Driving BEAMA

Monday

It’s a two-hour train journey from home in Sudbury, Suffolk having moved there when our family flew the nest. The journey time isn’t wasted. Armed with trusty laptop and mobile, on the train I can get through a lot of work. But, first things first… I turn to the Times sports pages to find the report on the Hammers’ latest Premiership match, then I scan the business pages for manufacturing news.

8.30am: Arriving at BEAMA’s Albert Embankment offices, today’s main task is drafting the opening speech for this autumn’s BEAMA centenary conference at the Belfry. Due to programme changes, I’ve just discovered I’m now making it instead of president Richard Dick.

I get stuck in to the dreaded e-mail inbox, dealing with any seemingly crucial messages. Carole Cook, my much valued assistant, and I meet to ensure we are synchronised on my weekly programme.

10.30am: I go into the quarterly meeting of the BEAMA Standards Policy Committee. Today’s major item is – naturally – the WEEE Directive. It has the potential to seriously damage the competitiveness of European industry if not properly implemented.

Members are pleased to hear from Anne Humberstone, our head of technical and environment services, that her two years of liaison with the DTI and the European Commission have proven fruitful. It’s likely that most electrotechnical products will not be within scope, although at the time of writing, the UK implementation text is still due. Another success!

I next attend a meeting of the centenary conference planning team. There’s good news. The consistent marketing effort over the past three months means we’ve reached our first financial target – to cover our costs.

The conference programme looks really good. Excellent speakers have signed up. We are now allocating tasks for the two-day conference, with some competition over who gets the job to meet and greet our after dinner speaker – Lord Sebastian Coe – on his arrival at the Belfry. I get the less glamorous job of phoning ‘Seb’ to brief him on the event and what we’re expecting of him.

Tuesday

Hopefully, a less hectic day concentrating on my other role as director of BEAMA Installation. The only external meeting is with a company that believes it can enhance our already successful anti-counterfeiting project – to date over ten million counterfeits have been seized and destroyed. Its expertise is in detecting money laundering and believes we can damage those who finance the counterfeiters by seizing their assets. This sounds an exciting prospect.

2.30pm: I call Eaton’s Kevin Harris – chair of our anti-counterfeiting working group. He agrees to discuss the proposal with our investigators in China, where Kevin is leading our raids at the Canton Fair, Guangzhou. I put down the phone, regretting momentarily that this time I won’t be there to participate in the raids – they’re certainly more exciting than some trade association work!

Having met with Adrian Harris, the secretary general of Orgalime, and discussed the next day’s meeting of the Orgalime board, which I am chairing, we join the other members for dinner at Mirabelle’s. It’s a hard life being a BEAMA CEO!

11.30pm: Back at the hotel reflecting on the dinner and concluding over a nightcap that it must have been good; even our French guests were impressed.

Wednesday

Till 9.30am I catch up on e-mails, finalising the agenda for the upcoming BEAMA board meeting with Andrew Willman, company secretary.

Then into the Orgalime board meeting. We give a presentation on BEAMA to our European colleagues.

4.00pm: Meeting ends with the budget and work programme agreed for submission to the agm. I chat with my predecessor in the chair, Paul van Roon of Dutch association FME/CWM. He says I’ll get used to the draining, complex board meetings, after a couple of years. I’ve now served four months of a two-year term, so should just get used to it when I hand over. He advises winding down over a cold beer – sound advice!

Thursday

9.30am: I call ASTA BEAB’s Mike Vint. We discuss its directors’ meeting and its participation in the BEAMA conference as gala dinner sponsor. We are old pals, so very quickly agree on the key points.

Off to the RAC Club for the NICEIC’s agm. As vice chair, I sit with chair Bill Howard. He explains to the attendees that it is proposed to change the name to The Electrical Safety Council. It’s a more graphic, customer friendly title for a charity with an objective to improve electrical safety.

Friday

What do they say about the best laid plans? I had intended to spend the day in the office before flying to Glasgow with Teresa, my wife, for the Select dinner dance, always a most enjoyable occasion.

These plans were hastily abandoned due to the arrival of Freddie (as a family of cricket fans, named after you know who) our eighth grandson. I work from home, before dashing off to see our daughter, Julie, and the newly-arrived England cricket team prospect!

It was the week that was… the weekend’s come round again very fast. My thoughts turn to tomorrow’s Hammers’ game. Will we win for a change? We’re forever blowing bubbles...