New President for FMB
Annual report
Immediately prior to his inauguration Geoff presented the FMB's Annual Report to its 65th AGM. He reported FMB's 10th consecutive annual surplus, £187,000 for 2005, and reminded members that during the last decade FMB had cleared a £0.5 million loan and also bought new offices worth over £1.2 million. FMB now owned almost £4.5 million worth of freehold property that generated valuable rental income on surplus office space.
He also reported to members that the FMB membership had grown steadily over the past five years and that as a result of FMB's consumer and trade promotion campaigns; it had the highest level of awareness of any construction trade body.
The launch of TrustMark, of which FMB's MasterBond scheme is the largest Approved Scheme Operator, was reported to have led to a surge in membership applications in the first half of 2006. Consumer traffic to FMB's Find A Builder website had increased by a third over the same period in 2005.
The Master Builder of the Year Awards, now in their 7th year, had gone from strength to strength, attracting over £0.25 million in sponsorship and promoting a positive image of the industry based on nominations provided by satisfied clients.
Geoff praised the successes achieved by the outgoing National President, David Croft, especially those in representing FMB members' views to Government, the media and other industry bodies. He also congratulated David on his forthcoming election as the President of FMB's European trade body, the European Builders Confederation (EBC).
Geoff Lister
Geoff, who has been a member of the Federation of Master Builders for 30 years and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Building, is passionate about skills training and the need to encourage the next generation into the industry and believes we must act now.
He said: "It is vital that we get a fully skilled training culture across the whole industry now or there just will not be enough Master Builders to meet this country's future demands."
His strong words are backed by positive action. Geoff has been involved with Leeds College of Building for over 15 years, serving as Chair of the Governing Board from 1995 to 2000. He was appointed to the main board of the Construction Industry Training Board in 2000, joining its successor organisation, CITB-Construction Skills in 2005.
He currently sits on both the CITB Construction Skills National Training Committee and the Construction Apprentice Scheme Management Committee. Another aim for his FMB presidency is to improve the image of the building industry.
He said: "All the research shows that the vast majority of people get a good job from their builder. Unfortunately the media tends to focus on the few rogue traders who damage the reputation of the tens of thousands of decent builders."
Looking forward to the next decade for FMB, Geoff pledged, in his inaugural speech to members, that he would not let over two years of work in developing FMB's strategy for the future, called 2020 Vision, lose momentum.
He was pleased that £0.25 million had been committed to upgrading FMB's IT systems to provide a foundation for the new strategy and that work on developing strategic partnerships, improving communications with members and gaining accreditation of core membership services to the international quality standard ISO 9000, was bearing fruit. This follows on from FMB's achievement of Investor in People status two years ago.
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Susie Hughes © Hardhatter.com 2006
The Editor