MINUTES

AUCKLAND BRANCH

TRAINING AND NETWORKING EVENT

held on

Wednesday, 17th July at 6.00pm

at

Alexandra Park

Welcome:

Branch Chair Glynn Robertson opened the meeting, welcoming members, new members, and guests as well as extending a special welcome to the event's sponsor - Mike Olds, Resene Construction.

Attendance:

Auckland Council: Bashir Amso, Faraz Aslam, Samaradiwakara Babarenda Gamage, Timothy Ball, Chante Bellve, Jan-Louis Bezuidenhout, Brian Butcher, Danny Chan, Harish Chand, Charles Chen, David Coburn, Garry Cruickshank, Jeffrey Fahrensohn, Xantia Funaki, Swati Gupta, Prateek Gupta, Derek Hay, Ted Jones, Alex Khoo, Asnita Kumar, Kirsty Larmer, Peter Laurenson, Jimmy Li, Dino Llorando, Joseph Matehaere, Michael McArtney, Steven McMillan, Peter Moloney, Glen Moser, Steven Noakes, Alan Perich, Rafa Rawof, Lijo Samuel, Dolly Shah, Craig Tibbits, Leo Tritto, Danica Vercoe, Paul Vernon, Tanu Virdi, Jason Wang, Jane Wu, Ik Sun Yang, Mayannje Young, Tian Zhao, Amrita Kaur
CL Building Consultants Ltd: Craig Loeve
Guests: Ian Murray, Dominic Leigh
Inspect Services Ltd: Steve Hull
Life Member: Maurice Hinton
Monument Consulting Ltd: Alastair Couper
Qualitech International Limited: Andrew Minturn
Quality House Inspection: Frank Xing
Realsure Ltd: Sam Helmore
RDT Pacific: Glynn Robertson
Resene Construction: Mike Olds
Retired Member: Graham White
Simpson Strong-Tie: Daniel Scheibmair
Vertex Building Surveyors & Consultants Ltd: Pieter Le Roes
What's Up House Inspections: Karl Papa
Professional Building Consultants: Carrick Wood

Apologies:

Auckland Council: Peter Amies, Debra Christensen, Daniel Harrison, Richard Kaggwa, Steven Kueh, Ian McCormick, Clive Megson
Retired Member: Geoff Plimmer
D Stevens: Darren Stevens

Previous Minutes & Matters Arising:

The June meeting minutes were taken as read. It was noted Ian McCormick had been included as both an apology and in attendance. It was confirmed Ian McCormick was not an attendee at the June meeting.

It was agreed that general business would be addressed after both the evenings sponsor Mike Olds and the Chief executive Nick Hill had completed their presentations.

Guest Presentation:

Mike Olds - Resene Construction Systems
  • Mike introduced Resene Construction Systems Central Barrier System
  • The lightweight concrete panel system (Integra AAC) is designed for use as an IT wall system principally for terrace housing developments.
  • The system is for the residential marketplace and not suited to commercial applications
  • The acoustic testing of the product was undertaken at the Auckland University acoustic testing laboratory and an STC rating of 64 is achieved when installed in accordance with the manufacture's specifications.
  • The system has been developed with redundancy in mind and aims to achieve above the minimum performance requirements of the NZBC
  • Resene only offer a 120/120/120 system to the market to suit all applications
  • Installing the system using the proprietary aluminium brackets will achieve the post fire structural stability requirements of the NZBC
  • Resene Construction Systems have 30 years' experience of New Zealand Design, innovation and development leading to their system featuring:
  • BRANZ Appraised
  • DryZone Cavity System
  • High performance Façade tested - AS/NZ 4284 & BRANZ E2/VM1
  • Reduces external noise, for a more comfortable living environment.
  • Patented EdgeSeal flashing suite is tested to perform like no other.
  • Genuine Resene Colours
  • OnSite Quality Assurance programme
  • Vapour permeable coatings - breathability
  • System & Material component performance guarantee
  • Professional installation by Registered LBP contractor network

Glynn thanked Mike Olds for his very informative presentation and for sponsoring the venue and refreshments for the evening. He then introduced Chief Executive Nick Hill.

Nick Hill - Building Officials Institute of New Zealand.

  • Please find Nick's presentation here
  • His presentation updated his 17 April presentation and was as he explained, designed to put to bed some myths and lack of clarity he was made aware of as a result of comments at the June meeting, in particular around the financial state of the Institute, its strategic direction, and work programme ahead.
  • During the presentation the Chief Executive responded to questions as they arose.

General Business:

Member conversations

  • A member asked, why does the Building Levy not support BOINZ like it does BRANZ? Nick commented that this would be ideal, but unfortunately the spectrum of allowable uses of the levy is very narrow. BRANZ is actually funded in main part by the Building Research Levy. There is however a proposal in the recent Building System Legislation Reform Constitution to extend the Building Levy mandate.
  • It was confirmed by Nick that BOINZ is both a Not for Profit and registered Charitable Organisation.
  • There was a concern the Institute might be spending more money than we have. Nick confirmed, that although the Institute has run at losses over the last two years, this is not unusual for any business that is investing in future growth opportunities, but importantly in our case also because of the significant focus on getting the Diploma in place, as well as accepting that all our core training course programmes had now migrated to the providers of the Diploma. BOINZ is also now investing in their Online Training platform to enhance the delivery of its training content to focus on post qualification training.
  • Some members were concerned they were not being kept up to date with the institutions financial position. Nick said, every member has access to our year-end accounts, and he had in the past provided half yearly report to address this, but feedback showed they were not read.
  • The members would like the branch minutes delivered a lot sooner than a few days before the next meeting. Glynn Robertson, Branch Chair agreed to try to have the minutes issued more promptly, and in line with guidelines. Nick encouraged members to join the executive to support Branch Executives and their initiatives, and to support Glynn and Hasan in particular.
  • It was discussed if the meeting and venue had become too expensive. Members were asked for ideas to be put forward at the next meeting. It was also proposed that discussions should take place at the next AGM to decide what type of presentations the members would like to see in the following year.
  • Members commented on the hit/miss quality of some technical presentations. It was explained a sponsor supports payment for the venue, and the executive committee has little control over their presentation quality, although contributed to the subject matter and its direction.
  • Nick clarified a point in the June minutes around his position on the Australian Steel Board, noting BOINZ was a member organisation of ACRS (not the Australian Steel Board), and he was a Board member of ACRS who was recently elected as chair. Strategically this is very important to both BOINZ and the wider sector given the open market policies to product entry, both here and in Australia, meaning we not only get good quality product entering the NZ building chain, but also poor quality product. Being a member organisation supporting ACRS gives BOINZ and its members critical information on product certification processes at their highest level, but also an insight into the very real vagaries around steel supply to NZ buildings. One only has to follow media scrutiny to see how our building supply chain is manipulated and abused. Product Assurance is probably the NZ building industries biggest Achilles Heel.
  • There was expressed frustration at MBIE not adequately fulfilling their role in the construction industry, and they seem to have lost direction and ability to understand building issues. It was suggested BOINZ increase pressure on MBIE to lift the competence and collaboration. The latter they say they do in the promotion material, but members agreed it has never been poorer.

Branch Chair Glynn Robertson thanked the presenters and closed the meeting at 7.30pm.

Next Branch Training and Networking Event:

Wednesday 18th September

BOINZ Auckland Branch Chair

Glynn Robertson

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