Archives for October 2022

The GGF Political Strategy Committee (PSC) is pleased to be extending an invitation to Members from the Home Improvement sector and Manufacturing and/or Glass Processing sector to consider signing themselves up for election.

The scope of the PSC is to consider the relevant Government legislation and regulations for the Glazing industry and to represent the views of the GGF with Governments and stakeholders.

What do the Political Strategy Committee do?

The role of the committee is to provide information and knowledge from GGF committees into the GGF political strategy. Members of the PSC will contribute by providing clarity on the issues that the GGF should continue or start to prioritise as part of its overall strategy.

Providing the direction that sustains the organization for the upcoming months, Members of the committee will also be well prepared and will be looking beyond the coming year. Successful candidates will also be assigned to the HIE, GE or Regional Chairs committees.

The GGF are looking for a group of representatives who have relevant experience in working with legislative documents and regulations changes.

Current industry issues that the Political Strategy Committee are working on, include:

• The Building Regulations and the Approved Documents
• The Heat and Buildings Strategy
• The Future Buildings standard
• The Building Safety Bill
• The Energy Savings Materials list
• Glazing: A route to Net Zero
• The GGF Political Strategy
• European Product Standards

Interested?

To put yourself forward to be part of the GGF Political Strategy Committee please send your CV to the PSC Secretary, Chris Beedel via email at cbeedel@ggf.org.uk.

Alternatively if you would like to know more about the PSC please email cbeedel@ggf.org.uk for an informal chat on the PSC feel free to call Chris on 07903 168121.

We were so delighted to see such a big turnout of Members and their guests at Members Day in Manchester.

The GGF were fortunate enough to have been able to offer guests a free tour of the Man City stadium, the Etihad, before we sat down for a buffet lunch to ready everyone for a day of hearing industry experts GGF staff and guest speakers offer us their insight on the industry.

The key themes from the presentations at the event were Net Zero, and the important role GGF members can play in supporting government in its delivery, along with Training and Upskilling.

Once the conference had ended, we all made our way over to the National Football Museum for a night filled with networking and fizz! The GGF hopes you enjoyed the day as much as we did.

A Massive Thank You to Our Guest Speakers

It was such a pleasure to have Jade Lewis from the Sustainable Energy Association (SEA) and Dave Dalton from British Glass take time out of their schedules to speak to our Members, and we hope each of you had some time to connect with them and speak about their work. 

Jade discussed the gaps in policy and the SEA’s 5 key deliverables to aid the Government in achieving their #NetZero targets and delivering buildings fit for future generations, and the findings from their recent report ‘What Next for Heat and Buildings Policy?’.

Please read the full speech by clicking here.

Presentations from GGF Staff

The GGF are very pleased to have a team of experienced and knowledgeable staff who each put on such great presentations for our Members. 

GGF Technical Officer John Mannell spoke to us about the GGF Skilled Pathways Scheme and how it is working to close the skills gap. John’s presentation really highlighted the importance of the scheme, just how pioneering the first set of the scheme cohorts are, and how the scheme has been created specifically to help our Members recruit, educate and invite the new generation of traders to the industry to help improve the skills shortage affecting the industry. The GGF is proud of all of it’s training offering, and we hope to continue setting the standard for the future of the industry. 

RISA’s Head of Inspection and Assessment, Dave Mechem brought our attention to Trickle Vents, and a solution to the problem, Pulse Testing. Since the update of the Building Regulations, the changes meant that the addition of trickle vents to replacement windows and doors are required in the majority of cases. However, if you are not making the air infiltration any worse, i.e. more air tight, the GGF found that you don’t need those extra vents. From testing the Pulse system we have found that where windows are replaced like for like (i.e. PVC for PVC) then the air infiltration rate is often made no worse. A solution sought after by many!

Again, the biggest thank you to everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to speak to us. 

A Thank You to GGF Members

And of course, there’d be no Members Day without you, GGF Members! So we just wanted to say to each of you, thank you for coming and we hope everybody found the day insightful and beneficial for their businesses.

The GGF is blown away by the kind words and support Members have shown, and we look forward to continuing our support to you and your businesses, and hearing your insightful contributions and discussions about the issues in the industry.

Until the next one!

Energy is on everyone’s mind at the moment and we all can’t help but see that prices have been rising rapidly, so in partnership with Inenco, we will be hosting a webinar exclusively for GGF Members to inform you as to why prices are so high and methods you can implement to mitigate price increases. 

The webinar will be on the 25th of October at 11:00am until 11:30am, on Microsoft Teams.

It will be covering energy procurement that will enable you to better understand: 

• What is happening in the energy market?
• Why are prices so high?
• What might happen next?
• How can you best mitigate the impact of rising prices?
• What factors should you consider in shaping the right energy trading strategy?

Please join us for what we hope will be an insightful and valuable session. You can sign up for the webinar by Clicking Here, we hope to see you there.