TEFMA President’s Update
In September 2017 I took over the role of President of TEFMA from Steve Sullivan of University of Sydney and this article is to update you on the activities over these past few months and outline future plans for our association.
The Board has been making steady and positive progress against the deliverables outlined in the current Strategic Plan which set the direction for TEFMA from 2015 to 2018.
There are still a few key deliverables remaining for this plan, but with the launch of this new website as a key enabler for those few outstanding tasks, we are confident that these will be achieved over the next few months.
We have already started a review of our strategic direction to develop a new three-year Strategic Plan to ensure a seamless transition at the end of my term in September 2018 to the current President-Elect, Garry Bradley from Deakin University.
The Board will further consolidate our thinking during a strategic planning session following the June Board meeting in Melbourne. At that session we will document the outcome and socialize this during a session at the TEFMA Directors’ Forum on Monday 18th June 2018.
This key forum is now a regular annual event in the association’s calendar, targeted at the Institutional Member (IM) of TEFMA and/or their 2IC or a senior leadership team colleague from their institution.
If you are the IM for your institution, I strongly encourage you to register for this Forum. It is a valuable opportunity to hear from thought leaders and partake in interactive discussions exploring the strategic issues facing our sector.
The Forum will also give you the opportunity to influence the direction of TEFMA as your sector association and ensure that we continue to deliver the member value you need.
This year’s Directors’ Forum program builds on the discussions at last year’s forum held in Adelaide. In advance of that forum, we canvased the IM’s to table their key challenges which fell into four broad categories:
- A new financial paradigm – securing capital funding, doing more with less while addressing regulatory and backlog requirements;
- The changing physical environment – the emphasis on campus experience, impact of changing pedagogy and digital delivery on campus planning and design;
- Big data – the move to big data in managing universities. What does this mean for facilities and property groups? E.g. campus planning, utilisation, efficiency, consumption, service provision;
- Energy management – securing future energy supplies, managing cost, the push to renewables and setting sustainability targets.
The outcome of the Forum’s facilitated panel session followed by an open group discussion has informed this year’s program.
For example, there are two interactive panel sessions related to the changing physical environment:
- “Macroplanning and Expansion of a Campus - Large Projects & New Campuses”; and
- The Vertical Campus- Moving to the City”;
To address securing capital funding, there is an informative presentation:
- “Alternative Funding Solutions for Infrastructure Upgrades” from Guy Barnes at Northquest.
Last year’s forum also enabled the Board to identify a number of new strategic initiatives to help our members address each of these challenges.
Our key objective is to deliver real value to our members through opportunities to share best practice and provide professional development opportunities. We have therefore extended our workshop program from one workshop per year to three and introduced a regular webinar series.
The two-day workshops present targeted and affordable professional development opportunities in various specialist areas. The affordability of these “mini conferences” is due in no small part to the support of our Business Partner members, sponsors and exhibitors. The workshops enable members to learn, share ideas and network with their colleagues and are typically attracting around 80 – 120 delegates.
Over the past few months we have delivered two very successful two-day workshops.
In Sydney in November, Sydney University hosted the 2017 Grounds Maintenance: A Green Campus workshop. This workshop attracted 70 attendees and was generously supported by Green Options, Arbor Safe, Cell-O-Park and Trees Impact Group. You can access the presentations from this workshop here.
The Strategic Asset Management workshop was hosted by University of Tasmania in Hobart in February. Again, this workshop was generously supported by our business partners, DCWC SAFM, Archibus, SPM Assets and AECOM.
This SAM workshop attracted 92 attendees with such sessions as:
- The Importance of Strategic Asset Management in the Future of Tertiary Education;
- Asset Management Frameworks and Plans;
- Innovative Practice Through Technology and the Use of Big Data.
The next workshops on the agenda are:
Real Estate Management Workshop: Leasing, Legal and Retail Management Trends
19-20 June 2018, Kaleide Theatre, RMIT University, Melbourne
Visit the Workshop Website Here
Learning Environments Workshop
November 2018, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
The Learning Environments Workshop will explore the latest trends in both physical and digital learning environments as pedagogy and student experiences evolve and change.
