INDUSTRY COMMENT Righting wrong perceptions
BCIA President Graeme Rees reflects on a great night at the BCIA Awards and looks forward to a future of investing in potential talent
A
nd so the dust settles on
another fantastic BCIA Awards evening. It
seemed to come
around quickly this year but then again our last one was only in September due to the lockdown-enforced postponement. It was great to see so many people from the building controls industry in attendance, Sally Phillips performed a brilliant job as host for the night and I was incredibly proud to make my first speech as BCIA President and congratulate all of the deserving winners. My predecessor, Terry Sharp, only had the privilege of delivering his speech at a live awards event on one occasion, having had to cancel the 2020 event within days of being appointed President, but he subsequently steered the BCIA through uncharted waters for us all. When we entered lockdown, the management committee were concerned that, being a discretional spend, membership of associations such as ours might be easy pickings when looking to
Carlo Gavazzi hp BSEE Jun22.qxp_Layout 1 18/5/22 10:19 Page 1
reduce business expense, and that membership numbers may dwindle and renewals not materialise. How wrong we were! Membership has increased by 30 per cent from January 2020 with the count now being in excess of 140 members from all across our sector. When I say all across our sector we have members whose businesses consist of one or two people, through to corporations with 100,000 or more staff. Most recently we have welcomed a leading global consultancy practice as members as they are keen to take advantage of the industry leading professional training the BCIA working group has developed.
One particularly pleasing observation for me has been seeing the return of some members and the new signing of others who previously perceived the BCIA as having “little value to me”… or “not for us….. a bit of a clique”. Righting wrong perceptions is a challenge, but one that we face and take delight in correcting. With the very welcome new additions to the Management Committee, of Matt Brown, Simon Patman and Stacey Lucas, we have not only significantly reduced the average age, we have (for the
first time) started to address the gender balance.
Young Engineers Network
Speaking of age… the most recent success has been the launch of the BCIA Young Engineers Network, which is intended to be a network where young engineers can share experiences, seek help and support from their peer group and collectively contribute such that the industry benefits from their initiative, creativity and general enthusiasm.
The BCIA management committee are simply the facilitators, the young engineers will no doubt pick up and run with this concept and I urge all member businesses to be generous with their time to help this network grow. We have 60 apprentices currently in training…from 31 companies, the majority of which are BCIA members. We have an average of two apprentices each. We have 140 members… you can see where I am going with this… applying that same average….. there could be a potential of 280 apprentices! Of course there are an awful lot of issues that are outside of our control, electronic component
BCIA president Graeme Rees
supply chain issues and associated demand which is driving prices, fuel, freight and no end of other economic challenges, new technologies and disrupting new entrants in the market. But resourcing is one where we can make a difference as an industry, if we commit to train our future talent, maybe refrain from the temptation of robbing Peter to pay Paul and instead, all of us invest in future talent.
Accelerate heat pump efficiency
RVPM: variable frequency drives for rotary and scroll compressors with a permanent (PM), brushless direct current (BLDC) and induction (IM) motors
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• Heatsink or cold plate for heat dissipation Carlo Gavazzi UK Ltd. - 4.4 Frimley Business Park, Frimley, Camberley, Surrey GU16 7SG - Tel: 01276 854 110 - www. Read the latest at:
www.bsee.co.uk BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER JUNE 2022 7
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