Different presenters offered new points of view at last week’s six-monthly update.
Twice a year, everyone who can make it gathers in the Cardinal House boardroom, for an update on how the business is doing.
Thanks, welcomes and a sad farewell
Managing director Laurence Mckidd started the meeting with thanks to everyone for their work over the past six months. Some very challenging weather made things difficult for a number of projects, and he acknowledged those who’d done their best despite rain, wind and snow.
Then Ciara Pryce, group services director, spoke about Ron Cairns, who made a tremendous contribution to VGC for 35 years, and who will be sadly missed.
She welcomed a number of new staff members, many of whom have joined in newly-created roles, as VGC expands. Ciara also congratulated Simon Clamp and Marta Kwiecincska on their promotions, Jarlath O’Hara on his marriage to Katie, and Marilu Pitelli and Donal McCarthy, and Heena Chatrath and Sunny Singh, on their new babies.
Thank you to Richard Nickell, Opeyemi Osiyemi, Bereket Kidane and Caplea Pastoral Razvanthe, who were commended by clients.
Meeting and exceeding targets
Laurence thanked everyone who has made sure VGC meets our targets. He described some of the opportunities that are coming up in the near future, as well as some of the challenges we face.
Sector updates
- Will Dalton, contracts manager, described a positive first half of 2018. He told us about the projects at Wakehurst Place and Kew Gardens for client Graham Construction, and showed photos of finished work.
- Rail Projects director Jacques Kriel talked about some of the successful projects on Crossrail Anglia for client Costain. Our team won three Network Rail Star awards and two Costain ‘project contractor of the month’ awards. He showed photos of the sub-station at Westbourne Park for client Alstom Costain JV, which won a Crossrail collaboration award.
- Swati Patel, who joined us in April as corporate social responsibility (CSR) manager, set out future CSR plans and described some of our successes to date. These include the shortlisting of Kimberley McGinty and VGC for CECA ‘Inspiring Change’ awards, and VGC’s inclusion in the LSE 1,000 companies to inspire Britain. One of the major milestones was VGC’s achievement of the Ethical Labour Sourcing standard, the first labour supply company (and the first in the rail sector) to do so.
- Wellbeing champion Fiona Dowling talked about her role in promoting and improving the wellbeing of our staff. She is working to improve support for people with mental health issues, and also aims to get VGC as a whole completing the ‘One million steps’ challenge.
- Finally Simon Clamp, learning and development manager, summarised the past year’s work on apprenticeships. More than 7% of our workforce are apprentices, and he is working on long-term development programmes for everyone.
Long service awards
At the end of the meeting Ciara and Laurence handed out long service awards to Wayne Pleasant and John Daly.
Download a pdf (1.5MB) of the PowerPoint presentation from the meeting.
