CIBSE all set for 2006

Membership has risen to 17,300; a very busy programme of events culminated in the Part L and F conference in November; the “Guides as a benefit of membership” project commenced with the launch of the long-awaited Guide K to Electrical Services. What’s more, the Part L and F conference is now accessible via the website to those who could not attend and while aspects of the presentations are specific to England and Wales, much of it will be of benefit to our members in Scotland, Ireland, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand – and wherever CIBSE members are found.

By working closely with the Building Regulations team at the ODPM, we have helped to shape the revisions to Part L and during 2006 we will be rolling out a comprehensive programme of activities to further raise our members awareness of their implications. This includes developing a register of Low-Carbon Consultants, and the launch of the “100 days of Carbon Clean Up”, both supported by funds from the Carbon Trust.

The theme of our National Conference for 2006 is “Engineering the Future”, and features a host of speakers led by Dr Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute; David Beck, managing director of Haden Young and Raymond Turner, former group design director for Heathrow T5. A lunch session on the first day is dedicated to young engineers and will be led by Ant Wilson from Faber Maunsell.

In recent years, CIBSE conferences have attracted a wide and diverse range of professionals from around the world. That diversity reflects the breadth of expertise and knowledge within CIBSE, as expressed through the Societies of Public Health Engineering; Light and Lighting; Facade Engineering and the various specialist interest groups.

Architects, designers, consultants, contractors, manufacturers, and government officials meet with financiers, building owners, facilities managers and many more, all wanting to better understand how to work together in partnership and to ensure survival in a global market economy. Why not come and contribute to the success of this year’s event, which will be held on the site of last September’s Ashes triumph, the Oval – itself a leading example of what the UK construction sector can do for, and with, its clients. Booking is now open online at www.cibse.org on the events page.

A grant from the Engineering and Technology Board is supporting renewed efforts to market the EC(UK) Register as part of our Developing Membership programme. Activities will be taking place around the UK and in Hong Kong, where a visit by President-elect David Hughes is planned in March 2006. We are continuing to work with our international membership to identify and develop ways of delivering our core services to them, so that we are developing their membership too.

In January, a delegation of senior CIBSE officers, including president Donald Leeper and past-president Graham Manly, will be attending the ASHRAE winter conference in Chicago, underlining our commitment to work in partnership with organisations around the world to increase our influence and disseminate our expert knowledge and information.

Our publications programme is set for further development with resources coming from the Research Fund, building on the success of the Knowledge Series and highlighting the new Edition of Guide A, which will be this year’s “Guide as a Benefit of Membership”. We will also be launching a major “toolkit” of publications resources in support of the new Part L and the implementation of the Energy Performance Directive, seeking to help members and other practitioners to become familiar with the new requirements and put them into practice quickly and effectively, for the benefit of both your clients and your business.

When people want someone who can tell them what Part L means, we want them to realise that CIBSE members are the people who can not only tell them, but deliver the solutions too. The Low-Carbon Consultants register seeks to provide a formal badge for those members who can deliver the sorts of services needed by clients in an economy that will increasingly value low-carbon solutions and penalise those that are not. We are already working very closely with the newly formed Energy Performance Group to develop the services to underpin the register and provide training and ongoing support for those registered.

CIBSE truly punches above its weight and is increasingly respected by governments around the world, industry and academia. Indeed, our final major event of 2005 was a CIBSE reception at the new Parliamentary Building in Westminster, hosted by Colin Challen MP, chairman of the All Party Group on Climate Change.

I would like to take the opportunity in this first edition of BSj in 2006 to thank all those members, staff and volunteers who give their time and energy so generously, and also to say how much we look forward to working with everybody to build on our success throughout 2006.

Julian Amey is chief executive at CIBSE