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Chairman's Blog

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16th February 2012

It was our first Executive of 2012 today, with plenty on the agenda.

The main development at the meeting was the creation of our Focus Groups.

I have been extremely lucky, up to this point, to have been able to put a considerable amount of time into this role and this has resulted in our involvement in new areas such as HEDQF, Soft Landings and the AUDE DVD, to name but a few.

It was becoming clear, though, towards the end of 2011, that I had reached a saturation point and internal RHUL changes would most likely mean a reduction in the time I had personally available; you can tell from every blog entry the approximate amount of time that has been required.

In order that we do not lose the momentum created with our involvement in these areas, it was agreed we should create focus groups in the key areas, not only to spread the load but also to allow us to invite you, the members, to take an active part in them.

There will be an official announcement on the main webpage and via the mailbase but, as always, I’ll give you an early flavour; the groups created are:

Please look out for the official launch, which will have the contact details for those who have kindly volunteered to chair each group.

Of the above, Training is one that is a concern.  We polled members at the Manchester AGM for training courses, but we have now exhausted those topics and have no new ideas in the pipeline.

If you would like to suggest some training initiatives, ahead of the official focus group launch, please send your suggestions to info@aue.ac.uk for the time being.

Progress on the Keele Conference is steady, the speaker programme is to be finalised at a meeting on the 29th February 2012.  Shortly after this, the delegate booking website will go live.

There is still room for AUE presenters so, if you’re interested in sharing your experiences with us, please contact the Keele Conference team before the 29th.

We also have some good news in that the 2013 Conference will be held at Goldsmiths, London, on the 4th, 5th and 6th September 2013.  We are now looking for a volunteer in the NE Region for 2014.

During April, we’ll be looking to launch our first on line election for Executive roles.

I am pleased that we already have one executive nominee for the National Vice-Chair and thus, ultimately, Chair.

If you’d like to have a go at Secretary or Treasurer, then check out the job descriptions on the Executive Committee page and let us know at the email address above.

In the event that we get only one nomination for each role, then we will still be looking for you to second that proposal via the web vote.

Lastly, the Executive have agreed that the Barbour facility will cease at the end of this year’s contract if we do not see a measured, sustained increase in use.

Personally, I am very disappointed by this, but the costs to provide this facility for so few at present is just not justifiable in the long term, when we could potentially put the money to other uses.

We have attempted to poll your thoughts on this via the member survey last year and in our latest debate “Refreshing and Renewing Our Aims” but response has been low and non specific to this particular area.

So you all have this year to use it or lose it, essentially.

Lastly, on the subject of the debate, once again activity is very low.  From a total of 264 views on the forum, we have just about managed 20 posts on the topics and these have been from approximately 7 different people.

I thank all of those who have made the effort to engage.

Our membership continues to rise month on month but the engagement with us diminishes: we don’t understand this and really need to know what you are thinking and want from the AUE.

Your views are important to us as we strive to improve our Association and what it offers.

The forum will be kept open until the end of March, please take part.

Until the next time…

19th January 2012

Today I made the short trip to BSRIA to attend the Soft Landings User Group.

Once again, I was made extremely welcome.

The group is chaired by Gary Clark, who presented at Conference and extended our invitation.

Roderic Bunn is “secretary” to the group - I am sure that description is doing a dis-service to him, as it’s clear he is a driving force behind the group.

The meeting was very well attended and is represented from various organisations across the construction industry, including consulting firms and contractors.

There was also a notable attendee in the form of Bill Bordass from the Useable Buildings Trust (UBT), co-sponsor of the framework. Bill is well known and respected in the industry, being involved with the PROBE project amongst others, and clearly has a wealth of experience and knowledge.

Today’s main topic was defining the core principles of Soft Landings, which sets out to put down those things that you sign up to and make your project one that complies with the framework.

The debate and discussion was lively and informative.

The next meeting will focus on costing Soft Landings.

Once again, I think this will be an excellent group to remain actively involved in, as I believe we can help to promote and encourage use of the Soft Landings, which ultimately aims to deliver better buildings to occupy and operate over their life.

I also see a potential connection to the HEDQF, so will seek to bring this up at the next meeting of that group.

The Discussion Forum is now open for the debate on our document “Refreshing and Renewing our Aims”; the take up has been slow and disappointing to date.

Please get involved and make your view heard.

10th January 2012

Well, here we go again!

Happy New Year to you all - no doubt, like me, you all have a busy year ahead.

We are an Olympic Village at Royal Holloway, so I expect this year to be quite a challenge.

Equally, we all have a challenging year ahead in our sector, especially as the new funding arrangements for our Universities become a reality.

As an Association, we want to support you the best way we can, now and into the future, so please take part in our debate “Refreshing and Renewing our Aims” which will be hosted in our new forum area in the members’ area of the web site.

The forum now offers you the opportunity to engage in this important debate, and also create your own threads and discussions in the future, to supplement our successful mail base.

Also, please put forward your expressions of interest in the BFM Project if you have not already done so - the closing date for this is the end of January, so not too much more time left.

Some more good news is that our invitation to become part of the Soft Landings User Group has not been forgotten and I will be attending their meeting at BSRIA this month to kick off our presence.

So let’s get this New Year off to a start with a bang and let the debate begin!

19th December 2011

The year is nearly at an end.

We have now received the information we have been waiting for as regards phase 2 of the BFM Project.

You will find an article on the website and a mailbase invite to consider being a part of phase 2.

As you are aware, we are a bit behind programme so, to pull this back into line, the closing date for expressions is 31st January 2012.

I had considered waiting until the New Year to post this, but then thought as much time as we can give you would be better, and hopefully it might be a bit quieter in the run up to the Christmas break to give you time to take a look.

This will probably be my last post now before Christmas, so I will take this opportunity to wish all our members a Happy Christmas and New Year.

8th December 2011

Back to Keele today, as a guest at the WM Regional meeting.

Before the meeting started, I was given a brief tour of the Conference venues at Keele Hall and I’ve tweeted a couple of pictures of them into my profile.

I was incredibly impressed at how professionally the team at Keele are performing.

Plans are very well advanced - three plenary sessions confirmed, after dinner speaker booked, technical visits sorted and two offers from AUE members to present.

In the last few years, this has to be one of the most advanced conferences at this stage with regards to all the areas that require planning and this is, in no small part, due to the Keele Conference team and the leadership and enthusiasm of Paul Richards.

What I saw and heard gives me every confidence this will be yet another very successful event, and one with some firsts: a day delegate option for the Thursday and the Friday, and the AGM moved to the Friday to provide a full CPD day on the Thursday and greater exposure to our sponsors and exhibitors.

Keep an eye out for updates in the New Year, as the delegate programme and booking web site is due to go live in January 2012.

The WM regional meeting was very professionally run and well attended. I was invited to give some updates from the Executive meetings and also demonstrate our web document management systems, used at Royal Holloway, as this appeared to be of interest to several around the table, and was provided by one of the exhibitors at Edinburgh this year.

The meeting included a CPD session provided by Spirotech (one I had seen at the SE regional at Greenwich last year) and then a more formal presentation from the conference team to the region.

Well, that’s it for this year as regards AUE related meetings, nothing more in the diary this side of Christmas.

I expect an update shortly in the BSRIA BFM project and I’ll post an update on that soon, as I appreciate we are now behind our desired programme.  However, I am still confident that, with a little compression of time, we can be on site in March next year as planned.

7th December 2011

Interviews were held at Keele today for the Safety Project.

Three of the four companies we invited attended:

All gave their presentation of their interpretation of the brief.

What we have discovered takes us potentially beyond the original brief set by AUDE, and our findings and recommendations for the day were to be taken to the AUDE Executive in London the following day, by David Corless.

We are confident we could now select a partner to deliver to the brief - however, we have discovered the potential for so much more that it warrants a further discussion before we make the all important decision.

David has suggested that he, Paul Stirk, Chris Parkinson (Chair USHA), Derry Caleb (Chair AUDE) and I meet at Surrey early in the New Year.

I await the outcome of the AUDE Executive as to what we do next with this project.

As soon as I know, I’ll blog an update.

25th November 2011

Back to London today for a specially convened regional meeting, the primary focus of which was to review the Assured Events feasibility study and get sign up for conference 2013.

There was a reasonable turn out, and Karl Perry of Assured Events presented his findings and report.

I am pleased to say that, at the conclusion, it was agreed the 2013 conference will be held at Goldsmiths.

We plan to get going with the start up phases of this conference early, to ensure we can secure availability of venues.

If anyone knows when we last held a conference in London, I’d be interested to know, as I cannot recall one in the last 15 years?

