News

On Friday 3rd December SWWIC held their first ‘Ladies with Influence Lunch’ in two years at The Alverton Hotel in Truro.

The importance of this event was palpable as the event sold out within weeks of the date being announced – everyone was keen to begin the festive period and the ‘Lady with Influence’ to get us started was the delightful Melissa Thorpe Head of Spaceport Cornwall.

This year we have a real ‘Lady With Influence’ and are thrilled to announce that, Melissa Thorpe, MSc Head of Spaceport Cornwall, will be joining us at our Ladies With Influence Lunch (LWIL) at The Alverton, Truro on Friday 3rd December 2021.

The event has sold out in record time, however if you wish to put your name on the reserve list please send an email to info@SWWIC11@gmail.com

SWWIC are delighted to invite you to our 2nd site tour of the year!

Midas Construction Ltd are welcoming us to their site in Bodmin, at the new ‘Ottery Building’ for Truro & Penwith College.

Before a private tour around the site, we will hear from the Midas site team about the construction details of the project, as well as from SWWIC’s own Glayne Price from LHC Design.

We would like to welcome you to join Steve Warren-Brown and Adam King of YGS Landscapes and YGS Environmental Consultants who will be providing an introduction to the topic of urban afforestation and ‘My Wacky Forest’.

This is a great opportunity to learn more about their very exciting carbon offsetting venture, that has the potential to change green infrastructure strategy for years to come.

Join us on a visit to Exeter Rugby Club’s new £35m Sandy Park Hotel, kindly hosted by KTA and DNA.

Work on the state-of-the-art, 250-bed, eight-storey development began in mid-January 2020 and is due to complete in December 2021. With three months to go until completion the project is at a busy stage with bedroom joinery being fitted, public levels in progress and façade and ground works approaching completion.

Once again, this year’s ‘charity cheque handover’ will be delivered to you in a virtual manner.

We are delighted that Elsbeth Hallam from ‘Hugs from Henry’ and Andrea Atkins from ‘Sophie’s Smiles’ are joining us and will be able to give us an insight into the work that they have been doing.

SWWIC would like to say a big thank you to Gail Muller who recently provided a moving and inspiring wellbeing event based on her story of strength and determination.

Promoting good mental health and wellbeing, she gripped us all with her honest and candid way of speaking, making us both laugh and cry; coming away feeling uplifted and ready to take on the world!

For the first time in well over a year we are going to try and hold a face-to-face event – our annual AGM!

Come and join us at Bistrot Pierre for a drink and some nibbles (kindly sponsored by Ward Williams Associates) whilst the committee give an overview of 2020-21. This will then be followed by the voting in of the new committee for 2021-22 and time for you to network with like-minded individuals.

Now more than ever, many Public sector clients in Construction are asking companies to define and measure their social value commitments; this event aims to help understand some of the ways you can do this.

Willmott Dixon’s Assistant Community Liaison Manager, Danielle Haskings, will aim to look at:

• The definition of Social Value and why it is important to implement it within your business.
• The Social Value Portal and their National TOMs framework.
• An insight into Willmott Dixon’s approach to social value.

As our support of Sophie’s Smiles draws to a close, we have been thinking about how we might respond to the past year and help the wider community; it has clearly been a difficult time for a number of local groups, not just charities.

Our proposal for the next 12 months is to continue our 2nd year of support for ‘Hugs from Henry’ but to also make some smaller contributions to local community groups that, without help, may disband without extra financial support (e.g. a local Brownies Group, Youth Centre or sports club)

We are looking for suggestions, so if you or your families are members of such groups that need help then please let us know.

Langarth Garden Village will be a vibrant, connected, sustainable and well planned community for between 8,000 and 10,000 residents of Cornwall. It will have local character, strong services, and integrated and accessible transport and green spaces.

James Halse, Director and Senior Account Lead from Arcadis has kindly agreed to provide us with an update on the project.

Join Willmott Dixon Construction Manager, Kristian Cartwright, for a virtual tour of the new Digital and Data Centre at Exeter College followed by a live Q&A session.

As always, this event is open to members and non-members. To book your place please email info@swwic.co.uk.

Join us at 12:30pm on Thursday 18th February when Niki Read (SWWIC membership coordinator and Urban Designer for Plymouth City Council) will be giving an insight into ‘Healthy Streets’ followed by an opportunity for a Q&A session.

Having completed the Healthy Streets training and registering as an HS practitioner, Niki will talk through the principles of this approach, the impact it is having on our streets and how we are using it in Plymouth.

We would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to Debbie Langmead who recently stepped down from her role as SWWIC Treasurer after a number of years. Debbie has taken a move away from the construction industry and we wish her the very best of luck in her new ventures.

With this in mind we are very fortunate that Emma Martin, Senior Cost Consultant at Arcadis, has kindly taken on the role of Treasurer for the second time around.

