Are you considering attending the AGM this November, but aren't quite sure?
Once upon a time, Oliver Hibbs MCIAT was in your position. As he prepares to attend for the fourth time, we sit down with him to talk advice for first time attendees, how the AGM encouraged him to take his career further, and how you can get the most out of your time there.
"I wanted to find out a bit more about how the business of the Institute works," Hibbs says when discussing what first encouraged him to attend the AGM. As he strokes his impressive beard, he tells me that he wanted to figure out “how I, on behalf of my Region, could contribute to that and affect that and be a voice in that."
Back then, in 2020, Hibbs wasn’t a Chartered Member yet, but managed to secure the role of Voting Delegate on the proviso he achieved Chartership in time, which thankfully he did. He had been working as an Architectural Technologist for the best part of a decade at that point. After graduating with a BSc(Hons) in Architectural Technology from the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture & The Built Environment at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, in 2012, he worked for a variety of practices across Scotland’s Central Belt, delivering both large social housing projects and smaller restorations to existing buildings. When the COVID-19 lockdown was enforced, he decided from his spare room that a change of practice and pace was needed, moving in early 2021 to Somner Macdonald Architects, a leader in design-led residential architecture, to their Edinburgh office.
In 2022, he first attended his first in-person AGM, travelling down to Bristol, and found it “a great opportunity to meet other ATs; other people who are interested in exactly the same sort of thing that you are.” He met other working professionals, Regional and Centre Chairs and Regional and Centre Councillors, and enjoyed having “a less structured, more informal chat about life, the industry, and the Institute.”
If first time attendees are at all worried about the formality of the event, Hibbs implores you not to be, saying that travelling down with his colleagues and meeting other ATs made it feel “more like a fun trip than a formal meeting.” And when it comes to the actual meeting itself, “it gives you a good opportunity to see how the business of running CIAT works, and a good insight into how we all play our part”, along with the chance to vote on any post-election Resolutions.
And the most surprising thing about the event? “The AGM is actually quite short!” he tells me. “I expected it to go on for some time, but I was surprised to be done with the actual business of the AGM quite quickly.” With the meeting taking place in the morning, this left plenty of space for socialising that afternoon and evening, as well as the night before.
It was this networking part of the event that ended up having a profound influence on Hibbs’ career trajectory. At that AGM in Bristol, Hibbs got chatting to a Regional Chair from London. He claims he “basically started grilling him over what’s involved in being a Regional Chair”. He liked what he heard, stating that “it inspired me to pursue that as something I wanted to do within my Region and gave me a bit more of a push to say, ‘oh yeah, I can totally do this’.” When the opportunity arose, he took it, and is now Scotland East Regional Chair and Acting Secretary.
“You have the kinds of conversations there that inspire you to go and do more,” he adds.
This year, he has two CIAT colleagues attending who have never been before, both of whom have “a lot to say and contribute, but also want to listen to what others have to say to see how they can, for their own and their Region’s agenda and on behalf of CIAT, begin and continue to have useful conversations”. Hibbs encourages other first timers to come and find him to start a conversation themselves, too. “I’m still keen to be involved,” he says.
The AGM will take place in Liverpool on Saturday 16 November 2024. If you’re still unsure about whether to attend, Oliver has some advice for you. “Just give it a go!” he says. “I thought, ‘why not me?’ So I would say: why not give it a go.”