IHBC East Midlands Questionnaire

The poor support for our two most recent events organised by the East Midlands Branch and a reliance on a relatively small group of individuals to run the branch have led to a period of reflection about its future.

It was as part of this process that a questionnaire was sent to branch members. We were trying to find out why the Branch’s last two events were poorly supported and to test whether the membership retained enthusiasm for an active branch or not.

The questionnaire was sent to all 135 members of the East Midland branch and 57 were returned; a response rate of 42%. This compares favourably with a previous survey but still means that 78 members did not feel it worth responding. The distribution of responses by County and Sector shows a fairly even spread.

In both cases the main reason given for not attending was the difficulty in finding the time. A second significant reason given for the Birmingham trip was that people had already been on a similar trip, perhaps as part of a college course. Not too many people identified the subjects as uninteresting and expense also does not feature strongly in the reasons (though one respondent thought that the free trip to Birmingham was too expensive!).

Moving on to the future, the good news is that none of the respondents actually said that they wanted the branch to ‘go dark’; though it is debatable whether the 78 non-responders should be allocated to this group!

When asked what events the Branch should organize, technical training and trips to places on interest scored highly. Conferences were popular, but less so, and social events in their own right were not well supported. A number of members did point out that social gatherings could follow other events and this is undoubtedly true.

In trying to establish what influences decisions to attend events, questions were posed in relation to location, subject and cost. There is a preference for a location in the ‘core counties’ of Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire and less enthusiasm for the peripheral counties of Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. This is not a stark contrast though and shouldn’t lead us to conclude that we should not have events in those counties. Preferred subjects reflect the answer to the question on what the branch should organize, with technical matters and visits to projects/ work in progress both being popular. Not surprisingly, cost is an influential factor, with few people able to pay more than £100 per event.

So the ideal East Midland IHBC event involves a trip to a nice place in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire or Leicestershire where we will consider some technical issues in the morning and take a look at the site and work going on there in the afternoon. Those who want to can go to the pub in the evening ….. and all for next to nothing!

The results of the questionnaire were discussed at the AGM and it was agreed that the Branch Committee try to set up a programme of such events in the coming year. Each county is to offer one suggestion in their county. That alone would produce a programme for a couple of years and would go a long way towards meeting our aspiration to assist our members in their professional training needs.

The Branch Committee has held its first meeting of the new year and a number of ideas for such events have come forward already.