Context 159 - May 2019

C O N T E X T 1 5 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 9 55 Director’s cut Valuing the imponderable The previous meeting of the IHBC’s UK-wide forum for gathering thoughts and generating input from members – our Council+ (pronounced ‘Council plus’) – which took place last December, offered a strong characterisation of the challenges of the conservation sector’s imponderables for our evolving institute. Conservation is full of imponderables: those most challenging of dilemmas that are distinguished not so much by having a choice that has no clear answer, as by the fact that we know from the start that there is no single correct answer. Of their nature, they encourage the open- minded exploration of issues, and at the same time they typically lead to the most viable solutions. Embodying the polar opposite to the absolutism presupposed by a plebiscite, their value can be appreciated today more than ever. Imponderables are daily fare in conservation practice. For example, at what point does a conservation adviser determine that, say, less- than-ideal works that still help secure the future of our heritage are better than no works, and failing to secure it? Each case must be considered on its own merits, expertly of course, but generally with more judgement than certainty. Even more destabilising for those seeking certitude, not only is the concluding advice on a case usually something that can not be tested in any formal scientific sense – as there are so many variables and changing fortunes – but demanding a definitive answer may not only hover dangerously close to hubris, it might even be a curious combination of fantasy and the absurd. Stepping back from the coalface of building and area conservation practice, management of the built and historic environment through planning policy is no less replete with imponderables, as is the oversight of conservation practice. The paradigm there – from this author’s perspective anyway – is of course the management of the IHBC, the ‘home of the conservation professional’ as we proudly brand ourselves. As the institute moves forward on our discussions of governance and future structures, to give substance and perspective to our needs and priorities, we are privileged to be able to draw on the rich resource offered by the wider polity gathered under our Council+. It is easy to appreciate that we need to look at the priorities of those who see the IHBC as their professional body in planning our future.With Council+ itself on offer, we have another resource – supplementing those of individuals, in our members, and collectives, in our branches – to take views on the shape of the IHBC in the 21st century. Our last Council+ offered a special opportunity to focus on the array of imponderables that we face as a professional body – notably around empowerment and inclusion; control and delegation; and integration and regulation.With only a couple of hours available to such discussions, however, we did not want to get caught up on pointless confusions or intangible distractions.We also knew that we wanted to avoid those technical minutiae that so easily constrict options and befuddle direction, all the more so as we can not ordinarily control such matters. Mostly, we wanted to get a sense of the shape of the thinking of Council+ delegates, as a broadly representative cross-section of engaged members (and members), happy to be at once interrogated and inspired in the IHBC’s corporate and charitable cause. Recognising both the strengths and limitations of Council+ as a resource for constitutional replanning, we devised a structure to examine statements that were both debatable, in the sense of