Before the Shrewsbury School, the IHBC circulated a new IHBC Branch Committee Bulletin, from the IHBC’s Director’, updating committees on some strategic developments, so if you are keen to find out more on any of the selected matters noted below, just check the NewsBlogs or contact your Branch Officers or the IHBC’s National Office.
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IHBC Director Sean O’Reilly writes to Branch Committee leads:
I’m delighted to be able to update you once again on key current developments, initiatives and opportunities from the IHBC’s National Office, as we extend our support for our hard-pressed volunteers. Please feel free to circulate this Bulletin to your Committee or more widely through your Branch network and communications.
As ever, more detailed updates – and more mainstream IHBC news – appears in our NewsBlog service as they arise, so please do look to that news service for matters previously reported and now closed. On that, perhaps the most important to be aware of, especially if members are asking – is the submission of our ‘Memorandum’, a formal query to the Privy Council Office on our actual prospects of a Charter should we decide apply, on 13 May, just before our 2025 AGM, as outlined HERE.
2025 Shrewsbury School: On ‘Heritage in Context’, with sponsorship funds from VELUX for Branch-linked events for 2026 too!
Our Annual Schools programme is advancing well, with a current focus on the West MidlandsBranch’s hosting of the 2025 School, on 12-14 June, with the home page HERE. If you are along in person, or know any going, do remember – and pass on – that we encourage all there to promote the event on your Social Media, while this year there are special new opportunities to make contact with IHBC officers, including Committee chairs, Trustees, Branch Consultants and staff – by making introductions or catching up with them again. Building networks is one of the great opportunities at the School, so with many of our trustees and officers there this year, this is a chance for all delegates to extend their personal networks and recruit help for your Branch, voluntary and otherwise!
You can see (or link to) pictures of our trustees and find out more about their own work HERE, with links to staff and other pages in the same ‘About’ section of our website.
Our 2024 and 2025 School Reception sponsor, VELUX, is again keen to sponsor local Branch events between the Schools – up to about 5, and ideally linked to the 2026 School theme of ‘Adaptive Reuse’. This offers a real opportunity to discuss their products in the context of IHBC CPD, as any who saw their presentation at our Charterhouse Council in March will know. We’re also including fliers on the two main options: a 15 minute pitch in a sponsor-type role, and a 30-45 minute event(including Q&A) for a more substantial linked CPD programme.
As an IHBC Recognised CPD Provider and more, each programme is certified IHBC CPD, while the longer one is RIBA assessed too, as the fliers make clear. Our training lead, Angharad Hart, at training@ihbc.org.uk, and our new consultants’ network noted below, will can help guide Branches on how to take advantage of such initiatives, so please do get in touch if you want core sponsor funding to keep an event’s costs down. You can also make contact with the VELUX officers at or around the School.
Branch Consultants update
Our newly appointed Branch Consultants have been busy helping as and where capacity and demand allows. As a reminder, each IHBC Branch Committee now has access to a dedicated consultant – contactable via a dedicated email address – to help and advise on how best to take advantage of the IHBC’s national resources, services and networks, as well as on arrangements to add capacity in critical areas.
Please remember that we are still formalising this very new idea, of a small, flexible network of part-time, heritage-linked consultants to help our Branches and volunteers. We’re advancing guidance on their work, and their evolving roles, so if you have any queries please do email them direct, or indeed myself, as the lead on this initiative.
As an update too, we have discussed options for extending our investment in this service at the Board, and I hope to have more detail on that coming on our NewsBlogs soon too.
CPD Branch Partnership: Reminder & update
Our CPD Branch Partnership initiative offers hosting Branches access to expertise and funding towards speaker costs. See more on the website, including guidance and terms, and for more detailed advice please contact our lead here, Angharad, at training@ihbc.org.uk.
Following the initial success of the Branch CPD Training Pilot, the model has extended to include three new priority topics; Placemaking and Design Codes delivered by Dave Chetwyn, Fire Protection and Regulations delivered by Steve Emery and Enforcement delivered by Bob Kindred. These topics join three existing topics that are still available: Retrofit with John Edwards, Conservation Engineering with Ian Hume, and Conservation Legislation and Curtilage with Charles Mynors. We are also looking at more, and will announce on the NewsBlogs and through this update.
New MATE Accreditation sessions piloting simpler and shorter application forms: Monthly from later June
As we digest the conclusions of the very successful (and free) themed MATE Accreditation sessions from around Christmas – detailed HERE – as part of our piloting of the evolving new application forms, I can confirm that more are planned for the coming months.
As our Chair says of the new forms, the ‘changes simplify access to our practice standards by minimising those procedures that underpin our assessment of competence in interdisciplinary conservation practice’. Additionally, we will be exploring enhanced guidance and approaches to accreditation so, as we extend our MATE service, accredited members can access some unique CPD opportunities, so all members will be encouraged to attend as and when suits.
Please do keep an eye on our NewsBlogs for details of future sessions, and do also encourage anyone interested in developing their membership with us to take a look at our newer streamlined forms.
Fee, finance and Branch Guidance Page
At this time of year membership renewals have also become due. Our fees – despite their comparatively low cost – can be a challenge for members, despite the extensive support we offer, as noted below. So, where possible and while thanking members for their support, if you can remind members of the great value our fees offer, even as a top-up to other (invariably more substantial) professional fees.
There are further reductions through tax relief (which need to be claimed from HMRC), and reduced rates for lower incomes, all outlined HERE while there is also advice on our Fee Support webpage HERE. If you know of anyone in need of support, please do direct them to these pages or, indeed, to our officers.
As ever, it is useful if you can remind members that any changes of address or employment contacts etc. should be noted to Carmen at membershipservices@ihbc.org.uk.
For Branch Treasurers, new guidance is being prepared on keeping records in line with new audit requirements, and will be posted on the website shortly. In essence, complete, clear and full financial records for each financial year need to be kept by all Branches. This will allow the auditors to formally confirm that the IHBC is fully compliant with regulations based on a full auditing of the information backing up transactions. If they cannot do that with the records received, we will need to go to back to the Branch. If you have any queries on the guidance when it is posted, please contact Lydia at admin@ihbc.org.uk.
The IHBC’s Branch Guidance webpage has lots of useful resources and links, but has so much it can be hard to navigate, especially when in a rush. If there’s any specific guidance needed, please do get in touch with your Branch Consultant, or myself or others in the National Office.
Wider developments and feedback
Those above are just a few of the new developments we will highlight to all Branch Committees in future Bulletins.
Our NewsBlog update on ‘IHBC’s new ‘Board insight’… NewsBlogs etc on recent achievements’ also summarises some more recent achievements as highlighted to the Board. Of course our news service and linked publications will carry the most up-to-date information, so please do keep up to date using those.
In the interim please feel free to email me on any of the points above, or indeed on any matters you’d like addressed here or elsewhere. If I’m not the best person here to respond, I’ll be sure to pass it on to the right lead.
Cheers, and as ever our thanks and appreciation for the hard work done by you and your volunteers and colleagues.
Seán
