Missing in action

We are now almost eight months after the merger of ASI and CIOB and perhaps like me, many other former members of the ASI are beginning to question what the future holds for them now they are CIOB members.

I suspect that, like myself, they are now nursing disappointed aspirations.

The CIOB must recognise that the merger was not simply to swell membership numbers and that the new professionals will not sit back and continue to be treated in a cavalier way by the old guard of the former organisation. If the old guard fails to comprehend this, then sadly it is missing the considerable and significant opportunities and talent that the merger presented.

Many members of the ASI joined the new Professional Faculty of the CIOB and brought significant expertise, dynamism, and credibility to the organisation that perhaps did not exist previously. From my own perspective I feel that the new Professional Faculty is the poor relation and that the Chartered Building Companies (CBC) scheme is too strongly oriented to the Chartered Building Company scheme. This can be seen in roadshows, CIOB literature and CBC merchandise.

Unless CBCs and Consultancies act together for the customers' benefit, the scheme will wither and die.