Join SWWIC and Constructing Excellence Cornwall at 4pm on Friday 15th January for a virtual site tour kindly hosted by Midas Construction.

Midas Construction are currently on site at the former Four Winds pub in Falmouth, constructing a £8.1 million high-quality care home for Barchester Healthcare.

With the current lockdown on going, we have planned a Charity Bingo Night, on what theoretically should be the last night(!!). So, as it is likely that you won’t be ‘out and about’ just yet, how about joining us on Wednesday 2nd December, with eyes down at 7.00pm!? We would love all our SWWIC members and colleagues, family and friends to join us and help raise crucial funds for Plymouth Food Bank.

We are delighted that SWWIC have been awarded the ‘John Laurence Special Contribution Award’ at last nights Michelmores Property Awards 2020, in recognition of our support, dedication and making positive change to the construction industry.

With more and more organisations seeking to reduce their carbon footprint, our webinar explored the principles of net zero building design, brought to life with case studies and practical examples.

Working with Build UK, CITB have agreed a collaboration with STEM Learning that allows the existing Ambassador programme to function on the largest Ambassador platform in the UK.

If anyone wants to remain (or become) an ambassador then as of July 2020 you will need to register on the STEM scheme and choose the Construction and built environment option.

On Thursday 13th August 2020 SWWIC held their ‘Virtual Cheque Handover’ event to Devon Mind and Sophies Smiles over the airwaves!

We are delighted to announce that SWWIC members have the chosen to support ‘Hugs From Henry’ for the forthcoming 2 years, in addition to our final year of ‘Sophie’s Smiles’.

As everyone is aware we are in very different times at the moment and as we draw close to the end of our SWWIC financial year we are minded to hold an AGM. With this in mind, this year due to the current pandemic, we will be hosting the AGM via zoom!

Following the latest information received from the Government the SWWIC committee have reached a decision in regards to postponing our April and May events currently noted on our website.

As the last event of the year, and indeed of this decade (!) SWWIC members were welcomed to a breakfast event with a difference at Bistrot Pierre in Royal William Yard in Plymouth.

On 27th September SWWIC held our annual ‘Ladies with Influence’ Lunch at The Carlyon Bay Hotel in Cornwall and were delighted to welcome guest speaker, Chief Executive of Cornwall Council, Kate Kennally.

Following a very close vote from our members, we are delighted to announce that our chosen charity to support for the following two years (alongside Devon MIND for the next year) will be ‘Sophie’s Smiles’.

SWWIC are pleased to have pledged £100 towards supporting the Mayflower Forest project.

On Wednesday 7th August 2019, SWWIC were hosted by Shekinah at their Stonehouse construction hub for an official handover of cheques to both Shekinah and Devon MIND (formally Plymouth MIND).

Willmott Dixon kindly hosted a second site visit on 26th July to see the progress of the new Exeter Police Station, consisting of a 40 cell custody suite and 2 large operational policing hubs.

SWWIC held our first boat trip in a very long time on 18th July, and what a successful evening it was!!

On Friday 21st June we enjoyed our third and final return visit to The Box in Plymouth.

20 SWWIC members enjoyed a historic and fascinating tour of the Market Hall, Devonport on Friday 24th May. Hosted by Micki Beck of the Real Ideas Organisation (RIO), we were able to see the building in its raw state before the new extension and refurbishment works progress.

Another fabulous year has come to an end culminating in the AGM where Chair, Glayne Price (LHC Design) ran through the achievements of the organisation over the past year.

A great site visit to the new Hi-Tech & Digital Centre at South Devon College was provided by Midas Construction on 1st May.

After months of hard work and dedication we are pleased to announce the launch of our new look website www.swwic.co.uk

Glayne Price welcomed attendees to the last meeting of the year, giving a short overview of 2018 and a glance into what 2019 has in store for SWWIC.

In collaboration with CIOB and WIP, SWWIC held the first of a series of visits to the new Exeter Police Station in November.

On a beautiful October afternoon, it was great to see so many in attendance at our Annual Lunch at Kitley House.

The Box is part of Plymouth’s 400th-anniversary commemorations for the Mayflower ship sailing from Plymouth to America and will provide a new home for the city’s fascinating and vast historical collections.

At the end of May 2018, SWWIC held their AGM at Boston Tea Party in Plymouth.

On Friday 13th April, SWWIC officially handed over two cheques for the funds raised by members at Glazebrook House.

2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower, an event of global significance resonating down through those four centuries. Mayflower 400 is a five year programme of community, creative, educational…

What an exciting tour of Mount Wise today. It really is so overwhelming to see our city of Plymouth really come to life, especially this area of Plymouth. We were given a sneaky peak of some 360…

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to our SWWIC 2018 High Tea Charity Cheque Handover & Awards Presentation on Friday 13th April 2018 at 3pm.

Excerpts from an article originally published in The Guardian newspaper sent to us by Tessa Purdy of Midas Construction.