Whatever the actual figure is, it’s still some time since we have gathered in our national capital, and we hope that the legacy of 2012 will give us all something of interest to see and discuss.

Next week, it’s off to Keele for the Safety Project interviews and the first conference planning meeting for the same venue.

24th November 2011

We got through a packed agenda today at the last Executive of this year.

This could be a very long entry but instead of putting all the detail here, there will be plenty to look out for on the main webpage.

We made lots of progress today, the headlines of which are:

We’ll be posting some specific articles to give you more detail in the coming days and weeks.

Of most importance from the above is your participation in the debate and discussion on the member survey findings - we really need to hear your opinion and voice in greater numbers than were achieved with the survey.

We need to conclude our debate ahead of the extraordinary meeting of HEEAF, so we can take our findings to it and ensure we represent the Association with the membership mandate.

We finally closed the Edinburgh Conference, and heard of the excellent progress being made by Keele.

An outline programme, two plenary speakers and the after dinner speaker have already been found, and the Exhibitors’ web page is ready and should go live next week.

The delegate web page is due to go live in January 2012, so watch the mailbase for updates.

Tomorrow I’m back into London to meet with the Region to hopefully persuade one of the members to sign up to host 2013, I think we are close.

Karl Perry from Assured Events will be presenting the findings of their feasibility study and recommendations.

Following that, it is the interviews for the partner organisations for the Safety Project at Keele on the 7th December, then it's probably a rest before we kick off again in the New Year.

23rd November 2011

Into London today for the HEEAF Meeting, held at Woburn House on Tavistock Square.

Bob Mackenzie made the trip to join me.

Today’s meeting was chaired by Mark Swindlehurst, Director at Lancaster, current Vice Chair and future Chair of AUDE.

There was a considerable amount of conversation and debate as to the future for all the Associations represented, so much so that an extraordinary meeting will be held next year, probably in March, to discuss this topic in isolation.

We had all been asked to submit a report on our current organisation, funding, administration, etc, and further discussion on this has been deferred until the extraordinary meeting.

Other areas of discussion were about the role and use of social media.

All of this was quite pleasing, as it would appear we are spot on reviewing and discussing this as an Association in our own right, and we’ll now seek to accelerate this process, so that I can feed in your views to that meeting when it’s held.

The minutes, notes and reports from today will be posted in the members' area.

Birmingham tomorrow for the Executive meeting.

17th November 2011

Spent today with colleagues at the SE Regional meeting, which was held at the Surrey University Sports facilities.

This is a relatively new facility and we were all especially interested in the biomass boiler which is the backbone of the heating service.

The facility is really impressive with all sports in one place, an Olympic swimming pool and an impressive climbing wall.

We were made very welcome by Dale Meadows and his team, and were welcomed by Derry Caleb, Director of Estates and current AUDE Chair.

We had a presentation from LC Energy on the importance of the fuel supply component of a biomass installation, followed by a tour of the plant - I’ve tweeted a few pictures up on my profile if you’re interested.

It was good to see some new faces today, with the meeting well attended by 14 people.

Much credit must go to Tony Hammond, the Regional Chair, who is putting great emphasis on adding something of significant interest to the meetings - this appears to be a successful formula.

The idea of a “knowledge bank” was suggested at the meeting, which seems a fantastic idea. What do I mean by that?

It’s clear that there are Universities and their staff out there with experience of various technologies, such as Dale at Surrey, and other examples would be Mike Sheppard (Lancaster Wind Turbine), Martyn Newton (UEA Gasification) etc.

A member suggested that perhaps individuals could share their particular experience directly with those considering similar technologies.

This is very much in line with the principles of HEDQF, where they are encouraging people with direct experience in certain building designs to visit and sit in on design groups of others.

What do you think?

Would you be prepared to be an AUE Ambassador and advisor?

This would be a great thing for the AUE to front and fund, potentially.

It’s a busy time for me in the next 2 weeks; I have HEEAF, the Executive and a London Regional to attend on consecutive days next week.

Shortly after that, we have the Safety DVD interviews at Keele on the 7th December and the first 2012 Conference meeting the following day in the same location.

I’ve chased up BSRIA this week, so hope to have the criteria for the Phase 2 pilot on line soon for applications, so watch the mailbase for the alert.

The Member Survey Group will present its findings to the Executive next week, so we’ll keep you updated on that too. I’ve posted an update article on the main web page for more details.

2nd November 2011

We had the first meeting of the Member Survey Review Group today, in Birmingham.

I am pleased to advise that the day was very productive, and we have managed to pull together the basis for a manifesto for the Association.

We have drawn on the survey results, comments, and our debate on the main topic areas the manifesto will cover.

The main member survey results are on the website for members to see, and if you have taken the opportunity to do so, you will find that there are a number of interesting and challenging comments.

Next, we’ll review the manifesto, then submit to Executive (the next one is 24th November and we are confident we will make that date) for sign off, then finally and most importantly, we’ll be putting it onto the website to invite members to vote for or against it.

As such, the final decision and ratification will rest with the members.

We are aiming to get this online for your consideration in the New Year.

More details will follow in due course.

Also in one day, some progress on the DVD Safety Group - three of the four interested commercial parties have agreed provisional acceptance to the interviews on the 7th December; excellent news.

1st November 2011

We had the third meeting at Reading University today for the DVD Safety Group.

We didn’t quite manage to sign off the brief today, but we are very close.

We’ve all agreed this must be signed off and sent out to the prospective partners no later that 21st November 2011, not least as we are all committed to our next meeting at Keele on the 7th December 2011, where we plan to interview the interested parties.

Prospective partners have been invited, provisionally, to a slot on the 7th December 2011 - let’s hope some or all accept, or we could be back to the drawing board.

At this meeting, we hope we can select a preferred partner and then engage in more meaningful discussion to formulate a more detailed brief that would be used to put this idea into production.

This proposal will need signing off by AUDE, who are providing the supporting funding.

So, progress in the right direction.

Tomorrow I’m off to Birmingham for the first meeting of the Member Survey Review Group.

21st October 2011

The final Edinburgh Conference meeting today, the wash up to look at the feedback from attendees, what can be learnt and to discover the final financial outcome.

I travelled up the day before and stayed at Kenneth Mackenzie again.   Paul Richards had also travelled up for the meeting to take the reins over for Keele.

The overall feedback was extremely positive, seeing an overall percentage increase from the year before in terms of satisfaction.

As always, it is difficult to please all the people all the time, and there were some invaluable feedback suggestions, the most of important of which seems to be to find a way to increase the time spent with the exhibitors, as we all know that, without their support, conference would not be where and how it is.

We’ll look at ways we can tinker with the conference itinerary and programme to make this happen, without making major changes to the format, as 80% and over was the level of positive feedback from all attendees, so it would appear in general we’ve got it about right.

Our Treasurer will also be pleased to know the event made a healthy surplus that exceeded the budget target, so good news all round.

It was with some relief that, at the end of the meeting, the baton was finally and fully handed to Keele, so once again we should congratulate and thank all of the Edinburgh team for delivering an excellent conference after 18 months of concerted effort.

Keele are already well into their planning, so we can look forward to hearing news from them later in the year.

Whilst on the conference theme, Assured Events and I will be attending a meeting on the 25th November with the London Region, to hopefully get a commitment to the 2013 event.

Our conference template has now been updated with an outline time plan, which shows we now need to be identifying our venue 36 months ahead.

Once we’ve settled London, we will be coming to look for somewhere in the NE Region, who are scheduled to host in 2014.

We will get copies of all the feedback up in the members’ area for you to have a look at.  

19th October 2011

Peter Furniss and I attended a meeting at BSRIA today, with Jo Harris and David Bleicher.

The purpose was to agree completion of the pilot study BFM document and the next steps.

We had submitted our comments on the pilot study document, and other observations and comments, to Jo ahead of the meeting.

We agreed various changes and additions to the pilot study document, not least the inclusion of AUE branding and acknowledgment, plus some additions to the information within, based on items in the original 2004 BSRIA document.

We hope these changes will be incorporated reasonably quickly and then it will be made available to all AUE Members as a download from the Members’ area of the website. We’ll keep you posted and let you know as soon as this is available.

So what next?

We all seemed to agree that the missing part was the “How to?”

The pilot document is very good but, when reviewed, I had many questions as to how many of the essential elements of the process were derived, calculated and accessed.

For this project to be useful across the sector, we discussed making a “tool kit” to enable members to complete this process for themselves for their particular establishment.

The study completed at Wolverhamption, being sector specific, would then be used to feed in as a guide for the calculations that are made.

