Context 153 - March 2018

56 C O N T E X T 1 5 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 8 Welcome to new members The following members were voted in at the December 2017 IHBC trustees meeting. Welcome to you all. Full members Louisa Davidson (WM) James Edwards (SW) Alice Eggeling (LO) Spencer Hall (LO) Jessica Jones (SW) Elizabeth Martin (EA) Rosamund Worrall (EM) Associate member Ben Smith (EM) Affiliates Lila Angelaka (SC) Adele Arthur (LO) Jan Bakewell (WM) Richard Batt (EM) Giorgio Bowler (EA) Scott Brookes (LO) Elliott Brotherton (SE) Janine Buckley (EM) Richard Bullows (WM) Paula Burbicka (YO) Emilie Carr (EM) Sophie Cattier (EA) Athina Chrysostomou (SC) Kathy Clark (LO) Darren Collings (LO) Nafsica Constantinou (SC) Charlotte Curtis (LO) Nicola Davies (WA) John Edwards (SC) Gillian Elliott (EM) James Ensell (WM) Tatiana Farcas (LO) Stephen Forde (SW) Trevor Gaunt (SW) David George (SW) Audrey Gerber (SW) Tim Howson (EA) Samie Iqbal (LO) Nishigandha Karpe (WA) Claudia Keal (LO) Robert Lewis John Klinck (EA) James Kon (LO) Marcin Krzewicki (WA) Jill MacMahon (LO) Rebecca Madgin (SC) Rosemary Meara (SW) Charlotte Mecklenburgh (LO) Maryla Michel (WA) Shiva Mohan (WA) Nathan Morrow (NI) Andrew Murray (EA) Frances Maria Peacock (EM) Daniel Pegg (EM) Cosmo Phillipps (LO) Nicholas Pond (LO) Richard Pougher (YO) Owen Raybould (NW) Catherine Renfrew (SW) Peter Rice (YO) Morgan Roberts (NW) Josephine Roscoe (LO) Gaby Rose (YO) Oliver Sharpin (SO) Emily Sheen (SW) Melanie Smith (SW) Nathan Smith (SE) Poppy Smith (LO) David Smith (LO) Mounika Sri (SC) Bob Sydes (YO) Stuart Taylor (LO) Andrew Tizzard (SW) Boris van der Ree (LO) Angela Weate (NW) Amy Weston (LO) Julia Williams (SE) Stephen Willmore (LO) Will Woodward (LO) David Worthington (SW) • Membership of FEMP (European Federation for Architectural Heritage Skills, https://femp.jimdo.com ), a small but evolving European organisation. These early years of our programme are also centred on scoping and mapping existing networks, including especially those of our membership and volunteers.We have been working especially closely with trustees and our Council+ forum network, while also raising the issue generally across regular activities such as this article. Discussion at our last Council+ meeting, in December 2017, offered a useful outline of prospective connections and interests. Tom Hunter, who joined the meeting online from Eindhoven in the Netherlands, where he has just started a post-graduate course, explored how in the Netherlands industrial heritage and adaptive reuse is a high priority. Heather Jermy noted her links to the CommonwealthWar Graves Commission, which cares for sites all over the world. Stephanie Jenkins suggested how the IHBC could reach out to members working overseas, while Michael Asselmeyer described the organisation of conservation and heritage protection in the Federal Republics of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Trustee contributions included those from our chair, James Caird, on lessons fromVenice; David Kincaid, who characterised the international profile of our overseas membership (most having joined while in the UK before moving abroad) and outlined accreditation challenges; Andrew Shepherd, who reported on long-running project work across Europe, and vice chair Kathy Davies, who highlighted constitutional considerations and engagement processes. Meanwhile, delegates noted that past Gus Astley Student Award winners – and Course Connection Day attendees – typically have strong connections overseas, while social media, podcasts and our online and digital developments offer global connectivity across our operations. Similarly, the IHBC’s ConservationWiki on the Designing Buildings Wikiplatform offers an accessible forum for the global construction sector. These observations support the headline issues identified by trustees in our earliest discussions: • Engaging better with Overseas branch members • Extending our IHBC’s ‘Jobs etc’ service, which has an international reach • Tying together better the occasional and largely informal links to Europe (especially) through members sitting on international bodies • Extending our conservation course recognition programme, which is inherently global as it is tied to the ICOMOS training standard • Building more interfaces within our core member services: NewsBlogs, Context, the Yearbook , and my own informal curation of a Flipboard magazine, ‘Conservation collation: global and local’, linked from our publications list on our home page. Both fiscal and operational logic dictate that our strategy evolves with a focus on Europe.We are also acutely aware that ‘international’ means much more than Europe, so we are currently especially keen to gather suggestions, ideas or thoughts to help develop our reach beyond Europe. If you have any suggestions, links or ideas, just let me, or any trustees or officers, know. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk