Chief Executive’s Blog: Building The Industry’s Showcase

I’m really delighted that the BWF will be a full sponsor of the Wood Awards again this year.  The pressures on the budget in 2009 meant that the Executive Committee decided to withdraw from all previous sponsorships, and sadly, that meant that we could not contribute to the Wood Awards.  It wasn’t an easy decision, not least because the Committee members include past winners and shortlist nominees.  Nevertheless, even if we couldn’t contribute cash, we were determined to give what support we could in kind, and promoted the Awards to BWF members in the same way we always did. We weren’t the only association to face this predicament and take this decision, and in the end, the 2009 Awards were only made possible through additional support from AHEC and the Carpenters’ Company.  They deserve the thanks of the whole industry for their commitment in seeing the Awards through, but it would be wrong to expect them to prop them up indefinitely. When the Awards were re-launched in their current format in 2003, there was a determined and concerted attempt to bring every wood-related trade association in as sponsors.  This wasn’t just a revenue raising strategy.  The consensus was that if the Awards were to succeed, their fundamental purpose had to be the celebration and promotion of wood rather than the commercial benefit of the organisers.  To achieve this, they needed to be owned and driven by the timber-using industries themselves.  Over the years, some industry bodies dropped away.  This year, there will be a determined effort to bring the whole family back together to support the industry’s own Awards. There will also be a refocusing of the Award categories, and a new emphasis on the importance of design and craftsmanship.  In recent years, the comment has been made to me that the Wood Awards was ‘a competition for architects and furniture makers’, and was not really relevant to joinery companies any more.  That’s a long way from the original sponsorship pitch asking the BWF to sponsor the Wood Awards: ‘How can we run an award for the use of timber in building without the support of the people who actually make the final product?’  For the 2010 Awards, the main categories will remain, but the judges’ special awards will focus on Outstanding Design and Outstanding Craftsmanship.  The promotional effort will actively seek entries from manufacturers as much as from the architects and designers.  The call for entries opens on 3 March.  Have you got a project you could enter?  You’ve got to be in it to win it.