In essence, we have agreed with BSRIA to now go and create the “how to” piece by visiting another University and setting out and training staff there to complete the process, and then returning at regular intervals to assess and gain feedback as to how it is going and what can be learnt from this experience.  This will feed into and develop the process.

So we’ll be looking for one of you out there to take part in this further pilot and study -  there’ll be certain conditions and requirements you’ll need to meet, not least to be absolutely committed to the process and provide the time and resource to do it justice and complete a proper test.

BSRIA will be sending us a list of criteria, 80% of which you will need to meet in order to be considered to take part.

We will be putting up an invitation of expressions of interest for you to be this University and help form this new tool kit for the sector and for the wider building services industry, as BSRIA have indicated this work will feed into their main publication for nationwide use.

So this is your potential opportunity to be involved in something with national benefit in the facilities management arena and another opportunity for the AUE to gain acknowledgement at a national level.

As we all face the uncertain challenge of the new funding era, this project will come at a time when we are juggling budgets to maintain our estates, and it will put our members at the heart of the process of using those budgets effectively and ensuring they are targeted to maintaining the right things at the right time, and being able to justify those decisions from an operational business perspective.

The outline timeline for this is:

Well, off to Edinburgh tomorrow for the Conference Wash Up meeting where we will review your feedback and get the final financial statement.

12th October 2011

It was the launch day today for LUPC Frameworks, held at Senate House in London.

The event was very well attended and I gave a short speech as an LUPC Member, part of the Project Group and in the role of AUE Chair.

If you follow my tweets, you’ll find some uploaded photos of the event and one showing our badge alongside that of the LUPC on the main view screen.

There were quite a few familiar faces at the event, and it was encouraging to see the event so well supported.

It would seem the initiative has been well received by procurers and suppliers alike, and it has been confirmed this is the first set of frameworks of this type ever to be offered by a consortia.

I hope they will be successful for all and that it will bring about an expansion into the areas we had to set aside on this occasion, such as Fire Alarm and BMS Maintenance.

The morning ended with a brief session as to the workings of the NEC3 Contract on which the frameworks are based.

If you’re in London or any of the Associate areas such as SUPC, check out the Gems website for all the details: www.lupc.ac.uk

There’s plenty going on for me before Christmas:

We now have a date for a meeting with BSRIA on the 19th October to discuss the next steps for the BFM Project, Peter Furniss and I will be attending.

The following day, I’ll be back off to Edinburgh for the Conference Wash Up meeting on the 21st October.

The DVD Group meets again in the 1st November.

We also have agreed a date for the Member Survey Review Group and this will take place on the 2nd November in Birmingham.

We have the Executive on the 24th November and the following day there’ll be a meeting in London with Regional Members to push on with the planning for the 2013 conference.

Finally, off to Keele on the 7th and 8th December to complete the interview phase of the DVD Group and for my first attendance at a Keele Conference Planning meeting respectively.

So, not a dull moment!

Until the next time……………

5th October 2011

Today I attended our first meeting as a member of the HEDQF.

The meeting was held in the Chemistry Research Laboratory at Oxford University.

Our attendance was warmly welcomed by the other members in attendance and we received an official welcome from the Chair, Ian Caldwell.

The meeting opened with a review of the actions of the previous meeting, and the group discussed how they were currently moving forward and how they wished to create an identity that would have broader and wider appeal in the sector.

The Chair’s update included his attendance to our conference at Edinburgh this year and how ongoing discussions with AUDE were progressing.

The HEDQF have obtained a session at the next AUDE Conference, where they plan to run a “video” presentation and workshops to promote its message on good design

The constitution of the group was discussed, where it was proposed that a core Management Committee be retained with those who regularly attend and make regular contributions.

Julian Robinson was nominated as Deputy Chair of the group.

Outside of the Management Committee, all other associates and contributors would be retained as “friends”.

 As long as we contribute and turn up, then we’ll retain a place on the Management Committee.

On the 11th October at 6pm at Westminster University, the “Small Budget, Big Impact” initiative will be launched – again, if you’re nearby, then please go along and support this event.

At the end of the meeting, we had a presentation by Acting Director of Estates, Mike Wigg, on the past, current and future development of the Oxford University Estate.

This presentation ended with a tour of the Chemistry Laboratories which are held up as a good example of how to put together a successful chemistry research building, the key to which is flexibility in the design and services installation.

I was impressed that in several of their labs they could provide special gases and 3 phase power to an academic research project within 30 minutes: an astonishing claim which I can confirm could be achieved, as the areas concerned had been thought through and designed to achieve such service delivery flexibility.

In essence, this is what the HEDQF is setting out to promote and, therefore, I believe we can be an active and productive member.

Next week, it’s the launch of the LUPC Frameworks.  I was pleased to see the event was promoted with the AUE Logo emblazoned at the top alongside the LUPC - it’s great to see our logo used to support this project and that the LUPC sets so much stock by our endorsement.

The launch is taking place at Senate House on Russell Square in London from 9.30am at which I’ve been asked to give a short speech: any London members out there please come along to support the event and find out how this initiative may benefit you.

Until the next time……………

21st September 2011

Today was the second meeting of the DVD Group, held at Reading University again.

All of us brought the results of our allotted actions to the table, and the majority of the meeting was a discussion on these points.

Ultimately, this led us all to a clearer understanding of what we are seeking to achieve and we know the next step is to get a professional organisation on board to help us to the next stage.

Researching these organisations was my action, and I was pleased to table three companies that had shown a lot of interest.

There were also a number of leads that came from the AUDE Mailbase which will be followed up before we finalise the shortlist.

We meet again on the 1st November, when we will agree a brief to be sent out to our shortlist, so they can present to us at Keele on the 7th December.

This, we hope, will then help us select an organisation to join us in partnership, to take us to the production phase in the New Year.

Its going to be a busy month for me - the Conference Wash Up is now set for the 21st October, so it’ll be off to Edinburgh again.

I’ll be attending our first HEDQF event on the 5th October in Oxford.  Following that, we have the LUPC launch on the 12th October.

I also have to organise the first meeting of our Member Survey Review Group, which looks like it will be in early November.

Thanks once again to Paul Richards, Russell Smith, John O’Keeffe, Mike Sheppard and John Lightowler for joining and forming the group.

The invite to the Soft Landings User Group was confirmed, but unfortunately their meeting clashes with the HEDQF, so I hope I can get to the next one.

Pete Furniss is also attempting to get dates for us to meet with BSRIA to take forward the BFM project, so that’s also likely to happen in October or November.

The AGM notes have been approved and will soon be on line.

Lastly, there will be a call for training suggestions via the Jiscmail, please let us have your suggestions to help us keep up the good work.

Until the next time………..

9th September 2011

The final half day of conference.

Always a difficult gig, the first presentation of the day; no problems, though, as Damien Hughes wakes us all up with his liquid thinking!

Only two seminars today - the second from Ian Caldwell, Chair of HEDQF and Director of Estates at King’s College London.

It was soon 12pm and the close of the conference, bringing to an end yet another great event.

I have meet many new faces during the three days, which is excellent news, and all the feedback I received from members and exhibitors was extremely positive, so now the baton passes to Keele for 2012.

We’ll be getting the presentations on line and a copy of the survey results on the website in the next few days.

The survey has raised some interesting debate items. John O’Keeffe (Brunel) and Mike Sheppard (Lancaster) have volunteered so far as non executive members to join our review and strategy group - if there is another person out there who would like to put their name forward, please let me know asap.

John was also the lucky recipient of the iPAD2, which was a sponsored prize by CSW Commissioning Ltd for completion of a quiz set by the exhibitors to encourage members to visit the stands in the exhibition halls.

A laptop was also given away by Spie Matthew Hall.

I have to once again congratulate the Edinburgh conference team and Assured Events for pulling off another great conference. They just get better and better, and this is a reflection of the team’s efforts and the professionalism of all the people involved.

A busy month is now in front of me as I enter the second year of my chairmanship: the first year has just shot by.

In the coming month, we have the second meeting of the DVD Group and in early October there are some HEDQF events we have been invited to attend, along with the LUPC launch at which I have been asked to speak.

We’ll be arranging a meeting with BSRIA to move along the BFM Project and getting our member survey group together to start the debate I mentioned earlier.

There will be a wash up meeting for the Edinburgh conference too, and then the planning for Keele will start in earnest: we already have an outline programme for Keele, so I’ll be monitoring that closely, as soon as the wash up is complete, to ensure we maintain the excellent standard we have achieved in the last few years.

Finally, we’ve also been invited to attend a meeting of the BSRIA Soft Landings User Group by the current chair who presented at conference.

Until the next time………..

