05/05/2010
21st April 2010. IoR's Midland Regional Meeting
James Slater, Regional Director, welcomed the 20 people who attended, despite the potential lure of a beautiful sunny evening! A good mix of members, guests and manufacturers representatives from Forticrete, Klober, Marley Eternit, and Redland.
James introduced Gary Derrick of Construction Skills who had once again kindly provided the venue and buffet, free of charge for the Institute. Gary outlined the Health and Safety issues for the evening.
James then introduced the guest speaker for the evening Mr Keith Roberts and the Institute's Vice Chairman, Martin Adwick who, with his wife, had travelled from the North East to support our meeting.
Keith is a well known and respected consultant within the roofing industry and has regular technical features within RCi; Martin assumes the Chair of the IoR in October
The attendees introduced themselves to the group. One of which, Mr Gary Lane, of Lane Roofing, a relatively new member, has already sponsored the Institute and his company logo appears on our website.
Mr Richard French an NFRC Midland Committee member, introduced himself as James's Guest and it is hoped that Richard will formally join the Institute and facilitate further co-operation and synergies between the ioR and the NFRC, whilst both bodies retain their own identities and objectives.
Overall, the meeting was very successful, but a disappointing aspect was the comparatively low numbers of Institute members, who had either failed to reply, turn up or perhaps receive the invitation.
Some no shows were for understandable reasons; eg. 'Trapped' in Venice by the volcanic ash cloud ! Apart from the Institutes's two Directors present at the meeting, there were only 10 Institute members from an invite list of 154!However, invited guests, asked for Application Forms to join us and their enthused approach is very welcome.
James said that he would ask the IoR Head Office to conduct a survey to establish the reason for the low turnout as meetings take a lot of effort to organise and we are often asked 'what does the Institute do for me'? In this case, the opportunity to see and question a well respected generalist speaker. The outcome of the survey will be a benefit to the Institute UK wide, as we must know the reason for the low response and turn out, be it our present method of sending emailed invitations, the weather, venue, meeting topic or organiser!
James showed the contents of the meeting agenda folder which contained :
* Minutes from the November 2009 meeting
* A flyer for the next AGM to be held on HMS Belfast on October 14th, He urged the attendees to try and make the AGM.
* A new UK wide Head Office precis / insert from Carol Dukes Secretary for the IoR
* Copies of the recent ioR e Bulletin
* Roof Overview
* Application to join IoR Forms ( several were requested and given out)
And then for the main event of the evening:
Keith Roberts: 'Improving the Reliability of the Roofs we design and Build'
Keith, is a well known, highly qualified and respected Consultant within the roofing industry and gave a very interesting illustrated presentation, followed by a lively open question session.
The thrust of the presentation being that call backs to site and consequential costs are often more than would have been incurred by initially better designed and constructed roofs. These sometimes involved over roofing and secondary roofing systems eg, simple underlays or in potentially critical building useages, eg, operating theatres, computer suites etc; over roofing.
The meeting closed with an invitation to the group to suggest topics, dates and alternative venues for our next meeting.
A suggestion from Gary Lane to use the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Glasshouses is being explored.
There being no other business the meeting closed at 8.45pm
Diary Date: Wednesday 10th November 2010. (Provisional) for Midland Regional Meeting. Venue and details to confirmed. Watch the IoR website!
31/07/09
What do you want to happen at Regional meetings?
Do you think we should have regional meetings?
Should they be held in the evening/tea time/morning?
What should we discuss at these meetings?
Where could we hold the meetings?
Just a few questions we would like answered by you, the Midland Region Institute of Roofing Member.
Tell us what you really think, it is only by listening to what you say can we make your Institute do what you want it to do.
Send your comments to :james.slater_09@btinternet.com and we will make sure your voice is heard.