AGM sees inauguration of new President

This year’s NASC Annual General Meeting (AGM), which took place in Belfast the day before the first Scaffex conference and expo, marked a transfer of power. At the end of his two-year term, outgoing President David Brown handed over the reins to new President, Wayne Connolly.

Brown told the meeting of his pride at how NASC had progressed over the two years of his term in office. “The organisation in 2024 is stronger and more vibrant than in 2022 and it has become something the scaffolding industry wants to be part of. It has become the gold standard for the scaffolding industry.”

He highlighted achievements over his term including the President’s Fund for training, a drive to promote sustainability in the sector and the hugely influential #IthastobeNASC campaign, which he said had become a rallying cry for the organisation.

Connolly meanwhile told the meeting that while his qualifications for taking on the role don’t include any time as a scaffolder, “I’m not a scaffolder and never have been,” he said, it includes over 30 years running his own businesses, including 22 years running a Connolly Scaffolding. He also has plenty of experience as a non-executive director.

Connolly ran through his key areas of focus for the coming two years including improved governance, digitalisation, the talent portal, the arrival of the Common Assessment Standard and TG30, Scaffex and the CISRS review, saying he was looking to build on the legacy of past presidents to “deliver on these big projects”.

The meeting heard from CEO, Clive Dickin, who presented updates on progress this year, a year he described as “a year of progress and a year of change”, pointing to the huge growth in member numbers that had been achieved with no drop in quality. He also ran through several big recent announcements, including the launch of TG30 and the enhanced audit based on the Common Assessment Standard, and announced ambitious plans for a partnership with City & Guilds Training and a potential fund of £1m for training via CISRS centres.

On CISRS, Dickin presented top-line findings from the recent perception survey, which showed that while there are a lot of positivity towards CISRS, there are also areas with significant room for improvement.

Dickin also outlined plans to update and modernise the training landscape across the industry, with ambitious discussions underway to launch a degree-level course in scaffolding, something that if it gets off the ground would be a world first.