This year the Federation AGM and conference was held at the Danubius Hotel Regents Park to be close to Lord’s Cricket Ground, the home of MCC (Middlesex Cricket Club), where the Stone Awards were being presented on the following day.

The Awards are covered elsewhere on this website and details of the projects recognised can be found in the Souvenir Brochure that can be downloaded from the Home Page. Suffice to say the presentation was, once again, a glittering affair that really highlighted the exceptional quality of work being carried out in all areas of construction – in interiors and exteriors, for new build and restoration – by the stone industry in this country.

It was noted at the AGM that as well as the Souvenir Brochures distributed with Natural Stone Specialist after the last Awards in 2008, those given to the 300 people who attended the Awards ceremony on the day and 2,000 copies distributed afterwards by Stone Federation to the industry’s professionals and customers, 1,000 copies had also been downloaded as PDFs from the Federation website, all of which was a clear indication of the significance of the Awards in promoting stone and the industry that supplies it.

The Federation thanks TV builder Tommy Walsh, who presented the Trainee Mason of the Year Award (two of them, in fact, as the judges felt they could not differentiate between the top two candidates) and former England Rugby Skipper Bill Beaumont. Bill presented the Stone Awards prizes and entertained us after the celebration lunch with his recollections from a career in rugby and as one of the captains of the BBC’s A Question of Sport programme, which Stone Federation has unashamedly ‘drawn inspiration from’ for its own A Question of Stone quiz that rounded off the conference once again this year.

Thanks, also, to Jim Rosenthal, the TV and radio sports commentator, who hosted the event and National Lottery ‘voice of the balls’ Alan Dedicoat who announced the winners.

An Award that Stone Federation presents annually is Trainee Mason of the Year – although, as previously mentioned, there were two of them this time. They received their trophies before the main prizes were presented at the Natural Stone Awards.

On hand to make the presentations was TV builder Tommy Walsh, a long-time supporter of Stone Federation Great Britain.

The two young apprentices who share the Trainee Mason of the Year title for 2010 are Samantha Peacock and James Elsey.

Samantha is 24 and works as an apprentice banker mason at Wells Cathedral Stonemasons in Cheddar. She is in her fourth year.

James Elsey is 20 and works for Cathedral Works Organisation in Chichester. He is in his third year as an apprentice mason.

But back to the AGM. The report of the year’s activities by Stone Federation is automated these days, so a lot of information can be packed into a short period without committee chairmen having to come up to the dias to make their reports.

This year members heard that Stone Federation is working with the company that provides their legal hotline for members, Watson Burton, to fight back against the practice of giving concrete and other man-made products names that indicate they are natural stone.

Members were also told that, in order to minimise distribution costs, the Federation is aiming to make 75% of its communication with members electronic in the year ahead – and it was noted that in spite of the loss of some members as casualties of the recession, the net overall membership had grown again.

On health & safety, Stone Federation is working with the Health & Safety Executive and has launched the StoneSafe programme to help members comply with the law and keep employees safe.

The first two publications under the StoneSafe banner have been published and more will follow. And in future, filling in the StoneSafe questionnaire about health & safety will be compulsory in order to achieve Stone Federation membership.

The Federation is still working towards collating some meaningful statistics about the stone industry in the UK, both for the benefits of members and for promotion purposes, and there are plans to establish a ‘sustainability and ethical sourcing forum’.

An important part of the annual meeting is formally to elect a President, who normally serves for two years.

The Senior Vice President was Iain Kennedy, Managing Director of Realstone, but as he is still busy following the management buy-out of the company, David Ellis from Sandberg replaced him as the unopposed nominee for the position, taking over from Alex Stables of London masons Stone Productions.

Having been elected and presented with the chain of office, David said one of his aims during his Presidency would be to drive forward the Federation’s Hallmarque Scheme.

Hallmarques were the inspiration of the previous government to try to raise standards in the construction industry. They are intended to create a standard that companies can achieve to show they are legitimate and financially sound. David said the stone Hallmarque would now also include sustainability and ethical issues.

Handing over the responsibility of Presidency, Alex Stables said the past two years had been an eye-opener for him to just how much work is carried out behind the scenes by the staff and committees of the Federation. He thanked everyone involved for the support they had given him.

The conference part of this year’s annual gathering included presentations by Rudi Klein, a noted Barrister and Professor of Law; Ian Major, a marketing, sales and business operations professional who spent most of his life working for Jaguar cars; and David Richardson from the BRE.

Rudi spoke about changes to payment processes in construction that are taking place in April next year and which could improve life for specialist contractors in England (Scotland and Wales have not yet consulted so the changes will be implemented later there).

David Richardson developed the theme of sustainability and ethical sourcing of stone and Ian Major compared his experiences of selling Jaguar cars to that of selling stone.

He said the stone industry did not need to be defensive about the price of a product that was as individual and distinctive as the product itself. You leverage the customer’s individuality, he said. At Jaguar they called it ‘emotional engineering’.