We encourage you to support these workshops as they provide great value to members.
The webinar series have also proven extremely popular, typically attracting an average of 60+ viewers, with topics explored covering a broad and diverse range including:
- “Long Term Asset Planning”;
- “Chiller Plant Control and Optimization”;
- “Beyond Carbon Neutrality: Solar and Clean Energy”:
- TEFMA Maurie Pawsey Scholarship winner, Nicole Eaton presenting “A Review of Space Management & Design”.
These webinar sessions are recorded and can be viewed on this website at any time here.
One of the main professional development events in the annual calendar is the flagship Tertiary Education Management Conference (TEMC) delivered in partnership with the Association of Tertiary Education Managers (ATEM).
TEMC 2017 – themed “EUREKA – Revolutionary Ideas” - was hosted in Melbourne and attracted a record 920 delegates with a comprehensive conference program including presentations from Professor Glyn Davis, Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Melbourne; Dr Jason Fox, Author and Leadership Adviser; Dr Jenny Gray, Chief Executive Officer of Zoos Victoria; Todd Sampson, award-winning documentary-maker & television presenter; Alex Hanlon, Executive Director of Learning Resources at the University of Canterbury; and Paul Roberts, leading international campus planner from Turnberry Consulting.
The program for this year’s TEMC 2018 is being finalized. TEMC 2018 will be held at the Crown Conference Centre in Perth between 9th - 13th September.
We encourage you and/or any of your colleagues to attend this prestigious event. The Board especially reaches out to our Hong Kong colleagues as we hope the location of this event is much more accessible for you.
In addition to the professional development events, a major success over the past year has been the launch of the new web-based tool for the collection of TEFMA benchmarking data and reporting.
Under the stewardship of Brian Fenn, who has recently retired from QUT, TEFMA benchmarking has gathered sector metrics for more than 20 years. This data enables our members to monitor and compare their respective institutions’ estate performance to ensure efficient and effective management.
The Board wishes to acknowledge Brian Fenn for his tireless work managing the benchmarking data, not only for the past decades, but also his expertise and generous support of the project to transition to the new web-based tool.
Another focus of delivering member value is to enhance and strengthen the relationship between the Board and our institutional members with our Business Partners, sponsors and exhibitors who support our association and the various events.
These business partner members have rich industry knowledge and resources to share with us. To foster the relationships and knowledge transfer between the institutions and these generous corporate supporters, we have established a program of Business Partner Networking Events that align with our Board meetings and workshops.
There is still a lot to do.
It has been a long time coming, but we now have this new website – a significant strategic milestone!
This new website is perhaps better described as an association management tool. It will be a key enabler for many other future planned initiatives as its functionality will allow proactive and effective engagement with our membership to share best practice and leading ideas.
Some of the ongoing initiatives being focused on in the coming months include:
- Continued engagement with CAUDIT and finalization of a draft MOU;
- Further expansion of the member recognition program including awards and scholarships;
- Finalizing publication of new updated Space Planning Guidelines;
- Undertaking a review of our suite of guideline documents and prioritizing updates;
- Further development by the working party reviewing TEFMA Continuing Professional Development program (CPD).
- Expansion of our Business Partner membership program.
As the President of the Association, I encourage you and your colleagues to make use of the resources and events available to you as valued members of our association.
This website should give you better opportunities for interaction and we would welcome any feedback, ideas or suggestions as to how we can make sure that TEFMA continues to deliver member value!
Steph Forrest
TEFMA President
Steph Forrest | Associate Director Facilities Management
Property Services | Victoria University of Wellington
Room 305, Central Services Building
Gate 7, Kelburn Parade, PO Box 600,
Wellington 6040, New Zealand
T: +64 4 463 6604 M: +64 27 563 6604 E: steph.forrest@vuw.ac.nz
