A Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2005 proves to be as interesting as 2004. There will be an election of course, probably in May (my only prediction for the New Year by the way), which should cause some disruption, as signing off publicly funded projects get halted or slows down during the campaign. Of course, we might not even notice any difference at all, what with the inteminable snail’s pace at which these things tend to progress.


At the last Construction Manager of the Year event in October, we had a number of head teachers join us for the evening. They had come from far and wide, Warrington to Bognor Regis and a few places in between. Not one of them failed to be impressed by what they experienced that night. It is always exciting to see the achievements of people at the top of their profession and get some insight into to how they tick and CMYA allows for that exposure which is unique for our industry. After all, it is not companies that build buildings but talented men and women expertly using a wide range of transferable skills.

We paired our head teachers with some of our VIP guests who got a break from talking to the same people they talk to at every other award evenings they attend. I am sure our VIPs are going to enjoy fulfilling the promises they made to visit some of the schools and talk about our industry. For my part, I am only too pleased that the event gave a very upbeat and positive image of construction.

The challenge for us this year is to keep talking up the industry. I feel optimistic about recruitment. For the first time in a number of years our student membership has increased; the number of non-cognate graduates joining the industry is growing too. If this rate of interest continues then it will not be long before we will be able to cherry pick the talent we want and need. It is all good stuff but there is no room for complacency.

Enjoy 2005!

Source

Construction Manager

Postscript

Chris Blythe is chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Building