Services in the House of Commons, organised by HVCA. I thought the group was excellent and Peter Cordy and I together with Cathy Hayward of FM World had all interacted with a number of key people, including the Minister and their chair Claire Curtis-Thomas MP. I left with a pocketful of new business cards and confirmed enthusiasm for setting up an APPG for FM.
Ian and I then attended the press briefing at 10.30am where Elliot Chase of i-fm.net, Cathy Hayward of FM World and Jane Fenwick of PFM Magazine asked us questions until 12pm. I quite enjoyed the session and together with Ian and Richard Byatt (Communications & External Affairs Director) we tried as best we could to convey our thinking and that of the representative groups such as the Board, I felt very positive that we had achieved that by the time we finished. It looks like the press coverage so far has relayed this too.
We then had some time for lunch where I bumped into Linda Tilbury who is handing over the London Region Chair to Ismena Clout soon. I am a big fan of Linda’s and it is always a pleasure to get the obligatory bright and cheerful greeting, I hope she sticks around in some capacity after she steps down.
The London Region members event that started at 2pm, was first class. Social Corporate Responsibility was the theme, with Catering being the initial bias. I am not going to use the blog to recount the event in detail but suffice to say when the hundred plus attendees were ushered into an ante room and asked to identify twelve unidentifiable vegetables, fruits and roots, it was a melee of fun and excitement. I have to confess that other than acting as a scribe I was able to identify only one of them. Some foody swot team got all twelve, they clearly don’t have lives.
The AGM started at 5pm, and the first act was to present those who had attained academic success with their certificates, well done, I mean really well done. Honestly the thought of working and studying fills me with fear and I really admire anyone who does it (typing this on a train on a Saturday really does not count). I have to be honest though, once the ceremony was over, about six of the recently honoured students left as we were starting the formal AGM. Come on guys, it all counts as participation and the AGM really was not that boring! I felt they should have stuck around, and this is my way of telling them so.
The AGM business was its usual mixture of formal and often tedious voting for new constitutional changes but it is necessary and there is no getting away from it, and that makes those who came to it heroes in my eyes, again well done. Once the formal part was over Ian and Peter relayed their perspectives on the Institute in different ways. Peter proudly and honestly conveyed some of the positive steps that were achieved during his tenure and Ian backed them up with the hard facts. The bottom line is there was a very good news story to be told.
I waited nervously several rows back, gathering my thoughts on the slides I had prepared some days earlier and now could not remember. Then came my time and up I went to make my first speech as the new BIFM Chair. I’ll be honest, it was a very big moment in my career to climb onto that podium, I had been elected by my peers to represent the whole of the FM industry as Chair of its professional Institute. If you were there you probably would have spotted the slight waver in my voice as I started to present.
I had thought long and hard about what my message was going to be, and I had decided very early to make my first speech a positive rallying call to those present and to those who would read or hear about it later. I think I delivered, and when I finished I have to confess I felt fantastic and I was pleased to shake all the hands I could afterwards just to reinforce my point.
So there it is, my first official engagement, I really enjoyed it and will hold the memory of my first day as Chair for years to come.
We are off to the Ball now, train arrives in Preston in an hour then we connect to Manchester, it’s not a bad way to travel and you can get some work done, this being the point in case.