8th September 2011

The main day of conference today.

I opened the conference seminar programme at 9am and introduced Angus Currie, Director of Estates, who gave his introduction and welcome to all the delegates.

The day was then full of interesting and informative presentations; hopefully some of you joined us for the sessions up to lunchtime, as the Association completed another first by providing a live web feed. All signs indicate that this was a fantastic success.

We managed to squeeze in a quick Executive meeting in the afternoon, with the main item to come out of that being the formation of a small working group to debate the member survey results and put forward, initially, a draft response and strategy in the coming months.

We held the AGM at the end of the programme of seminars, where we also discussed the survey and institutional fees; the AGM supported an increase in the fee to support initiatives such as Barbour for next year.

We’ll also be making much more use of the web pages and, rather than select the next series of training courses via a ballot as last year, we will be asking you to vote on line.

We still need more suggestions for training, so if you have any, please let us know.

The day ended with the Gala Dinner held in the Playfair Library.  I had the privilege of being on the top table and sharing my meal with guest speaker John Nichol.

The food was fantastic and I now know I like Pheasant!

The evening ended with a short speech by myself reflecting on the last year and with the presentation of the Tom Bradley and Harland Roberts awards.

The Tom Bradley award was presented to Mike Sheppard, for the second year in succession, for his presentation on the installation of a wind turbine at Lancaster University.

The Harland Roberts award was presented to Daniel Xuereb, an electrical apprentice at Kings College, London.

Finally, John Nichol stepped forward to give an inspiring speech based around his experience which came to world notoriety after he and his pilot were shot down during the first gulf war and held as prisoners of war for 7 weeks.

The day ended, as before, in the Absorb bar.

So, half a day left and the close tomorrow, when we hand the baton on to Keele who will host the 2012 conference.

Yet again, the standard has been excellent and I hope that those who could not join us this year may find the opportunity to do so next time.

I’ve seen and spoken to a lot of new faces this year, and the general feedback seems that they have taken a great deal by attending in person.

In the coming days, we will put all the presentations and a recording of the web stream onto our web site, so watch out for that.

7th September 2011

That was a good night’s rest.

A breakfast full of choice was had in the JMCC, where I noticed many familiar faces, who must have also chosen to come up that little bit earlier.

Registration was busily being set up when I returned.

It was soon lunch, by which time many had arrived, I have bumped into and spoken to 4 people already who are new to conference, this is most encouraging.

There were four tours available to delegates, which left site about 2pm: Royal Yacht Britannia, Whiskey Tour, Dynamic Earth and Mary King’s Close

We were back at 4.40pm, in plenty of time for the official opening at 5.30pm, then off for dinner, after having our first opportunity to meet our exhibitors and sponsors.

Following a good meal, we were coached to Edinburgh Castle for drinks in the Jacobite Room, which is the Redcoat Café during the day.

This room had stunning views over the city.

The day ended in the Absorb bar.

Up relatively early tomorrow as the seminar programme commences with my opening speech at 9am.

Looking forward to another good day ahead.

6th September 2011

Well it’s here at last, Conference week.

I set off a day early as it seems incredibly difficult to find transport, other than flying, that will get you to Edinburgh before 2pm and, having used the train previously, this seemed the most relaxing and civilized way to go again.

Two colleagues from the SE Region and I saw this as an opportunity to extend our stay and take some time to see Edinburgh itself - as many of you will know, the Conference programme is quite intense, so it’s not often we would have this chance.

We bumped into a colleague from the Wales region on the walk from the station, and we all had a pleasant evening sampling what the city has to offer.

Tomorrow the event kicks off in earnest.

19th August 2011

I came back from leave at the beginning of the week and the holiday is but a distant memory already.

There’s been a lot to catch up and today has been the first opportunity to get into the AUE business again.

The LUPC project and standstill period came to a conclusion on the 15th August, so at present the contracts are being signed and the service will be available on the 1st September 2011.

This is particularly good for our London members, and I have learnt that it is likely those members in consortia which have boundaries with London are likely to also have access.

Hopefully, other regional consortia will follow suit.

The results of the member survey have been delivered and I have tidied them up a bit into a short presentation for the AGM and also into a full summary to be provided with the remainder of the conference documents.

Therefore, all of you coming to conference will see them and be able to comment on them first!  Following that, we’ll get them in the members’ area of the website.

I noted that CSW Commissioning are sponsoring an iPAD2 to be won at conference!  Hopefully, if you’ve not already signed up following the interesting seminar programme, then that will be the final persuader.

Hurry, just over 3 weeks to go……..

28th July 2011

Into London again for the LUPC tender moderation exercise.

Fortunately, we have reached a consensus and are able to award contacts in all of the 6 lots that were tendered, these being: Fabric, Mechanical & Electrical, Asbestos Management, Legionella Management, Lifts, and One Stop Shop.

There are some familiar names in the list – unfortunately, I can’t say any more until the passing of the Alcatel standstill period which will be midnight on the 15th August.

It’s been a privilege and an interesting experience to be involved, and I’ve learnt a lot in the process about the OJEU process most of us dread.

Well, I’m off for a period of leave now so it’ll be all quiet for a couple of weeks and then Conference will be just around the corner.

Hope we will see you there……

15th July 2011

Into London and King’s College today, to meet with Ian Caldwell, Director of Estates and also Chair of the Higher Education Design Quality Forum (HEDQF).

Also attending was Rupert Cook, Director of Architectural Practice at Architecture PLB.

I am pleased to advise that we have been invited to join the committee of the HEDQF.

I was surprised to learn the forum has existed for over 10 years, with its aim to promote good quality design in the sector.

When I discovered the forum via the wonders of Google Search, it was immediately apparent that this forum had no engineering representation, which was not surprising since the forum sits under the umbrella of RIBA.

The Forum meets formally 4 times per annum at various locations around the UK and we have secured two seats on that.

In addition, there are various regional level activities we can participate in and, as soon as I get more details, we’ll be letting your Regional Chairs know and posting any event on the new Events section of the web page when it goes live in the not too distant future.

Want to know a bit more?  Check out their website.

t’s a bit out of date, as they don’t have an annual conference any more, but this will give you a flavour of the forum.

Until next time……

14th July 2011

At Reading today for the initial meeting of the DVD Safety Project.

All members attended and the group is well represented by AUE Members in the shape of Paul Richards, Greg Dargue and Chris Smith. In addition, David Corless chairs as the AUDE representative and Paul Stirke of USHA from UCL also attends.

Today was really more of a brainstorming session to kick the project off.

Hopefully, with Chair’s approval, I’ll be able to put up the meeting notes on the web page for you to see how the project progresses over the coming months.

We’ve all left with various actions ahead of our next agreed meeting, which will take place at Reading again on the 15th September 2011.

I’ve also been busy this week scoring the LUPC tender returns.

I’ve been assessing Lots 4 and 5, which are Asbestos Management and Legionella (Water) Management respectively.

Given the prescriptive nature of the OJEU process and the information required to be sent to bidders on how to complete a successful bid, the inconsistency of the returns never ceases to amaze me.

It’s like being told what the lottery numbers are going to be this week and then not picking all the numbers or picking the wrong ones.

Nevertheless, I managed to get through assessing the 11 bidders in 3 evening sessions.

The Tender Moderation meeting is to be held on the 28th July so I’ll be attending that.

Tomorrow I’m off to meet with Ian Caldwell in his role as Chair of HEDQF, so watch this space and my Twitter profile for an update on how that goes.

Until next time……

8th July 2011

I’ve been to the July Conference Planning Meeting today in Edinburgh, finally getting to meet the team putting in the effort to make the forthcoming event a success.

I travelled up on the 7th July by train, a most enjoyable journey and one to be considered instead of the plane - some of the views passing the window were stunning and it just seems so much more civilised than crowding through airports, although it does take that bit longer.

I spent the night in the University’s Kenneth Mackenzie accommodation, which was clean and comfortable and gave me a good night’s rest.

The meeting was held in the Robing Room of McEwan Hall, and Karl Perry of Assured Events led this updating on the current position.

As tweeted a few days ago, the conference has now sold all 33 exhibitor slots with a further 2  having just missed out - the team went off to re-measure spaces to see if we can get them in.

It was also pleasing to see that delegate numbers have picked up, now standing at 53.  There’s room for more, so please sign up if you have not already done so.

I threw in a few last minute ideas, one being the potential to web stream one of the seminar slots on the Thursday via YouTube or the website. The team will investigate this possibility in the next couple of weeks.

Also an idea to get us around all of the exhibitors, watch out for news on that should it go forward.

There was time at the end to visit some of the venues for the event and I don’t believe it’s going to disappoint.

