The Construction Industry Council Members’ Conference 2015

Presidents and Chief Executives of member institutions and organisations were among the 39 attendees at the 26th Annual General Meeting and Members’ Conference of the Construction Industry Council (CIC) held at Denham Grove in Buckinghamshire in May.

The conference began with the AGM and an ‘Induction to the Construction Industry Council’ presented by CIC Chief Executive Graham Watts OBE, for members new to the organisation. This was swiftly followed by the AGM chaired by CIC Chairman, Tony Burton. The evening continued with a drinks reception and dinner, with guest speaker Paul Morrell OBE, principal author of Collaboration for Change, The Edge Commission Report on the Future of Professionalism, followed by a Q&A session and an opportunity to network in the bar.

The second day of the conference was twinned themed this year with the first half of the morning looking at ‘The International Role of Institutions’ and members’ perspectives provided by Peter Oborn, Vice President RIBA, Alan Crossman, Vice President IStructE, Bridget Bartlett, CIOB Deputy Chief Executive and David Bucknall OBE, QS and Construction Board Chair RICS.

The second theme of the morning was ‘The Future Strategy for CIC’. It began with a presentation by Tony Burton on ‘Future Mapping’, a technique that involves the creation of a vision of a fixed point in the future and working backwards from that place to create a plan of how to get there. In the workshop sessions that followed, delegates formed groups and each was tasked with creating its own vision of CIC in 2020. They were also asked to consider the road blocks which would prevent their vision and what needed to be done to overcome them. Each group’s vision was presented and discussed and a summary of the outcomes will be used to set a brief and direction for a review of CIC from which recommendations will be put to Council for consideration.

The conference ended with a summary of the presentations by Tony Burton; he thanked members for their participation and invited all to continue networking over lunch.