The Chairman's Message (2007-2008)


Immediate Past Chairman's Report (Philip Chan)

At the end of February 2007, we have around 2530 memebrs in Hong Kong, out of the total membership of 18,300 around the world. The membership size of Hong Kong Region is very stable over the past years, which represents about one-seventh of the members of the Institution.

Following the success in Incorporation of Hong Kong Branch in late 2005, the Hong Kong Branch has received a legal operating entity. With the Limited Company entity, we have to reinforce our accounting system to meet the legal requirements of the Hong Kong Government, as well as the latest accounting requirements of the HQ. In this respect, all our finance activities and the yearly balance sheet will have to be audited by the Auditor.

The idea of setting up the Hong Kong Secretariat Office was initiated by our President ¡V Mr. David Hughes when he visited Hong Kong in April 2006. Meetings with local branches of several sister institutions, including RICS, APM and CIOB had been arranged. Finally, a decision had been made by the HQ that we should start our Hong Kong Secretariat Office jointly with APM.

With this decision in place, we had commenced our recruitment of an Executive Officer for the Hong Kong Secretariat Office. Two rounds of short-listing and interviews had been made and finally we had identified a suitable candidate for the post. The Executive Officer had started her employment with us from 3 October 2006, and the Office was formally opened by our President ¡V Mr. David Hughes, in the presence of the President Elect ¡V Mr. John Armstrong on 18 November 2006. The opening of the Hong Kong Office marks a big step forward in providing better service to some 2,500 members in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Office will also serve as a back-up station for the China activities of the HQ.

As usual, the HK Branch had arranged a rich and diversified programme for over 40 technical events in 2006 including seminars, symposia, workshops and site/factory visits for enhancing the technical knowledge of the Hong Kong members. These technical events are designed for CPD and some of them are joint events with other professional institutions, mostly with HKIE (BS Division) and ASHRAE (HK Chapter). In particular, we have organized an Electrical Services certificate courses which was held from September to November 2006. Guest speakers were invited from international manufacturers, contractors, consultants and properties management companies.

Amongst these technical events, the highlights in the year 2006 are the Mainland-Hong Kong Joint Symposium held on 29 June ¡V 2 July 2006 at Chengdu PRC and the CIBSE/ASHRAE/HKIE Joint Symposium held on 14 November 2006 at Shangri-La Kowloon Hotel. In each symposium, there were over 200 participants.

Following the success of the one-day workshop on ¡§Guide K ¡V Electricity in Buildings¡¨ in September 2005, the HK Branch Committee had decided that we should hold the one-day workshop on various CIBSE Guides at least twice per year to our Hong Kong members as a regular function. In this respect, two one-day workshops had been arranged in 2006. The first one-day workshop was held in March 2006 on ¡§Guide A¡¨ with guest speakers including David Hughes, Hywel Davis and Dr. Li Shao. The second one-day workshop was held in November 2006 on ¡§CIBSE AM10¡¨ with guest speakers including David Hughes, John Armstrong, Chris Twinn and Dr. Raymond Yau. These two one-day workshops were well received by the Hong Kong members, and this initiative will be continued in future.

We had also sponsored a research project ¡§A Study of Thermal Comfort for Chinese¡¨. The project was rolled out in collaboration with the City University of Hong Kong and Dongguan University. Our intention is to find out the Index for Thermal Comfort ¡V called Predicted Mean Vote or PMV for the Chinese such that we can have a more specific index or benchmark for design of the ventilation and air-conditioning performance. Dr. Albert So will deliver a talk to explain what we had done and the findings of this research project after the Annual General Meeting.

Another highlight of 2006 was a very successful 26th Anniversary Dinner held on 22 March 2006 where some 400 members and guests were present with tables being taken by a mixture of commercial, academic and institutional organizations. In addition, there were around 10 social gathering events organized by the Branch Committee and the YMG with allied professional institutions which have built a very good network with members and peer professionals.

The HK Branch continues to support local higher education in BS engineering by donating prizes to students with outstanding performance from the HK Polytechnic University, University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Institute for Vocational Education.

Finally, the Chairman would like to express his gratitude to all members of the current Branch Committee who have provided such good support and contribution to make all of the above activities so successful. Before closing, he wishes to offer his congratulation to the Incoming Chairman ¡V Mr. Thomas Soon for his every success in the next session of the Committee.

Chairman¡¦s Report (Thomas Soon)

It is my great honor and pleasure to be elected as the Chairman of the CIBSE Hong Kong Branch for the year 2007-8, which is indeed a meaningful year as we are entering into the 28th anniversary. We are proud here to say that the Hong Kong Branch is so successful that the HQ has recognized our out-performance amongst all regions. Thanks to the good work and achievement made by our Past Chairmen and their committee members.

As the coming chairman for the session 2007-8, I have the following visions:

1. To continue promotion for BS profession in Hong Kong, Macau & the Mainland

  • We shall uphold the CIBSE image by organising more project competitions and career talks to students in universities and upgrading regularly the contents of our Branch website
  • For the Mainland, we have held annually the Mainland-Hong Kong Joint Symposium. In fact this year is our 10th anniversary and it will be held in Hangzhou in July.
  • Our target this year is to enhance our network in Macau as we have a lot of engineers are now working in Macau and a number of large casino developments will be completed in these 2 years.

2. To provide value-added services to our members

  • We shall organize more social gathering and events for various members to exchange their views & interests.
  • We shall widen the spectrum of technical activities to cover special/current topics and to invite Distinguished Guest speakers from HK and overseas.
  • Another target is to enrich our local library and update current publications for our members.

3. To act as the link between the HQ and the Hong Kong members

  • We have opened our secretarial office in Oct 2006 with an aim to enhancing communication and professional networking with our members. Such set up has played a proactive role in reflecting the feedback and opinions from the HK members to the Headquarters so that the local interests are catered into Headquarters¡¦ activities.
  • We shall maintain our close collaboration with our partner institutions in all types of learned society activities.

4. To maintain a steady growth of membership

  • We shall promote the benefits of CIBSE membership and encourage the building professionals to join our institution.
  • We shall enhance our promotion in the universities via YGM as the students are future source to increase our membership growth.

Last but not the least, I would like all of you here to join me to express my heartfelt thanks to our immediate Past Chairman, Mr. Philip Chan and his committee for their valuable effort and contribution during the term of services for the year 2006.