Celebrating Another Successful Annual Dinner & Awards

Roy Wakeman, BWF President

Over 120 members, their guests and sponsors joined us on 18th November on the occasion of the 33rd BWF Annual Dinner. It was a wonderful occasion and was set in the 1920’s art décor Palm Court reception room at the Waldorf Hotel in the Aldwych London.

We were graciously entertained by a classical pianist from the elegant balcony and after a champagne reception we enjoyed a terrific three-course dinner with plenty of good cheer to wash it down.

I was pleased to be able to bring everyone up-to-date with the successes we have had during the year both in a net growth in membership, increased revenues from the BWF-CERTIFIRE Firedoor & Doorset Scheme (and a shortly to be launched the Fire Door Inspection Scheme) , and the successful launch of the BWF Stair Scheme.

We were also able to mention the success of the Wood Window Alliance (WWA) where over 40 major manufacturers and suppliers are behind a growing £500K consumer marketing campaign, which is already increasing both the awareness and actual demand for third party accredited timber windows.

All of this success demonstrates the strength and prominence of the BWF working on behalf of its membership in the market place and amongst the legislators.

Increasing our members’ sales and profitability is always uppermost in our minds when devising our strategy and targeting our individual products and campaigns.

I had the pleasure of thanking Ian Purkis our immediate past President for his most successful two years in office and presenting him with his choice of gift, which was a new sail for his boat! He also gets to wear the honorary immediate past presidents badge at all formal occasions.

The Annual Dinner is now the occasion where we remember John Hedgecock, through the memorial award, which proudly bears his name.

John led our technical team for many years and the award, generously sponsored by Timbmet, is given to recognise exceptional technical excellence, achievement or innovation in joinery manufacture.

The judgeing panel was made up of Keith Tyson, Lignum Associates; Gervais Sawyer, Wood Technology Society; Kevin Underwood, BWF Technical Manager; and Justin Haywood, Timbmet.

This year there were 5 excellent short listed entries from:

JELD-WEN (UK) Ltd for jointly developing a new internal decorative panelled  Burford door, with their major customer Howdens Joinery.

Mumford and Wood for energy and acoustic rated conservation sash windows and doorsets to the listed Priory Court classroom at the New Hall School in Essex.

Westgate Joinery for developing a sophisticated packaging and logistics system that allowed oversized and heavy sash windows to be easily hoisted into their fixing position in what were extremely difficult site conditions.

ABS Joinery for supplying all the joinery requirements for a new house in Landbeach Cambridgeshire made in European Oak.

George Barnsdale and Sons for supplying windows and doorsets for the Grade II listed Lancasters all made from certificated and sustainable timber a mixture of heartwood redwood and red grandis.  

The winners were announced on the evening, handing congratulations (and the trophy) to JELD-WEN (UK) Ltd and Howdens Joinery, and we were delighted that Wendy Trott Managing Director at Timbmet Ltd as sponsors, was able to present the award to Ian Purkis, Technical Director of JELD-WEN (UK) Ltd and Harry Sample, New Products Development Manager of Howdens Joinery.

Our article on the award winners will give you more information on this fantastic project.

The event proved to be our most successful in terms of attendance and we also had a waiting list for spare tickets. Looking to next year, we need to make the event bigger and better, and I hope that we can accommodate more members to a memorial and enjoyable evening.

I would like to thank all our supporters, particularly our premium sponsor Crystal Units, and all of our other sponsors: Performance Timber Products Group (champagne reception), J B Kind Ltd, B&CE Benefits Schemes, ConstructionSkills, and Towergate Risk Solutions.

Finally, many thanks to all our permanent staff for working so hard to make sure the event was carried off in such panache; very many thanks from your grateful President!