This week myself, Kerry and Susanne spent 24hrs with our advisory board.
We have always had a brilliant working relationship with our board and I wanted to start including them early on in our thinking and planning for 2025, so that we can draw on their skills and experience. I can’t quite believe that I’ve just typed “2025” in the preceding sentence!
Before we even get to 2025, within the next month we (LCRIG) will be at the JCT Symposium in Nottingham, then almost immediately afterwards supporting SMEs and DfT at the ITS World Congress and then in no time after that it will be Strictly Highways!!
It is for this reason that I wanted to bring us all together and to get some thinking space as we start to build and grow LCRIG’s activities in 2025. I really wanted us to do this without the pressure of months ticking away and then suddenly 2025 will be upon us.
Our board is made up of some fantastic people who have supported us at LCRIG, including Carol Valentine (Kent County Council), Ian Large (Blackpool Council), Andy James (Cornwall Highways), Dwayne Lowe (Bolton Council), Darren Capes (DfT), Sean Rooney (Oxfordshire County Council), and Paul Binks (Lancashire County Council). Several of our board members have been with us since the beginning and for some this seems unusual, with many organisations having a board refresh. For me, we have been through so many growths spurts that LCRIG is not static and therefore we are constantly evolving.
Just like our values of Achievement, Laughter, Family, and Integrity, the days very much reflected the underlying behaviour and how we’ve always worked with our board (and all members).
We worked hard over the 24 hours, and Ben Rawding, General Manager, JCB and his colleagues provided us with unconditional space at their VIP Visitor Centre. It was important to meet away from our normal workplaces to elevate our minds into thinking space and Ben helped us with this.
We enjoyed an evening meal together, Premier Inn standard food, but company, the laughter and genuine warmth amongst us all created an opportunity for us to reflect on our first afternoon together.
The full 24hrs was packed with verve, vigour, challenge but also ideas! Lots of ideas to help all our members!
We talked about how we can do more for members across all our membership groups, how we develop our intelligence into insights, our events, and new areas to consider expanding into! I am hoping that we will be able to talk more about some of these newer areas at Strictly, even if not yet fully formed.
Paula Claytonsmith, CEO
Main Image L-R: Andy James, Dwayne Lowe, Ian Large, Kerry Winstanley, Paula Claytonsmith, Susanne Ingham, Carol Valentine, Sean Rooney and Darren Capes.