FROM THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE

摘要

One of the benefits of being president is that one meets exceptional people. One such person is Mayor Richard Lees of Taunton Deane Borough Council. I chaired their 17th Annual Building Control Conference there in late October and Mayor Lees represented the Council and opened the Conference. Mayor Lees is blind and was accompanied by his wife who is partially sighted. He stood and gave an impressive speech using Braille notes which I had never seen before. However, what impressed me most was that he had taken the trouble to research my background and the compliments he paid me established a very firm foundation with the delegates which carried me through the day. One of the conference organisers, Mary Sims, told me of his exceptional ability to listen to what people are saying to him. Over lunch he spoke of Taunton Deane's aspirations for the future as expressed in their plans up to the year 2020. He also gave me the opportunity to talk to him about science and technology parks, and of one of the key elements for a successful science research or technology park being the creation of a formal link between an academic environment and a knowledge-based industry (that is, a written agreement for technology or intellectual property transfer between a third level educational institution and a commercial, usually knowledge-based enterprise). If there is not a park already developed in the area I expressed the view that the conditions for the creation of one might already exist at Taunton Deane. Mayor Lees very kindly gave me a copy of his biography which he published in 2003. A pleasant read (and I know he won't be offended if I say it would not be in the list of finalists for the Booker prize) until you get to the last page and the last sentence and I quote 'I am just grateful for what I have got out of life so far but if you are asking me for an ambition, it's to be, one day, Mayor of Taunton Deane'. This is another reason why I think Mayor Lees is exceptional; he picked an objective and took the first step towards realising it by writing it down.