The meeting concluded on a very positive note, with Assured Events signing an agreement to extend our partnership until 2016 for the management of our conferences - we look forward to our continued association.

So what else has been going on?

If you follow my Twitter profile, you’ll get up to the minute updates of progress of various items and it’s proving a useful memory jogger for these updates.

July will be a busy month for me, with meetings coming up for the Safety DVD on the 14th July followed by a meeting with the Chair of HEDQF on the 15th July.

Lastly another meeting to end the month on the 28th July as the tender phase of the LUPC Project draws to a conclusion.

We had some external interest in the Safety DVD, as I felt getting “badge” from a well known safety organisation would add significant weight and kudos to the project.

I approached both IOSH and RoSPA and both have shown interest, with RoSPA seeming keenest at present but nothing concrete yet. Hoping we might get something before the meeting next week.

I finally managed to align diaries with Ian Caldwell, Chair of HEDQF, so let’s hope we’ll get a place on that forum following that meeting.

Ian will be presenting a slot at Conference and is forwarding me useful information and events sponsored by RIBA, so I am confident our meeting will bear fruit.

The questionnaire is still on line but has had a disappointing take up as a total percentage of the membership, only 11% of you at the last update I had.

Thanks to those who have taken the time to do this for us.

The plan is to present the result at the AGM at Conference so to give us time to analyse and prepare, it’s likely we’ll have to close the survey at the end of this month, July.

Members will be receiving a reminder in the coming days to complete the survey, so please take part - the more of you that do so, the more representative the results.

We plan to use these results to put forward a strategy and action plan for the Association going forward over the next 5 years and beyond, and thus this is your chance to be part of that.

The agreed strategy and plan will ensure continuity going forward.

It’s also been encouraging to see that the take up and use of the Barbour link has increased in the last month.

Further developments for the website are under way in the form of an events page, to make it easier for you to see what’s going on and what you can be involved in.

Hopefully we’ll have a date soon when that will be live, initially populated with known Regional and National events including training.

If you know of any events AUE members could participate in and benefit from, then let us know and, if appropriate, we’ll post them up in this new area.

I’ve posted a tweet asking about how far we should extend our network.

If any of you have taken the time to read the minutes of HEEAF and the AUCSO report, you will see they in particular are spreading their network successfully, particularly in commonwealth countries.

Our Association has, in the past, taken part in both the APPA (United States (www.appa.org)) and TEFMA (Australia (www.tefma.com)) conferences but there appears no lasting legacy to that.

I have explored similar organisations on the near continent and, following an enquiry to EuroFM (www.eurofm.org), we have been extended an invite to one of their meetings.

My question was to all, is there a benefit to extending our network internationally providing we can create a lasting and ongoing relationship?

Until next time……

16th June 2011

There’s been plenty going on in the last few weeks, if you've been keeping an eye on this website.

It was with some satisfaction that we finally got the Guides available to you earlier this month, I think about a week later than we planned.

I hope these will prove useful to all of you.

If you follow my ramblings, you will have noticed I've started up a Twitter account and you'll see my latest Tweets in the pane to the top right of this page; I thought it would be a bit of fun, given all the publicity Twitter has received recently.

I have one follower, which was an exciting moment - thanks to Tony Hammond for making me feel wanted!

The LUPC project moves on. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the bidders conference on the 8th June as I was unwell.  Nevertheless the work continues and we are currently responding to the bidders’ questions as part of the tender process.

I have every confidence we will achieve the 1st September target date for availability of the framework to LUPC members.

Progress is also being made towards becoming part of the Higher Education Design Quality Forum (HEDQF), I have been invited to a meeting with its chair to discuss how we can make a contribution and possibly be represented.

The Health and Safety DVD project also gathers pace - we have a working group and will meet at Reading University for the first time on the 14th July.   I took the liberty of approaching RoSPA, IOSH and BSRIA to see if they would or could be involved.

All have indicated an interest and I await further correspondence to see if we can make this initial interest something more real.

The latest training course “Management of the Commissioning Process” is now available to you.  I hope that those of you who expressed an interest in this course will sign up. We have unfortunately had to postpone this course in Scotland, as it was felt that the date was not feasible.  Hopefully we will be able to run it later in the year. 

Training is one of the areas I believe we excel in, and a lot of time and effort goes into arranging these opportunities for you.

Conference 2011 at Edinburgh continues to progress well.  The conference seminar programme was completed a couple of weeks ago, so if you’re one of the members who needs this information to secure your place, please go to the conference web page.

Nearly all the exhibitors’ slots are taken, so the team has been working hard.

I'll be attending the next Conference Planning meeting in Edinburgh on the 8th July, so look forward to meeting the team in person.

The Member Questionnaire remains open and we have had good take up so far.  We'll probably be closing this in July, to allow us to analyse results and create a presentation for the AGM.

If you've not yet taken part, then please add your contribution to the debate as soon as you can - the more of you that take part, the more representative the result.

I am also pleased to see that more of you have taken up the Barbour service.

The Harland Roberts nominations have now closed and we will be making our selection in the coming days.  Thanks to Tony Hammond and Keith Sims for agreeing to be part of the judging panel.

Until the next time.

19th May 2011

At the Executive in Birmingham today. This was the first occasion for the meeting to start at 11am rather than 10am, so as to reduce the cost of travelling for the Executive members, and I can report this has not only reduced costs but also improved general travel arrangements too: so a success.

The meeting was well attended today, only a couple of absences.

I am pleased to advise that the Guides were approved, so we will soon have these available to you on the website in the Members’ section - watch our home page banner for news of when these are available to you.

Take up and use of the Barbour site is still slow and quite small.  We are still hoping this will pick up but, if this is not what you want, then let us know via the survey.

Our involvement in the Health and Safety DVD was also approved, and I am pleased to say all the individuals I approached to represent the AUE on the working group have been receptive and agreed in principle, so it looks like we have another interesting and exciting project to be involved in.

The BFM report was presented and will be loaded to the Executive area of the website for Executive members to review and comment for our next meeting, which will be at conference. At this stage we'll decide where we go next with this project, to get a document for you all across the sector. We're not far off as it stands but it requires review and comment to agree how the final document will be formatted and how and what information will be presented.

There was a lot of discussion concerning the East Midlands region, which no longer has an active regional chair, yet we have a reasonable membership in this area. We are looking for a new chair for this region, so watch out as I will be mailing those of you in the East Midlands soon, to see if we can find someone enthusiastic enough to get this region going again.

If you’re in the East Midlands region and are reading this and like the idea of becoming chair, then please contact our administrator or myself direct.

Conference 2011 at Edinburgh is progressing well with 27 of the desired 33 Exhibitors already signed up. The conference seminar programme is also pretty much set and should be available on the conference website within the next week, so for those of you who have been waiting for that to sign up, please keep your eyes peeled.

Keele 2012 is now all agreed and early stage planning has already started.

We are now looking ahead to 2013, when the conference is scheduled to take place in the London Region. Consequently we are now looking for a volunteer to host the event and Regional Chair, Ian Armitage, has been asked to take on this challenge. We all feel that planning for a London event will take that little bit longer than usual, due to the constant demand for accommodation in the capital, so we hope we may have an outline plan we can start with by the time of the conference meeting.

I am also grateful to Keith Sims (Wales chair) who has offered to be involved in the HEDQF once I have made an approach. Initial indications are that our approach will be welcomed, so hopefully we'll soon have a voice in this body.

It was with some sadness that David Miller (past Chair) has had to stand down from his Executive duties, due to ill health.  All of our thanks go to David for his work on the Executive, and we hope he will remain an active member of our retired group.

17th May 2011

Attended my second HEEAF Meeting in London today.

Prior to the main meeting, a pre-meeting was held with Derry Caleb (AUDE Chair), David Corless (AUDE) and Mike Smith (Chair USHA) to discuss and progress the idea of taking part in the production of a health and safety video that can be used across the sector.

It was agreed that we should produce a pilot video to impart knowledge on safety when working in Laboratories.  At this early stage, we have titled the project “Maintenance in Biological and Chemical Laboratories”.

A working group will be brought together to deliver this pilot project, which will be majority funded and chaired by David Corless (AUDE), with active participation from the AUE and USHA.

I'll be making a direct approach to a number of individuals I believe would bring expertise and experience to this project - I hope they will be receptive to the proposal and get involved.

As to HEEAF, you'll find the all the papers and agenda on line and we'll have the minutes uploaded as soon as they are received.

One common theme for today was to examine and debate what the future role of HEEAF will be, going forward.

