Buildings & Estates Forum

Membership Convention 2006

"Annual Members' Convention"

21 September 2006 at the Guoman Tower Hotel, London, E1W 1LD

For the 2nd year running, Constructing Excellence hosted the Annual Members' Convention at the picturesque venue of Guoman Tower in London. The Convention was attended by 124 delegates representing over 80 organisations within the built environment.

This year's focus for the day was to follow up on last years targets set by our members, presentations detailing the future direction for Constructing Excellence and a short report on the recent survey carried out.

Don Ward explained in his introduction that the current numbers of CE members have now reached well over 200 since the appointment of Business Development Director, Andrew Carpenter. Don briefed the delegates on the Constructing Excellence Survey 2006 carried in July and highlighted that the BE members rated the Networking opportunities and the value in meeting like minded people as the most valuable areas when joining whilst The Housing Forum members rated involvements in Working Group projects and Knowledge sharing the highest when asked for their top reasons for joining.

Andrew Carpenter presented the membership strategy and revealed that new members are currently joining CE at the rate of 1 new member per week. He commented that the CE brand is extremely strong and that there is a great desire in the industry for CE to succeed. He went on to say that CE's unique position of being the only cross cutting industry body that includes the whole supply chain is of high importance when recruiting new members and equally for the retention of existing members. He also presented more results from the above survey and revealed that both HF and BE members felt that access to knowledge library via the web is essential and that more events need to be held across the UK. In regards to key issues facing businesses in the future Housing Forum members rated profitability, productivity and performance the highest whilst BE members felt that learning skills and leadership will be the key issue facing their business in the future.

Speaker's following Don and Andrew included Shelagh Grant, Chief Executive, The Housing Forum who spoke on Integration and Collaboration, Malcolm Dodds, Research Director, Constructing Excellence speaking on Value and Katherine Bailey, Chair of g4c, who briefed delegates on the progress of g4c and the newly launched awards for young professionals in the industry in November. Following a networking lunch delegates heard Paul Wilkinson, Head of Corporate Communications of BIW Technologies on the subject of Collaboration Technologies and Ruth Gilbody, Business Development Director, Health and Safety Laboratory on the core theme Health & Safety. The last speaker was Sue Innes, Director, Sustainability, Constructing Excellence who carried out an enthusiastic presentation on Sustainability.

The highlight of the day following feedback from delegates was our very own version of Question Time where CE's own David Dimbleby, Andrew Carpenter took on the role as the conference room turned in to a TV studio! The panel included Shelagh Grant, Marie Milner, Head of Property Management Services, Leeds City Council, Hugh Rogers, Head of Construction, Slough Estates International and Graham Farrant, Chief Executive, Leisure Connections who all took questions from the highly entertained and enthusiastic audience.

The following presentations are available

Introduction and overview of Constructing Excellence Forums - Don Ward, Chief Operating Officer, Constructing Excellence
Membership Strategy - Andrew Carpenter, Business Development Director, Constructing Excellence
Integration and Collaboration - Shelagh Grant, Chief Executive, The Housing Forum
Value- Malcolm Dodds, Research Director, Constructing Excellence
g4c- Katherine Bailey, Chairman, g4c
The use of Collaboration Technologies - Paul Wilkinson, BIW Technologies
Health & Saftey - Ruth Gilbody, Business Development Director, Health and Safety Laborary
Sustainability- Sue Innes, Director, Constructing Excellence