MINUTES OF CANTERBURY/WESTLAND BRANCH TRAINING AND NETWORKING EVENT
Time & Date: 4:45pm, 30 July 2024
Location: Online via Zoom
Welcome:
The Chair Jenny Lilley welcomed Canterbury Westland members, and attendees from other branches as the meeting was opened to all BOINZ members.
The Chair welcomed the guest speaker Ken Elwood and the Canterbury Westland Board representative Jeff Fahrensohn.
Attendance:
It was confirmed that the meeting was recorded, and attendance was recorded digitally.
Apologies:
Les Frost
Guests:
Ken Elwood, Chief Engineer (Building Resilience) MBIE-EQC, Professor Earthquake Engineering University of Auckland.
Previous Minutes:
Minutes from 13 April meeting are available online on the BOINZ website.
Matters Arising:
Nothing raised.
Correspondence In/Out:
- BOINZ Codetalk emails.
- The chair introduced our new Membership Relations Coordinator Francesca Branch who has taken over from Simbai Manyumwa. Jenny confirmed that Francesca can be reached by emailing membership@boinz.org.nz for any membership questions.
- Remuneration Survey results are now available in MyBOINZ.
- Request for member feedback on the fire safety review – closed last Thurs 27/07.
- SBCO Forum 8-9 August in Queenstown – the programme is available on the website and the theme is ‘Building Momentum’.
General Business:
News from Conference 2024:
- The new board has been elected and President Karel Boakes and Vice President Peter Sparrow were announced at the AGM in May – details of the Board are available on the BOINZ website.
- In line with the new Constitution’s triennial Board election process, the Board members have been balloted in for differing terms as part of a one off transitional process.
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- One Year Term
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- Jeff Fahrensohn, Dan Scheibmair
- Two Year Term
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- Karel Boakes (President), Brent Goldschmidt
- Three Year Term
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- Jeff Farrell, Peter Sparrow (Vice President)
- At the conference the Canterbury Westland Branch was awarded the coveted prize of ‘Branch of the Year 2023’ (group cheer 😊). The chair expressed massive thanks to all members for the ongoing support and engagement and confirmed that the award is to celebrate the ongoing commitment and engagement of all Canterbury Westland Branch members.
- The chair noted that the branch executive need to find a home for the trophies that we are accumulating – if anyone has space in their workplace and would be happy look after our trophies please let Jenny know.
New Members:
Welcome to the new Canterbury Westland Branch members:
- Anitha Padinjaremarath
- Debbie Wilson – Waimakariri District Council
- John Cameron – Grey District Council
Meetings for the rest of 2024:
- 24 September – visit to Southbrook Fire Research test facility for demo NB UPDATE: this visit has been postponed and the meeting will now be held on Tuesday 24 September, 4.30pm at Selwyn District Council.
- Friday 18 - Saturday 19 October– Hanmer Springs – details TBC but tentatively noted as:
- Friday 18 October:
- Meeting – Hanmer Library meeting room.
- Followed by a meal – possibly at Monteiths.
- Saturday 19 October
- Behind the scenes Pools visit.
- Queen Mary development visit.
- Hot pool swim midday to early afternoon.
- Home Saturday mid-afternoon.
- 26 Nov – Xmas social – bowls and BBQ at Burnside Bowls club.
Board Representative Update:
The Board update was provided by Jeff Fahrenshon:
- Don’t forget to ensure your membership and attendance at branch events and our conferences are in your employment contracts.
- BOINZ’s Free 20-minute Employment Law support consultation service was launched at the end of 2023 to support members in achieving the right outcomes in discussions with employers.
- Please use this if you have concerns in respect of your rights or just need to understand the right approach to discussions.
- Membership recognition: The Member Loyalty recognition programme is continuing to roll out across the country.
- SBCO 2024 The Senior Building Control Officials will be held on 8th and 9th August in Queenstown. Book early as spaces are limited.
