INSTITUTE OF HIGHWAY ENGINEERS @ 50 Recruitment & Member Services Portfolio Group Meeting Wednesday 21 st October 2015 10.30 to 12.30 MINUTES Location: Attendees: Burnside / Sylvester Rooms, De Morgan House, 58, Russell Square, London WC1B 4HS Mark Youngman (MY) Chair Recruitment & Member Services Portfolio John Dymott (JD) Minutes Joint Branch Liaison James Houghton (JH) Joint Branch Liaison Gareth Milner (GM) IHE Year Book & Member Survey Coordinator Julian Browne (JB) Joint Technical Content and Universities (see below) Richard Hayes (RH) IHE CEO Apologies: Bob Hindhaugh (BH), Jeremy Morgan (JM) and Dean Myhill (DM) Following the Executive Boards recent decision to reduce the number of portfolio briefs from four to three, Recruitment & Member Services (R&MS) will take on the Technical Content role from Communications. Communications will be led by the CEO (RH) assisted by Gaby Schelle (GS) and Cheryl Brown (CB) It was agreed that the R&MS Portfolio Briefs would be allocated for 2016/2017 as follows: Branch Liaison: JD and JH to continue with their existing joint role. Year Book & Member Survey Coordinator: GM to continue in this role. Technical Content and Universities: both briefs to be jointly shared between Julian Browne and Bob Hindhaugh. The Universities brief would incorporate relevant Technical Colleges. Corporate Partnership: Jeremy Morgan IHE@50: this will end at 31 December 2015. Action By: 1. Welcome Mark Youngman welcomed all to the meeting and noted apologies. The Committee were advised of JM s present employment situation and current contact arrangements. 2. To identify Any Other Business JH Younger Persons Network. - 1 -
3. Previous Minutes from 11 th June 2015 (i) (ii) Minutes of previous meeting (June 2015) were unavailable and will be circulated shortly to be signed off at next committee meeting. There were no matters arising brought forward. MY 4. Recent / Ongoing Activities 4.1 Membership Figures: The latest Membership Figure was currently in excess of 3,200, although some 150 were likely to be struck off in the coming weeks. Many of these had joined at events free as part of various promotions. Of the 3,200 members nearly 1200 are registered with the Engineering Council: CEng 31 IEng 933 EngTech 223 Apprentices numbers were not identified The Executive Board are hoping to maintain a 10% increase, year on year. Peter Dipper was quoted as saying that we should be more ambitious with 5,500 members by year 2020, the Institute s 55 th anniversary. Perhaps 5,000 may be more realistic. It was agreed that it may be better to be more realistic 10% year on year, this equates to be slightly less than 5,000. The Institute should strive to retain at least 50% of the free joiners, many having joined at Traffex. The Next Traffex and Seeing is Believing events are not until April 2017 and November 2016 respectively. The Apprentice grade currently remains free. Institute may need to review cost implications. RH said that the 4.2 Distribution of Year Book and content etc: 4.2. (a) Distribution of Yearbook: GM advised members that the 2015 Year Book had been distributed. RH advised that the 2016/2017 Year Book would be in A4 format and Highways Magazine would publish and distribute it. There would be a cost, although Highways Magazine would subsidise it. 3,000 was indicated. The 2016 Year Book will be published after the 2016, 51 st. AGM (for 2016/2017) in July or August 2016. The 2015 year book consisted of 44 pages in an oversize A5 booklet. The new booklet will be reduced accordingly with a minimum, of 16 pages. 4.2. (b) How To guides etc: RH said that the Institute was in the process of publishing new How To guides. It was agreed that they should be separate copies rather than in one book. RH was also investigating an IHE Folder, a type of ring binder for the How To and the 2016 Year Book. - 2 -
4.2. (c) Members Area on the IHE web-site: Photographs from the House of Lords event and Branch events celebrating IHE @ 50 are being posted on the IHE website flickr link. (link now live are you there!) News stories and photographs from across all of IHE s branches are also being sought. RH advised of the communications presentation by (GS) and (CB) to the Executive Committee on Tuesday, 20 th October. GS concentrates on words and pictures news pictures, whereas CB concentrates on the IHE web-site. 4.2. (d) Communications: Currently there are two Bulletins per month Industry News and Technical. This week saw the introduction of a jobs bulletin, which gives an income to IHE. IHE is experimenting with the time of day that bulletin s are published to achieve maximum impact. The jobs bulletin was published at lunchtime. Bulletins are being expanded to four different publications each month. MY advised on the following statistics from the Executive Boards Communications presentation: Desktop machines are still in front with mobiles next and tablets last. With the IHE chat rooms Signals are still the highest, with signs and development, way done the list. With other forms of communications Twitter has had a rapid growth with increasing from 237 users to 413 users in about six months. Whereas LinkedIn is fairly static with 1700 to 1800 contacts. 