Colin Cleverly, who has held the reigns as Executive Secretary for 14 years during the Group's formative years, is set to retire from his position at the end of 2007 and will be replaced by Alan Tovey who is already located at Riverside House in his post as Executive Director of The Basement Information Centre. Alan is a chartered structural engineer with experience of bridge design whilst with British Rail in the early 60s. Alan also spent 21 years with The Cement and Concrete Association (and latterly The British Cement Association) so is extremely well qualified for the role.

Keith Wilson (Faber Maunsell) is also set to retire at the end of 2007 having contributed significantly to the work and development of CBDG over the last 10 years. He was Chairman of the Group from 1998-2000 and then succeeded George Somerville as Chairman of the Technical Committee, a position he still holds today. He will be succeeded in this role by Colin McKenna (Scott Wilson), whose term as Group Chairman ends in June 2008.

When news of the intended retirement of the Executive Secretary, Colin Cleverly, first became public, The Concrete Society proposed that CBDG might like to consider merging with the Society. This proposal was discussed at length and put before the membership at the AGM in June. It was agreed that discussions could continue but, on further consideration and on receipt of the news that major reorganisation of the entire concrete sector was being considered, the CBDG Council decided that the approach should be rejected. In reality, the perceived benefits of such a move fell way short of the concerns felt throughout the Group.

Although discussions on the proposal to merge with The Concrete Society took centre stage at the AGM, held again at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, on June 27th., the meeting elected two new members to serve on Council for 2-year terms of office i.e.
 
     Corporate (Category 2)    Simon Bourne (Benaim)
     Associate (Category 3)    Dr. Bob Lark (Cardiff University)
 
Thanks and appreciation were also extended towards the retiring members, following completion of their terms of office i.e. Richard Cooke (Faber Maunsell) and Dr. John Owen (Nottingham University).

(Please click on Management for full list of Council members for 2007-8)

All three events will again be moulded into one event and will again be held at St.Hugh's College, Oxford on Wednesday and Thursday, June 25th and 26th 2008.