Many other associations are looking to their own future strategy and direction, so we are spot on at present with our member survey, as we too need to consider our road map to the future; please please take 10 minutes to fill this in on line.

We'll also be running another survey to see how apprenticeships are surviving the current cuts, as we have been asked by the Chair of AUDE, through HEEAF, to present a report on this and follow up by producing some form of guidance as to how we can still deliver these schemes in the HE sector.

I would encourage you to read the HEEAF papers, which give you a good idea of what other associations are up to.

Of interest is the merger of AUPO with the British Universities Finance Directors Group (BUFDoG), such that AUPO will become a special interest group within BUFDoG.  The primary reason for this is the synergy between these two groups and the benefits of sharing services.

It is clear that all associations are being asked to “navel gaze”, with many struggling to find willing volunteers to act in positions on their respective boards and some also struggling to fill places at conference.

We have asked this question of ourselves - how do we get people interested and involved? If you have an answer to that, please let us know via the survey or by direct mail.

The majority also seem to find the administration of their associations to be a challenge, particularly when associated with the organisation and running of an annual conference, and it is here that HEEAF may ultimately play a role.

There is also a “new kid on the block” in the form of HEBCoN (Higher Education Business Continuity Managers) so please encourage support in your own organisations for this, where appropriate.

We have the Executive in 2 days’ time, where we shall hopefully see the Standard Guides signed off and rapidly thereafter made available in the member section.

Also the BFM report has been completed and sent to us in the last two weeks, so we'll be reviewing that and what comes next.

12th April 2011

Attended the SE Regional meeting at Greenwich today.

What a location, a World Heritage site - and I thought I had a challenge with a Grade 1 listed building!

We had some CPD on Air and Dirt Separation, provided by Brian Barlow of Spirotech, a good hour’s presentation on the benefits of making sure your heating and chilled water systems are free from both dirt and air.

This was followed by a fascinating visit into the catacombs of the Queen Mary building to see how the plant has been discreetly installed in these ancient areas.

Our walk around was completed in the world famous Painted Hall, where the local guide gave us a fascinating trip through history.

I've been pretty quiet on here recently, as I am sure you wouldn't want to read a history of e-mail exchanges, but behind the scenes things are still moving forward.

The LUPC project has moved to the stage where the OJEC notice of the frameworks was released on programme at the end of March, as anticipated the last time I posted.

I have now reviewed and, last week, passed back my comments on the actual specification that will be used for the tender phase.  We have a meeting scheduled for the 12th May where this will be finalised and agreed by the Project Group.

We'll also be starting the process of shortlisting from the expressions of interest at the same time, so there's plenty for me to do in the coming months.

The AUDE conference is at York this month so, hopefully, they will ratify their training strategy which will then allow us to offer a wider range of training to all.

We are coming to the end of the review phase of the standard specifications, so these will be on line by the end of May.

We publicised the Barbour initiative again and this has seen an increase in take up to both the Members’ Area and the Barbour service – let’s hope this trend continues.

We will be also making a few changes to the web page this month, so take a look towards the end of April to see our new rotating “news” banner which will be added to the home page.

Finally, the member questionnaire will also soon be launched.  This will be an online survey, please please get involved and let us know what you think, where you think we should be going and the services we should consider providing.

Also a call to all members for content to the Members’ Area - please let us have any documents you are prepared to share with your colleagues.

The Edinburgh Conference progresses well, the delegate online registration went live last month.

So, as I said, there’s a lot going on under the surface.

10th March 2011

Met with David Corless at RHUL today, to discuss the joint training opportunities between AUDE and AUE.

Subject to the AUDE Executive approval of their Training Strategy today, we should be able to make a number of new training opportunities available to our members, which will generally focus on developing our skills as managers and strategists.

Please keep a look out on the website for updates.

The LUPC project moves on apace, the OJEU advertisement will be published at the end of this week for expressions of interest.

If you are a London member in particular, I would encourage you to get your local service providers to go to the LUPC website and follow the links to find out about the framework packages being offered and to register their interest.

Last call again for your input to the questions I raised on the website article for inclusion in the specifications for this framework, work on which will start in the next few weeks.

28th February 2011

Into London today to take part in the LUPC Project Group.

Things are moving fast, with the planned release of the Pre-Qualification Document for the frameworks planned to be put into OJEU at the end of this week.

There is still work to do with the Specification of Services that will finally be used for the purposes of the tender and this is planned to be ready by early May 2011.

The programme set out by LUPC is ambitious and driven, hoping to have framework contracts in place by August this year.

As indicated in my earlier blog, I have only received a single response to the article on the website but it's not too late to be involved.

If you can share any of the information, answer any of questions or share any experiences requested in the original article, this will still be of great value in the next stage of this project.

Please get involved.

24th February 2011

Attended the Executive today in Birmingham, so the minutes will be up on line soon to view in the Members’ area.

We agreed the Member Questionnaire, so please take part when invited to do so via Jiscmail, it's your Association and we'd like to know what's good and what we could do differently.

Your input is vitally important to help steer the Association through the coming years in what could be a challenging environment, particularly in the next 5 years.

We were pleased to see that the use of the Website has shown an increase in recent months, this is good news.

We were disappointed by the low numbers of members registering both to the Members’ area and to the Barbour service.  We plan to “market“ this initiative again to remind you all of the benefit to you.

We have also had a disappointing response in the LUPC project.  I have received only a single response to the article.

Finally, we have received little in the way of documentation as a contribution to the Members’ area.

On the plus side, all of the 20+ standard specifications have now been delivered and are under review. Unfortunately, to allow time to review and collate any comments, we will miss our original stated deadline of having these available by Easter.

We have now undertaken to be in a position to record final approval of these for release after the Executive meeting in May.  I am sorry for this delay - we want to make sure we give adequate time to check the documents properly.

We all appreciate that times are challenging in the sector right now, with many of us finding the day to day job difficult enough, and a lot of uncertainty for the future of our departmental functions being another focus of our attention.

The Association’s drive is to provide as much help as we can for members during these challenging times, so please find the time to complete the Questionnaire when it is circulated - are we doing the right things so far or not?

We can only make the Association a continuing success with your help.

16th February 2011

I received the first 15 standard specifications today and these will be loaded to the Executive Members area for review and comment this week.

So we are on programme to have these available to you all by Easter.

15th February 2011

Joined my colleagues from the South East Region today on a trip to Southampton University for a visit and discussion on their CHP District heating system, as a guest of Mark Turner.

Huge thanks to Mark for taking the time to show us around and share his experience, he has presented at Conference on this topic and now has the benefit of the system in use.

With the advent of CRC, CHP has become the flavour of the industry once again and it was extremely useful to visit a system in operation and remind ourselves that they may not be the panacea we are all looking for.

We were lucky that one of their two engines was being stripped down for maintenance to the cylinder heads, so we truly got a look inside.

Thanks also go to Tony Hammond, the South East Chair, for organising the first (of many we hope) regional learning opportunities.

If you would like to organise an event of educational/learning value to your region, please share your ideas with your Regional Chair who can make a submission for funding and, providing your suggestion meets certain criteria, then the AUE will provide funding to support your event.

We hope this will expand and encourage more activity and attendance at a Regional level.

1st February 2011

Off to London today, at the invitation of the London Universities Purchasing Consortia (LUPC) whom I mentioned in an earlier posting.  They have approached the AUE for support in developing estates related maintenance frameworks and contracts.

The meeting was held in the stunning architectural surroundings of the Natural History Museum, where the installation of burnished pyro cabling is something to behold and befits this Grade 1 Listed building.

Whilst this group represents London, it is clear that the work that takes place in developing this will have national influence when shared amongst the regional consortia.

We have been asked to provide technical input into this process in the form of maintenance or performance specifications related to the M&E contracts they are planning to look to create.

They fully appreciate the magnitude and complexity of some of those contracts, thus have decided to target this process in phases, by creating an initial set of frameworks and monitoring take up and feedback before moving on to other areas.

I will be putting an article on the main website, as soon as I can pull all the information together, to invite all of you to contribute by expressing your opinions and contributing documentation we could use - watch out for the request on Jiscmail for contributions next week.

Also, it is with great satisfaction that the Members’ Area and Barbour service have  been launched, please take full advantage of the service being offered and we welcome your feedback on it.

The Members’ Area now needs your contributions.  Please send any documentation concerning  Health and Safety (risk assessments, permits etc.), Policy and Procedures, Contractual documentation (as mentioned above), Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) regimes and programmes, PPM routines.....anything you think could be useful to your colleagues and are willing to share.

The area needs your contributions to make it a depository of information useful to us all.  It needs you to make it a success for you.