- The next conference will be held in Christchurch in May. The Chief Executive has advised this event will very likely be a Joint Annual Conference and SBCO event.
Building Code Issues:
- The chair confirmed that the Branch executive have received a reminder about this item, and confirmed to all members that they are able to bring any issues relating to the New Zealand Building Code (NZBC) to be discussed at branch meetings and these will be passed on to BOINZ Head Office and addressed by the Building Code Advisory Group.
- Ideally if they could be emailed to Liz ahead of the meeting we can add them to the agenda or potentially dedicate a meeting to the discussion if it warrants it.
- The chair asked if there are any NZBC items for discussion – nothing raised.
Guest Presentation (Please see the end of the minutes for the link to the presentation slides):
- The chair welcomed the guest speaker Ken Elwood and thanked him for presenting.
- Speaker: Ken Elwood, Chief Engineer (Building Resilience) MBIE-EQC, Professor Earthquake Engineering University of Auckland
- The subject of the presentation was introduced as: ‘Shaken, Not Stirred’ - Seismic Hazards in New Zealand and how we Manage Them.
Presentation:
- Ken gave a detailed presentation on the seismic hazards that affect Aotearoa New Zealand, and how our knowledge and understanding of the risks they present has changed and grown over time.
- He discussed the faults that affect New Zealand, and how these have been categorised and developed into ‘zones’ that map seismic risk. He emphasised that even the ‘Low’ seismic zone is not really low – it is just at the lower end of the scale of risk for New Zealand.
- Ken explained that the National Seismic Hazard Model (NHSM) is used to forecast ground shaking at different sites from a range of different earthquakes.
- The NSHM was updated in 2022 – this was long overdue as the last major revision was in 1998.
- Ken explained how the NSHM examines different factors such as annual exceedance probability (how frequent an earthquake may be), peak ground acceleration (the intensity of the shaking) and the ‘period’ or time between the seismic waves that cause the shaking.
- The update to the NSHM has produced an increase in the forecast ground shaking for nearly all parts of New Zealand, and the increase is more than double in some areas.
- Ken explained that New Zealand is unique in that it sits on top of the Hikurangi Subduction Zone, and has large centres of population located directly above this area e.g. Wellington.
- Ken explained how the structural design standard NZS 1170.5:2004 needs to be updated to account for the changes to the NSHM. A draft Technical Statement TS 1170.5 has been consulted on in February 2024 and it is intended that this will be released for engineers to use as an alternative solution in due course.
- TS 1170.5 incorporates the new knowledge from the update to the NSHM and will result in several changes to how our buildings are designed to withstand seismic loads.
- These changes will affect both low rise and high rise construction, and there are many variables to be considered. For example site classification, building strength, building height.
- Ken showed where the proposed requirements sit in comparison to international standards for countries with similar seismic risk and confirmed that while the seismic design loads will increase, that other countries are already designing and building structures for higher loads successfully.
- Ken stressed that for existing Earthquake Prone (EQP) and non EQP buildings we should continue to use NZS1170.5:2004 and Geotech module 2016 for assessments to ensure continuity and consistency.
- In closing, Ken gave his key takeaways for attendees – namely that the update to the NSHM has resulted in an increase to the seismic hazard facing nearly all parts of New Zealand, that the new TS 117.5 will support better design for this in the future and that for assessments of existing buildings (%NBS) that NZS 1170.5:2004 should continue to be used.
- Ken answered a question from the audience around what would the key points to look out for as a Building Control Officer when assessing a seismic design using TS 1170.5 as an alternative solution – he confirmed that any alternative solution based on TS 1170.5 should use that approach for the entire design (i.e. not a ‘pick & mix’ approach), and that careful attention should be paid to the ground classification.
Next Branch Training and Networking Event: scheduled for 24 September 2024 at Selwyn District Council.
Special thank you to:
Ken for his detailed presentation and members for their attendance.
Jenny Lilley closed the meeting at 5:30pm
Liz Ashwin
Canterbury/Westland Branch Secretary
