Branch Focus - North West

CIArb’s North West Branch is a well established, successful and progressive branch. We have circa 450 members from a variety of professional backgrounds. We generally host events every 6-8 weeks throughout the year and we often have prominent speakers from their respective fields discussing relevant topics. These events are always well attended. We have a strong and diverse committee, and most committee members have roles which are linked to a form of ADR or to promoting the branch and the services it offers to our members. In addition to this we actively engage with other institutions and often host shared events, which have a dispute resolution focus. This raises awareness of ADR to non CIArb members.

Interview with Matthew Drake FCIArb, North West Branch Chair:

• What do you want to see in your Branch this year?
  We would like to see a return to face to face events, which have been on hold since March 2020. We have an excellent Education Committee in the branch and we hold several flagship events each year. Some of the events include The Manchester Lecture, The Arbitration and Adjudication Surgery, The Mediation Surgery, the Construction Law Update and our Annual Dinner. Attendance at these events is always high and they are an excellent way for our membership to interact with each other. We are also hoping to increase our membership numbers in the branch to more than 500 for the start of 2022.

• How will you implement and deliver success?
  For increasing membership, We have designated committee members focussing on student membership and general membership. The committee members, designated with this responsibility, develop a plan with aims and work towards achieving them. We also hope to appeal to new members via our busy education calendar. If prospective members can see the quality of events we hold then we believe this will act as a further enticement to join up.

• How have you used social networking?
  We have a designated committee member looking after the North West Branch Twitter account and also a designated committee member looking after the branch newsletter, the latter of which goes out every Sunday. We advertise these two forms of social networking at our events and actively encourage members to share articles from the newsletter in the hope that it will attract more people to sign up to the newsletter and also to follow us on twitter.

• What have you done to engage younger members and students?
  We have a YMG Chair and a designated committee member for student membership. Collectively and with the wider support of the branch committee these individuals are tasked with hosting events and raising the branches profile to young and student members. In respect of the student members, there are committee members with affiliations to local colleges and universities and through these channels, awareness is raised about the CIArb student membership offering.

• How will you communicate more effectively with your members?
  We are always looking at ways of improving how we communicate with our members. We hope to in the near future, establish a branch Linkedin page, which will coincide with our twitter and newsletter offerings. We also hope to do another Podcast series, after the recent success of our DIY Construction Adjudication Podcast, also available on Spotify and Amazon.

• Do you have a social media presence as a Branch? (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)
  We do, please visit our Twitter account, @CIArbNW