31st January 2011

Attended a meeting at Surrey University at the invitation of Derry Caleb, Director of Estates and current Chair of AUDE, to discuss Health and Safety based initiatives in which we could collaborate with AUDE and USHA.

The meeting was also attended by Clive Parkinson, who is Health and Safety Manager at Surrey and also Chair Elect of USHA, so geographically this is extremely useful, with Royal Holloway being a 30 minute drive away.

Derry has an ambition to achieve something concrete as regards health and safety training that can be used across the sector and, in line with the recent HEEAF meeting, felt this was the first of many opportunities for us to share services and resource to achieve this aim.

Discussion was very much around producing an instructional DVD type training video and Clive had experience of this approach through his involvement in the Bio Safety Project; if anyone has experience of this project, I would very much like to hear from you.

Derry was keen that we work on a pilot scheme in the first instance to measure results and interest and, as a longer term project, we agreed a phased approach was probably sensible, focussing on the first stage being “awareness” (this being for the pilot) followed by “understanding” then finally “tailoring” to site specific requirements.

We discussed topics we felt reflected those relatively unique to the HE sector and fixed on two areas to take forward:

I'll be taking this invitation to the Executive Committee in February to gain formal approval to take part in this initiative.

We'll be looking for anyone with experience of working with the production or creation of on line or DVD based training to contribute to this project, so if anyone reading this has that experience please contact me direct at theauechair2010@hotmail.co.uk or info@aue.ac.uk.

Tomorrow I’m off to an LUPC meeting to be held in the Natural History Museum in London to contribute to their project to deliver better centrally procured contracts related to M&E items, in part for AUE and also for RHUL as a member of the LUPC consortia.

25th January 2011

Belated Happy New Year to you all.

The wheels continue to turn behind the scenes with our initiatives and a special note of thanks goes to Sally Seanor (Administrator) who is working with Ben Kay (our web developer) to complete the members’ area and the Barbour log-ons.

This is all coming together nicely and we are now not too far away, so look out for the launch.

The Standard Specifications are now under way with a first draft already received, so again I am confident these will be available before Easter.

Bob Mackenzie has also been busy getting the Life-cycle Costing training organised.

The Exhibitors web page for Conference has been live since before Christmas and already we have committed attendance.  The delegates’ web page is also nearly there and will go live, we hope, in the next 2 weeks.

The member questionnaire is complete in final draft form and I hope this will be signed of at the Executive Committee meeting in February, to be circulated to you during March.  This way, we will have plenty of time to collate the responses and share this information both on the web page and at the AGM at Conference.

So, an exciting start to the New Year, maintaining the momentum from last.

21st December 2010

Lots going on in the background at the moment to get our initiatives live and available to you in the New Year.

The completion of the Members' section is now under way and as soon as that is complete we will be able to provide you with access details to both that and the Barbour service.

I have a meeting this week which will kick off the creation of the Standard Specifications, which I again hope will be available by the end of January 2011

As regards the final ½ an initiative, another phone call is required to finalise details of an AUE Member discount on the HVCA product SFG20.

We had hoped to enter into a similar arrangement with the HVCA as we have achieved with Barbour, regrettably we were unable to provide this at this time but I hope we may be able to review this later next year.

In the meantime, the HVCA have agreed to offer all AUE Members a significant product discount for individual or multi use licences; I would recommend you visit their website at www.sfg20.com to have a look.

As soon as details of this discount are finalised, we'll post them up in the members’ area for you.

Finally, I'd like to wish all of you a Happy Christmas and New Year.

29th November 2010

Today I had a meeting with one of the 3rd parties providing the initiatives I have alluded to over several weeks, to confirm agreement post the Executive last week.

I promised this would be the first place for sneak previews, therefore, I am pleased to announce here that the Association will be purchasing a license per region for member access to the Barbour PFM product as from the New Year.

Together with this, all members will receive a weekly copy of the Barbour Newsletter updating you on news from the industry including legal, statutory and health and safety updates.

This will involve the completion of the members’ area of the web page, behind which the link to this service will be held.

We will be placing updates on progress on this project onto the web site in the New Year and, once we have it all set up to go, you will receive instructions, user names and passwords to access the member area and this service.

I am personally excited by this new partnership and the resource that it will provide to you as members.

We have at this stage bought a limited number of licences and will be monitoring use on the site once we go live so that perhaps we can expand the number of licences to improve availability.

We will welcome your feedback on this shared resource.

I am also finalising details and programme for creation and delivery to the web site of the Standard Specifications mentioned in my last entry.

This leaves the final ½ an initiative to finalise, this I should have concluded in a few days so will reveal the final part here soon.

25th November 2010

Today we held the Executive meeting in Cardiff with a packed agenda.

The meeting has been extremely positive and we were updated and have agreed to various activities and initiatives that I think will take the Association forward and bring greater benefit to our members.

Following the isolated incident on Jiscmail a couple of months ago, the Executive have created and agreed a code of conduct for the forum; this will be posted on the web page shortly and we'll be sending out a link so that you can take a look for yourself.

I am also pleased to advise that the Executive approved 2½ of the 3 initiatives I have mentioned in previous postings.

This is great news and these initiatives will provide a new resource for our members.

As promised, I will give you sneak previews of these initiatives here and I can therefore reveal that the first of these is the creation of a set of 27 standard mechanical and electrical specifications which you will be able to download from the website and tailor to your own institutional needs.

This idea has been floating around for some time, so I am pleased that we are now able to bring it to life, we hope these will be available to you in the New Year.

As regards the other 1½ initiatives, I'll have to ask you to be a bit more patient as we need to finalise the proposals with the 3rd party providers before I can reveal these also.

This will require the creation of a members section on the website to manage access to these valuable resources, so there is plenty of work to do in the coming months.

The joint venture with BSRIA is progressing well, with the pilot study commencing on the 8th November 2010 - we'll be putting regular updates on this project on the website.

We hope that by the early part of next year, we may be able to progress this to the next stage and offer members the opportunity to take part in the expanded study.

The Manchester Conference has had its final and closing update, so now the mantle passes to Edinburgh.

The Exhibitors web page for Conference is planned to go on line next week, with the Delegates site planned for late February or early March.

Why the delay? This is because the Edinburgh Conference team are aiming to be able to release the Conference Seminar Programme at the same time, so as to ease the registration process for those members who are required to provide this information to secure attendance, and this will take a little longer to agree and organise.

The Edinburgh team and Assured Events have taken on board the feedback from Manchester, so I am sure we will see a smarter and slicker organisation this year, whilst also managing both Exhibitor and Delegate expectations.

The Executive also approved Keele University to host the 2012 Conference so that preparations and provisional bookings can be made.

As you can tell, I make repeated references to the web page throughout and it is very much our wish and intention to make the web page your resource bank and a place that you'll visit regularly to obtain access to these iniatives and for many other things.

The initiatives we have agreed today help us to begin this work and I look forward to bringing these developments into being in the next few months.

16th November 2010

Attended the HEEAF meeting today, with Bob, this being held at Woburn House in London which is, coincidentally, the same place we hold our London training sessions, so I'll know my way there for the Building Regulations training on the 18th November.

I had not realised just how many associations we had in the sector - some were familiar to me and others were completely new, each with its own acronym to guess exactly who they represent.

Other than those who have been or are on the Executive Committee, I wonder how many of you can identify the associations that are represented by HEEAF?

We have: AUCSO, AUDE, AUE, ASRA, BACHE, EAUC, USHA, HEBCoN and UHO.

I'll save what they stand for and who they represent for another day - as they used to say “answers on a postcard”!

It was my first time attending this forum, which is chaired by the current AUDE chair, Derry Caleb, Director of Estates at Surrey University.

It was interesting to hear each of the groups reported activities and how, in quite a few areas, the boundaries were blurred between us and how also there was a lot of commonality.

It was clear that the current buzz words in the sector are playing a role in the direction that all the associations are expected to take for the future, these being “shared services” and “student experience”.

Discussion at this forum has already started on the creation of a central repository for information and it would appear that each association in its own right has looked at this in some form or other for its own membership.

One idea tabled was that HEEAF should act as an umbrella organisation, allowing all the affiliated members to retain their own identity whilst allowing us all to share information.

Our own association has aspired to such an idea without much success to date, but we hope this will change in the very near future and thus would enable us to take part in any such initiative as it develops: this is clearly a project and idea we will be part of.

Much of this is driven by the uncertainty over the future of HEFCE and the role it will play in the sector in the future, some indications point to their role being fundamentally different to today with a shift toward a purely regulatory role. The current position is that no-one really knows, so it’s a watching brief for the moment.

