2008 Yearbook

26 Y e a r b o o k 2 0 0 8 BUILDING · CONSERVATION INSTITUTE · OF · HISTORIC · Associate Membership: membership for a changing world Jo Evans, Membership Secretary During Mike Lea’s term as Membership Secretary, the Institute went through revolutionary change, and the administrative centre expanded to a small but effective team capable of providing the sort of support a volunteer needs. Mike’s authoritative and capable hand guided the operation of our most precious standard – the definition of a Full Member. There is no role more important to a professional body than the management of its membership standard, and the part played by Mike in ensuring the current high standing of the Institute’s membership cannot be over- estimated. As the new membership secretary I look forward to contributing to progressing the definition of our standards. In our 2007 Yearbook the Institute featured a small selection of our Affiliate Members – professionals intending to make applications to become Full Members of the Institute. We demonstrated there how diverse and varied our future membership profile and demographics would be. This year we are featuring Associate Members, as we present just a small selection of the people, and their organisations, that help shape the IHBC and, more important, the future of conservation across the UK. Associate Members are individuals who support the Institute’s principles, processes and standards, but who would not ordinarily expect to become Full Members of the IHBC, or adopt us as their professional body. Associate Members are not bound by the duties of Full Members, such as mandatory CPD, although they are required to observe the Institute’s Code of Conduct. Associate Members do, however, enjoy the Institute’s services, including our publications, events and advocacy, as well as the wide-ranging charitable activities that we carry out to secure the conservation of valued historic places. Typically, as our vignettes reveal, Associate Members have significant professional roles in the historic environment, and these may speak for themselves. We are no less keen to widen the constituency of Associates, not least with regard to a key problem in our sector, the lack of diversity. While the Institute can boast an effective gender balance across the membership with a 50:50 split between the sexes, our representation of ethnic minorities is not substantial (Irish director, living in Scotland, notwithstanding). Over the coming year we will be advertising the IHBC’s associate membership more substantially to all stakeholders in the historic environment, including developing inclusion strategies and liaising with Black Environment Network, sponsoring work with the Hackney Building Exploratory (to be featured in a forthcoming Context ) while also promoting concepts of ‘ownership’ of the historic environment. And what benefits do Associate Members receive? The most substantial benefit is access to our publications, notably the annual circulation of five issues of Context and the IHBC Yearbook , themselves key documents for an historic environment professional. In addition, we offer Associate Members the same reductions to events that apply to Affiliate and Full Members. These include our key annual training event, the Annual School, and major regional events (of national significance), typically in London, the North West, Yorkshire and the South West. Also, of course, there is the huge resource that our web site provides. Here we have considered reserving significant areas as a special benefit for paying members. However we concluded that the huge social and cultural benefits arising from encouraging the widest public access to the site far outweigh the narrow profits such restrictions would bring. So Associate Members must simply accept that their subscriptions support services that are provided ‘ pro bono’ . Knowing that a part of their subscription helps support the IHBC’s inclusive and charitable policy satisfies primarily a personal ethical code, but to date no-one has complained about this! If you are not already a member and are interested in joining the IHBC as an Associate Member, do please go to our website (www.ihbc.org.uk) or use one of the membership leaflets included with this publication. Like any supporter of charitable activities, as an Associate Member you will be contributing to the good work that this charity carries out and promotes, as well as receiving some of the most important current conservation guidance in the UK. Jo Evans, membership@ihbc.org.uk