18 YEARBOOK 2024 from the wider participation possible with digital engagement to the barriers inevitable in real life experience. Now, we are more confident of our evolving school model, with online and in-person delegate experiences more fully balanced while also including a free, virtual-only and ‘all welcome’ experience. We also have the schoolthemed MarketPlace:LIVE, linked to our evolving online, holistic service and advisory support resource, the Heritage MarketPlace. CELEBRATION AND AWARDS The diverse range of IHBC-led and linked awards marks an increasingly sophisticated thread in our strategic promotion of the IHBC’s own interdisciplinary conservation practice. This is helped not least by the continuing integration of funding and cross-branding through our CREATIVE Conservation Fund. The awards: Our longstanding and signature award is the Annual Gus Astley Student Award. Over two years, we have been fortunate to welcome as guest judges for 2023 and 2024 both ICOMOS-UK President Clara Arokiasamy OBE and our own esteemed John Fidler, first editor of Context, among a myriad of other credits. Today, our suite of annual student awards and commendations are supplemented by our invaluable partnership with the Marsh Trust; the IHBC Marsh Award for Community Contribution helps us to celebrate our retired members better and the sector’s new learners, while the IHBC Marsh Award for Successful Learning in Heritage Skills helps us to thank volunteers in and across our branches and their networks. Since 2021 too, a new partnership with the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) has promoted quality research in conservation practice. 25th Anniversary celebration: The institute’s programme celebrating our 25th anniversary and marking the institute’s founding in 1997 (#IHBC25) elongated into 2023 and beyond, perhaps unsurprisingly given wider pressures. The Scotland Branch’s own history, as well as our update of the UK-wide Conservation Professional Practice Principles are ongoing. Others, no less ambitious, have concluded, including a remarkable celebratory issue of Context in December 2022. Other proud moments marking our anniversary year included our first IHBC Research for Practice Digest, in April 2023. PARLIAMENTARY ADVOCACY Extending our UK-wide conservation advocacy in the political field, most notably through the Westminsterbased All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), has been understandably complex, especially recently. Further briefings and engagement built on our 2022 APPG inquiry into the ‘Values of Heritage’ continued in 2023, but then logistical challenges took over, including new procedures and rules affecting the structure and accountability of APPGs. Logistical issues increased as pressures on APPG members rose, while perhaps most importantly, the Westminster focus failed to engage devolved governments. Now, helpfully informed by substantial and first-hand experience, we are using this knowledge to develop a more sophisticated approach to engagement in the political arena. GOVERNANCE AND CHARTERSHIP In the context of post-pandemic survival, too, enhancing the infrastructure of our governance has been critical, with equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as critical considerations. To help develop a more representative profile across our board in advance of our 2023 AGM, the headline moment was the proactive promotion of a new statement by trustees. This has culminated in the appointment of new co-opted trustees to enhance the board’s profile and set a new trajectory for our future. It will also help shape our future council. As the constitutional training ground for future IHBC trustees and leaders, our council lies at the heart of how we will evolve. In that context, we have been both privileged and delighted to extend the senior professional presence there in March 2023 with the appointment of Rebecca Thompson, past president of the CIOB, to the post of council vice president. Governance takes us full circle to the discussions around a royal charter for the IHBC and all that that entails. Alongside wide-ranging trustee-led and locally focused discussions, this process culminated first in a survey co-ordinated by consultant David Williams in the Summer of 2023. It consolidated a baseline of member interest in the initiative and identified issues and questions to be addressed. At every stage it has been made clear that the IHBC would and could only petition for a charter if there were overwhelming support from members, and the next step is already under way through our 2024 AGM. In conclusion: Clearly, recent times have offered unique and often unforeseeable challenges and opportunities. I hope and believe that we have done all we possibly could to make the most of both for conservation practice and practitioners, as well as for wider public interest and good. And regardless of how that all serendipitously ties with the fundamentals of a charter, I hope that we have also remained true to our core principles and objectives. If so, in these difficult times, we are even more of a rare beast. Seán O’Reilly is the Director of IHBC (director@ihbc.org.uk), joining in 2005 after working at the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland. He has written, contributed to and edited numerous publications in architectural history and conservation. ICOMOS-UK President Clara Arokiasamy OBE with Gus Astley Student Awards winners in Swansea
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=