4.2. (e) Professional Review update: RH said that there are 10 more CEng candidates entered for Decembers Experiential Learning Route assessments ready to join the 31 at present. 4.2. (f) IHE Web-site: A website upgrade is being planned that will include an interactive calendar. RH has met with Vanilla Bean the web-site designer, along with GS and CB. Changes include alterations to the Headline Banner and its Scrolling mechanism, the members area more self help. There would be one calendar that would incorporate all Branches and Head Quarters events. Peter Dipper had advised that form E1 is out of date, please advise RH of any others one might notice. The present IHE Website and Head Quarters computer system is working near its limits, coupled with poor broadband service. Certain back-up functions such as E-Target are being processed at night or at the week-end. Branches will therefore be asked (at least until the computer up-grade has been completed) to direct all Branch updates to CB. All JD 4.3 Corporate Partnerships: DM will be asked to take on this role now the IHE@50 is drawing to a close. Items to review leaflets and arrangements. Gold and Silver categories etc. The aim is to draw in new members, particularly at lunch time MY All - 3 -
meetings RH has been all over the U.K. It was noted that Kier had a full page advert on the rear of the 2015 IHE Year Book, yet they are not Corporate Partners one firm to approach. GM 4.4. (a) Re-activated Branches and progress: JD said that he had rung around most of the Branches in the previous week and had ascertained that Branches were less active and that only a few had done anything since our June committee meeting as reported in the Branch Liaison Report. JH then described a well supported site visit by East Midlands branch to the east west link road scheme in Lincoln. new Although JD had been unable to contact Martin Polland, Scotland Branch Secretary, prior to the R&MS meeting, they had previously discussed holding an all Scotland AGM in April/May 2016 and RH and or the Presidential team would support a Glasgow event. It was hoped that Council could meet in Maidstone in October 2016 with establishing South Eastern Branch. JH s draft letter to members (initially With Scotland in mind) was discussed and it was considered to be of wider, general interest. RH would discuss with GS and that generally it should be limited to 250 words. RH To see the Branch Liaison Report for further details. 4.4. (b) Universities and Technical Colleges. It was agreed that JB and BH would jointly lead on Universities. JB/BH On the 12 and 13 November 2015, RH and the President are attending the Engineering Professor s Council (EPC) sectoral group Association of Civil Engineering Departments (ACED) conference, when John Nightingale will be speaking. www.epc.ac.uk 4.5 Universities & Technical Colleges Student Recruitment No report was available this meeting. 4.6 Apprentice Grade (SB) Simon Bennett who is a member of M&Q will report at Council. RH said at present numbers are small, however he hoped that an employer would take a lead. 4.7 Membership Survey GM/MY It was agreed to proceed in line with the draft at the June Council Meeting. The committee had introduced new topics, yet retained others affording a comparison with the previous years survey. With circulating the 2016 / 2017 year book in August, questions regarding that Year Book could be included in the (November) 2016 Survey. - 4 -
5. Recruitment and Retention Action Plan Progress Reports 5.1 Retention Strategy Actions 2015 / 2016 It was hoped that by asking prospective members joining on a free period by requesting a credit card or bank debit details we could achieve 50% retention. 5.2 Recruitment Strategy Actions 2015 / 2016 It was agreed that we should encourage more female applicants and target a 10% increase. 6. R&MS Terms of Reference for 2015 / 2016 The Junior Vice-President Jonathan Pearson has an Action Point to review the R&MS portfolio, Terms of Reference. 7. AOB Younger Persons Network It was agreed to investigate further and JH to discuss with GS and or CB. JH Other means of communications were noted besides Twitter. It was agreed that we should consider LinkedIn and Facebook? Date & Location of next meetings Wednesday 24 February 2016, a.m. Edinburgh, TBA Wednesday 22 June 2016, a.m. Yorkshire, TBA All The meeting closed at 12.35 p.m. Attached on the next page in Appendix A is a Calendar of IHE events: - 5 -
Appendix A Calendar of IHE Events 2015 2016 List of events listed above and venue Days and Dates EXPO Scotland Edinburgh organised by Surveyor Magazine. Wednesday and Thursday 4 and 5 November 2015 ACED (Association of Civil Engineering Departments) conference at Nottingham University www.epc.ac.uk Thursday and Friday 12 and 13 November 2015 IHE Executive Board meeting in London. Wednesday 16 December 2015 IHE Council Meeting in Edinburgh, near to the Scottish Parliament. Tuesday & Wednesday 23 and 24 February 2016 IHE Executive Board in Milton Keynes (or near a main line railway station). To re-establish Chilterns Branch. Tuesday & Wednesday 12 and 13 April 2016 IHE AGM and Council Meetings in East Yorkshire Beverley or Hull venue TBA. Tuesday & Wednesday 21 and 22 June 2016-6 -