I cannot believe that my two years as President of BCAS are coming to an end; the time has flown by so quickly. It has been a great pleasure to work with the BCAS team, meet a lot of the members and learn more about our industry and the market sectors we serve.

One highlight of my tenure was working with the Board to develop a strategic plan for the Society to address the mission, future role, shape and structure of the organisation to take us forward in a changing environment. Our aim was to make the Society as relevant as we can by providing and communicating a clearly articulated value proposition. 

We have developed our message that states who we are, what we do and who we represent under the strap line ‘Insist on BCAS – Be Compliant And Safe’. We want end customers to know that they can trust BCAS members to provide a safe, efficient and ethical service so we are developing new Codes of Conduct that customers and members can rely upon.

The constant challenge for any membership organisation is to retain existing members and recruit new members, so I am extremely pleased that the Society has increased the number of members, decreased our overheads and held our membership fees for the fourth successive year.

Other highlights were the spring and autumn conferences we facilitated, where attendee numbers have increased, and the Society lunch, which continues to sell out early. All these events have provided excellent opportunities for our members to network and meet the Society’s staff and board.

Energy efficiency is becoming more important to our industry as legislation comes into force and customers demand systems that consume less energy. I believe that industry is responding extremely well to these demands.

BCAS is primarily a technical trade association and I am privileged to represent the Society on the Pneurop Council. Pneurop is the European association of manufacturers of compressors, vacuum pumps, pneumatic tools and allied equipment, represented by their national associations. The organisation speaks on behalf of its members in European and international forums concerning the harmonisation of technical and legislative developments and is contributing to several ISO committees. Pneurop actively supports energy efficiency and environmental protection among its member organisations by supporting the sustainable energy policy of the European Union. 

The EU sustainable industrial policy aims to foster environmental and energy-efficient products, and one of the biggest Pneurop projects BCAS has been supporting is Ecodesign Lot 31 – Preparatory Study on Compressors.

BCAS acts as the voice of the British compressed air industry in the European Union legislative forum. The Society is also committed to providing a demand-led service to our members to provide benefits that offer real value, such as free AIRSAFEregister scheme, free one-to-one advice and free business conferences

It’s not in my nature to do something half-heartedly, so when I accepted the role of President I committed to spend whatever time was needed to the job. I have to say that it has been challenging to juggle the BCAS presidency with my ‘day job’ and other responsibilities, including Pneurop, but I have had great support from the team at BCAS and from my colleagues at Parker, which has made it all possible.

The main highlight for me was presenting the Society’s technical officer, Greg Bordiak with an antique barometer to celebrate his 25 years with BCAS at the lunch in November 2013; Greg has been a stalwart of the Society and his technical knowledge, professionalism and contribution to the industry cannot be surpassed. It has been a real pleasure to work with such a dedicated team of people and members. I’ve always been an advocate of British engineering and manufacturing so I’ve taken a great deal of pleasure from this job. I’ll be more than satisfied if I’ve made a very small contribution to our wonderful industry.

Andy Jones, who will take over from me at the annual ball in November is a great guy and I’m sure he’ll take the Society to a new level. My only advice to him is to make sure you get some work out of the immediate Past President – he hasn’t retired from his Board duties yet.