Committee Meeting Notes

Committee Meeting Notes

25 July 2013

North of England Civic Trust, Newcastle

Present

Naomi Atherton, Michael Atkinson, Jules Brown, Ian Goodman, Mike Hein-Hartman, Ken Hutchinson, Ian McCaffery, Richard Majewicz, Stewart Ramsdale

Apologies

Sarah Dyer, Val Robson, Geoff Underwood, Lee Wall

1. Matters Arising

a) IHBC/ALGAO event: The event feedback had been distributed and should be used by Mike and Naomi to help prepare the first draft of the business plan.

Action: Mike, Naomi

b)Branch Committee Working:Stewart will continue to manage branch membership as he still gets the updates from Carmen every month. Also, EH’s Alan Hunter was no longer an IHBC member, so Stewart would investigate who could now represent EH on the Branch Committee. Lee may be happy to continue to do so, even though he is a North West Branch member.

Action: Stewart

c) Future Branch CPD Events: Jules had not yet spoken to the HLF about any opportunity for HLF-funded training events in others’ projects, but would do so. He had had positive discussions with his HSI colleagues about IHBC involvement in some of next year’s HSI events to help promote it to a wider audience.

Action: Jules

d) Branch Rep: As expected, Geoff had been elected at the national AGM.

2. Branch AGM and next CPD Event

Val, Jules and Kenhad yet to discuss the AGM. It should be half a day,as many would now have to attend in their own time, and should include CPD. They would work on:

• venue, probably Segedunum with the charge covered by Branch funds or money given to the Branch from the Carlisle Annual School (see 6 below),
• CPD content;topics could include the impact of forthcoming changes within EH, local listing (although an EH event hasalready been held in York this year), or digital recording (via Northumbria Universitycontacts or Naomi at Summers Inman),
• date, late Septemberor early October taking account of proper AGM notice, with a decision to be made about whether it was morning or afternoon,
• last AGM minutes,
• agenda / motions / nominations.

Action: Val, Jules, Ken

3. ‘Social-style’ CPD Event

Naomi would work on an event running up to Christmas on building preservation trusts, probably hosted by Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust at Alderman Fenwick’s House, and possibly as a joint event with the regional APT. (Such a joint event had been successfully held before.) There could also be a mirror event in Cumbria as NECT is developing at least 2 BPT projects in the county. This could be a Branch event combined with a Cumbria Conservation Officers’ Group meeting and possibly other Cumbria BPTs such as Brampton.

Action: Naomi

4. Meeting Times and Venues

Stewart raised that the timing of meetings had been questioned. Naomi suggested alternating afternoon and early evening meetings to increase the chance of people attending some of them. She said it could help focus meetings, too. Jules suggested a late afternoon meeting, say 4pm - it was agreed to try the next meeting at 4.15, which suited Cumbrian train times. Michael suggested a north Cumbrian venuefor some meetings – Richard would investigate Hexham or Carlisle.

Action: Richard

5. Business Plan

Mike and Naomi would continue to work on this, hopefully in readiness for the AGM.

Action: Mike, Naomi

6. Annual School in Carlisle

Richard reported that the Annual School had gone very much to plan. Delegates had enjoyed the three days and got a lot from it. Highlights included John Grundy’s talk on the first evening and Alan Gardener’s at the day school. Informal feedback has been strong, and formal feedback would follow from National Council. The City Council had said they would welcome back a skills fair to the market place again as it had been very popular. There will be a dedicated issue of Context in September. Overall it was seen to be one of the best Annual Schools in recent years.

Despite a disappointing level of sponsorship for the event, Richard reported it did generate a surplus, which was a strong turnaroundfrom the last minutes, when it was due to make a loss. (A lengthy discussion about fees ensued.) The Branch will share in that surplus to boost its funds. It was agreed there should be an event to thank all those that had volunteered to organise the School, such as a trip or social event. This would be decided once we know what the financial reward to the Branch will be.

Richard thanked all those that had helped out with organising. Stewart led the committee in thanking Richard for his enthusiasm and dedication to making it a success. Richard had been thanked by National Council during the event and was given a gift to mark his hard work.

7. Newsletter

The next newsletter should be after the AGM. Ken would like to include various feedback from the Annual School, including “the insider’s view” (Ian offered) andfeedback from the day trips / tours(Brigit Turnbull, Jane Jacksonand others on the trips would be pursued by Richard and Ken). Jules would provide some images from the market place skills fair for Ken. The newsletter should also trail Naomi’s Social CPD event in December.

Action: Ken, Ian, Richard, Jules, Naomi

8. Membership

Stewart reported the Branch was very slowly losing members and there had been no new applications for the Branch recently. The main reasons for not joining seem to be money (with fees often to be covered personally rather than by an employer; the spread payment option is not widely known) and the weight of the form filling needed to apply. It was agreed it was important for IHBC nationally to push the need for IHBC membership to counter employers requiring only RTPI/RICS/RIBA/etc instead. It was suggested we should concentrate on new members (whether affiliate or not) but IHBC nationally will be concentrating this year on converting affiliates to fulls. Michael asked whether this was to include a mentoring event/initiative to help fill in the forms, as this is something which could be pursued by the Branch if it would help people join.

Action: All

9. NEHEF

Jules and Geoff had attended the last Historic Environment Forum in the north east. The theme of this year’s Heritage Counts publication will be skills, so Jules will check with EH’s Nicky Harrison to see how any feedback from the Annual School can be incorporated into either the NE or NW version of the document.

Action: Jules

10. Cumbria Conservation Officer’s Group

Richard had little to report. The joint meeting with the Lancashire group on heritage crime was forthcoming, including EH’s police liaison officer and a speaker from a house-sitting service. Also, the national Vernacular Architecture Group conference is being held in Cumbria which Richard would report on at a future meeting.

11. Finance

Mike had nothing to report.

12. Next Meeting

4.15pm(note: time change) on Thursday on 24 October 2013, at North of England Civic Trust.