My route to becoming Northamptonshire Society of Architects (NSA) president began fairly recently, having met with a small group of members at a meeting with the local museum team to assist with generating ideas leading up to their upcoming reopening. After general discussion with the group and our Treasurer Madeleine Adams, it became clear to me that the NSA was in need of assistance - without Madeleine’s help to date the NSA may have ceased to function, so I would like to thank her for her work over the past year or so, and I look forward to working with her over the coming year.
It's clear that over the course of the last few years, that the number of RIBA members attending NSA meetings and indeed the frequency of meetings had noticeably dropped, and I felt this was something I could help with improving. In my opinion in order to become a stronger, more valuable group, and one that can reach out to the wider community, we need to go back to basics and get to know each other better first. A key proposal for the coming year therefore, is to develop a series of events for local RIBA members to attend and become better acquainted with each other in order to give us a stronger grounding for future activities.
A summary of our target objectives for the coming year are:
- generate a wider awareness of the NSA within our county amongst all RIBA members
- create a stronger group and encourage greater member participation
- organising quarterly meetings with a speaker
- what do you want from the NSA? – create a portal for feedback and ideas
- improve the use of the current NSA website for social events that NSA members can attend and reach out to a wider audience, with other arts groups being encouraged to upload their events too.
- continue working with local organisations such as the Northampton Museum and Gallery
- engage with the University of Northampton and consider available opportunities with other educational establishments
- seek to develop and strengthen links with the Local Authorities in Northamptonshire, particularly in light of upcoming structural changes and recent masterplanning and developments
If you’d like to get involved with the branch and our future plans, please get in touch we@peter-haddon.com