The chair felt that the AUE probably had close ties to several associations represented, that we could be working with already, and these are comments we will need to take on board and consider how we may want to act on this observation.

The chair also requested that we look to produce some form of guidelines to promote apprenticeships in the sector, recognising the how the Harland Roberts award has contributed to this already.

When the minutes of the meeting are published, we'll have them posted on the web for all to see.

We have the Executive meeting next week in Cardiff with a packed agenda, so hopefully some good news from that in the initiatives being put forward.

Good news is that the 3rd initiative and 3rd party associated have come back to me today to put forward a proposal, a phone call tomorrow should get me to a position to put this to the Executive Committee as well.

4th November 2010

It really has been quite quiet in the last couple of weeks, only a few e-mails to respond to really.

Still no news on our 3rd initiative, other than an e-mail confirming we are still awaiting the CEO's response, so fingers still crossed and looking a little less likely we will be able to put this one before the Executive on the 25th November.

Also, following the isolated negative postings on Jiscmail, the Executive has decided to consider the introduction of a Code of Conduct for its use.

Consequently, with the help of Google, I managed to cobble together a draft Code which has been circulated for help and comment to all the Executive members, so this is likely to be another discussion point at the November meeting.

The November meeting is going to have a busy agenda!

It is good to see that we have a healthy take up for the Building Regulations Training courses; well done and thanks to Bob Mackenzie and Sally Seanor for putting this together for us.

I attended the SE Regional today to formally hand over the Regional Chair to Tony Hammond: a safe pair of hands with lots of good ideas.

I wish Tony all the best for his next 2 years as Regional Chair, I am confident he will also make a positive contribution to the Executive.

We were also pleased to elect John O'Keeffe (Brunel University) as Vice Chair for the region, securing the succession.

We had a useful presentation from Sarah McCarrrick on BREEAM.

I'm off to the Higher Education Estates Association Forum (HEEAF) with Bob Mackenzie to represent the AUE on the 16th November to be held in central London, so I'll let you know how that went and what it's all about.

Until then…

22nd October 2010

There is not a week so far in which there has not been anything to do.  It feels like a quiet week this week, by comparison to the last, yet I’ve been to Manchester and back in a day to take part in the Conference wash up meeting.

Of the 3 initiatives I mentioned, there is one remaining which is moving along a little bit slower, primarily as there was a misunderstanding in what I was seeking to achieve for the AUE with the 3rd Party concerned.

I think we managed to iron out the misunderstanding on the phone but the consequence is that they need to go away and speak to their CEO about my proposal.

I can understand this, since there is commercial risk for them but also potentially commercial gain, so it’s a delicate balance.

I’m still hopeful they will be receptive to my proposal as this will allow us to complete the hat trick; I’ll know one way or the other soon.

It’s strange when your AUE hat comes into use; earlier this week I met with a representative from the LUPC (London Universities Purchasing Consortia) to discuss a matter I thought was entirely related to my own institution.

After chatting over the issues, we, as the AUE, have been invited to help them develop purchasing frameworks and contracts specifically related to our disciplines by providing the “technical” input to their project, as they recognise there is a shortfall in consortia offerings in our areas of expertise and services.

I hope we can get involved and perhaps influence consortia contracts, not only in the London area but ultimately nationally.

So to the wash up meeting for Conference held on Friday 22nd October.

The feedback is 80% overall positive and the event has turned a healthy surplus, a reflection of all the hard work put in by the team.

Of course there were some items to learn from and we will see a slicker booking and invoicing system on line this year.

Issues surrounding catering and seating have also been acknowledged, and the lessons learnt from this year will be used to inform our next conference in Edinburgh.

It is also encouraging that, of the respondents to the feedback questionnaire, 90% of exhibitors and 100% of delegates plan to return next year.

We would like to see more of you taking time to complete a feedback questionnaire next year, so we’ll ensure there is a suitable incentive to encourage you to do so: after all it is your conference and we can only continue to improve it for you by knowing and understanding how it was for you.

Keep your eyes peeled on Jiscmail as the new conference website will be going live very soon.

So that was the end of a quiet week!!

15th October 2010       

It’s been busy this week.

The week started with some disappointing news that we are unable to secure a stand at the AUDE Conference next year.

It is a shame that we will not be able to share directly with the Directors the benefits of our Association and encourage them to allow staff to get involved and perhaps pick up a few new institutions too.

We have been offered the opportunity to put an article in their Newsletter and some flyers into the delegate packs so we’ll do that instead; not our preference but better than nothing at all.

The disappointing theme continued when there were some unwanted and unwelcome posts on the Jiscmail which certainly raised some emotions and, following several e-mails between the Executive members, I put together a message for posting which most of you would have seen.

Fortunately, the week ended on a very positive note.

On Wednesday 13th October, I attended a meeting at BSRIA in Bracknell with Phil Greenwood and Peter Furniss to finalise the details of our desire to sponsor an update to their Business Focus Maintenance publication with a specific reference to Universities and the HE sector.

The Executive has been working toward this for over a year, so it is with some satisfaction that we finally reached an agreement with BSRIA representatives for this project to finally proceed.

A big thank you has to go to Phil for being our representative to BSRIA and sticking with this idea.

It will start with a pilot scheme at Wolverhampton and, following that, we will meet with BSRIA again to agree the details of the next phase or phases.

Since this pilot will benefit the Institution directly, Wolverhampton and Director Henry Gun-Why have provided 50% of the funding: thank you Henry!

This will allow us to assess what can be achieved, the quality of information, the input required by the host University and the systems that provide the greatest potential benefit.

For such a document to be truly representative of the entire sector, the scope of this project will need to be broadened out and therefore is it anticipated the future phases will involve more of you across the UK.

When we are in this position, we will be able to open up this project and invite further participants knowing and being able to set out the requirements you would need to meet in order to be involved.

We have a way to go yet and the pilot starts on 8th November, so let’s see where we go from there.

4th October 2010

I’ve been on the phone a lot this week, talking through some ideas with more 3rd party providers as regards ideas I have for making our website a place where you will want to go on a more regular basis.

There are 3 ideas, or shall we call them “initiatives” - one of these has been an aspiration for the website for some time, so it is just a case of making it a reality.

I have now put two of these initiatives forward in more detail to the Executive for consideration and comment.

I have to say I might just be getting a little carried away and over excited with all of this, so at this stage I’ll say no more but this will be the place to find out what they are first, should the Executive agree to move forward.

Keep watching!

26th September 2010

I hope you have all now recovered from another excellent conference and, once again, congratulations to Simon and Duncan for raising the bar just that little higher again.

I’d also like to thank you all for giving me the honour to represent you as Chair over the next 2 years.

I am very lucky to be able to take on this role, so must also thank my employers, Royal Holloway University, for providing the support of time to embark on this adventure.

One of the reasons I plan to keep this Blog is to lift the lid a little on the role of Chair and the other volunteers on the Executive as, without their efforts and the support of their employers, we would not have the successful Association we see today.

My aim is to raise the profile of the Association within the sector and maybe outside and in so doing demonstrate the benefits to our members individually and, therefore, to their employers.

In this way I hope more of you will be encouraged and able to get involved, even at the most basic level by regularly attending your regional meetings and perhaps for some of you that may well lead to you joining the Executive and having a go at the role of Chair.

I plan to keep a log of my time as Chair over the next 2 years and hope that you will take time to visit our website to find out what I am up to on your behalf.

I will also use the Blog to spill the beans early and give sneak previews of up coming initiatives that I hope will further enhance your membership of the AUE.

Just this week I have made several phone calls and had a meeting in pursuit of 2 initiatives I have in mind; I am pleased to say that both ideas received a positive response from the third parties I had discussions with so I hope that in the not too distant future I can make my first reveal on this site: please watch this space!

Also the Executive discussed the idea of taking a stand at the next AUDE Conference to be held at York University in April 2011 and David Corless who attended our last meeting (and Conference Dinner) thought this was a great idea and has offered to “put a word in for us” with Chair, Derry Caleb.

Consequently, I made a formal expression of interest last week; we await the sitting of their Conference Steering Group on the 4th October 2010 to see how that is received.

Why do such a thing? I hope by the time the AUDE Conference comes around some of the initiatives will be in place and what better place to promote ourselves and the benefits we can provide.

If anyone would like to contact me directly with questions about this Blog or with suggestions or ideas around my key aim of raising our Associations profile I have created a Chairs Personal e-mail theAUEchair2010@hotmail.co.uk; I will do my best to personally respond to any mails within 5 days of receipt.

Finally, I would just like to reiterate my thanks to David Miller, who has had to stand down earlier than planned, for his work as Chair.

Until the next time.