Great Western Brunel Dinner 2010

The Great Western branch of the FBE held its annual Brunel Dinner recently on November 18^th at the Thistle Grand Hotel in Bristol. Mark West, the Regional Chairman presided over the event and hosted mixed tables of guests. The top table comprised The Lord Mayor, Councillor Colin Smith and the Lady Mayoress, Ms Jenny Bradley. President of the Bristol Property Agents Association, Andrew Batchelor along withRob Mitchell and Richard White representing RIBA, Wessex Region attended as well. Women in Property were represented by Chair Sandy Sadhra.James Gregory, Chair of Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, in the  South West along withNick King  of the  Chartered Institute of Building, and Phil Laycock, the FBE National Chairman completed the lineup complete with regalia!

This was Mark's first major event since taking the chair and a total of 420 guests packed the room representing a major proportion of the construction sector. Following Mark's discourse and thanks to the event sponsors; Shepherd Engineering Services and ITS Recruitment, he proceeded to introduce the guest speaker for the evening.

Sandi Toksvig was welcomed to the podium and proceeded to provide a great three quarters of an hour of raconteuring around the people and places her career has taken her. It was very entertaining and a really remarkable comedienne who made the guests fill the room with laughter. Afterwards Louise Brown, the vice chair, gave a short thank you speech and had her own tales to tell the audience.

This dinner is one of the premier events for the Bristol construction scene for networking and relationship building and the guests dipped into their pockets to donate around £4,500 for the Lord Mayor's Christmas Appeal. This has been greatly received by the Charity selected by Mark for his year in the chair.