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Chairman's Report Prepared for CIArb South East Branch AGM Tuesday 11th March 2008 I am pleased to provide this short report on the activities of CIArb South East Branch and the committee during 2007. The last year or so has been a period of great change and restructuring at Bloomsbury Square, and hopefully members are starting to feel the benefits of a more positive and proactive Executive. A significant improvement has been seen in communication between Bloomsbury Square and the Branches, and I have been pleased to attend a number of Chairmen's/Branch Officers' meetings - some of them also attended by members of the Institute's Board of Trustees and Board of Management - at which the opinions of the Branches have been sought and the challenges faced by them listened to and considered. The Pathways programme has been hugely overhauled, and we hope as a Branch to take advantage of the new developments in increasing our membership and offering better opportunities for those who are already members of the Branch. Members will also be aware that the CIArb's Dispute Resolution Service has now been in operation as a separate entity, IDRS Limited, for almost a year, and we hope to see more information about IDRS and its services in circulation in the coming months. We have maintained our high standard of technical meetings, and speakers have included Marion Rich and Rod Pettigrew (Legal Director and Legal Adviser to the BCSA and HVCA respectively), Deputy Costs Judge Jennifer James, Hugh Wright from the Law Society's Legal Complaints Service, Tony Ensom, Vincent Moran of Keating Chambers, Peter Chapman, CIArb's Director General, Michael Forbes Smith, Peter Aeberli and Peter Cousins. The last meeting of 2007, at which Peter Cousins was the speaker, was a very successful joint meeting with the South East region of the ICE. It was particularly pleasing to see so many of their young members in attendance, and we hope that we might be able to emulate some of their success in the forthcoming year. The first meeting of 2008 also proved to be a particularly well received joint meeting with the CIOB - the first such function we have organised - and we hope to arrange another similar event for 2009. A number of CIOB members from that event have also expressed an interest in attending a CIArb Introductory Course in adjudication, thereby becoming new members of the Institute and the Branch, and we are therefore looking to hold one of these within the next couple of months. The Branch held two main social events in 2007, namely the Branch Summer Outing and the Annual Dinner. The Summer Outing was a very pleasing day out to Polesden Lacey on Saturday 7th July, including lunch at the Stepping Stones pub in Westhumble, and the Annual Dinner was held at Barnett Hill near Guildford at the end of September. Both provided a delightful opportunity to spend some time with Branch friends old and new, and I have no hesitation in commending this year's events to you once they are organised. Further details of both will appear in News & Views very soon, and on the Branch website www.arbitrate.org.uk. I am of course very grateful for the support of a handful of very committed members of your Branch Committee, who have worked hard to organise a varied programme of meetings and events. I was particularly pleased when both Philip Fidler and Anne Kenny returned to the Committee in March 2007. Murray Armes continues to do an excellent, if demanding, job as editor of News & Views, and he would want me to remind you all that he is always in need of contributions! I am also grateful to David Simmonds for his continuing efforts as Branch webmaster for www.arbitrate.org.uk. The Branch's mediation Group has grown during 2007, and its activities are recorded on the website and in News & Views. If you would like to become involved in this initiative then please contact one of the Group's members and they will be happy to hear from you. On a final note, I must record that there has been some sadness this year, with the loss of two great contributors to Branch life. Peter Horne sadly died in April 2007, and Alan Shilston in September. Your condolences and best wishes have been passed to the families of both gentlemen, and we will of course miss them both greatly. We look forward to 2008 and hope to see and hear from many of you about what you would like your Branch to provide. Please feel free to email me on helena.brown@mcms.co.uk. Helena Brown |
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