Wow – it’s my last President’s message of 2019 already! Hopefully the year was good to all of you out there and the New Year will be even better.
We had a great year here at Worcester CSI, with programs touching on code issues, historical preservation, fire safety, roofing design and soils classification. Our “hands-on” approach as an alternative to the lunchtime powerpoint in the office resulted again in high attendance by a really diverse group of professionals. Hopefully you made some contacts along the way, to round out your circle of trusted advisers. We had social outings at the ballpark at Holy Cross, a Young Professionals night at Recess in West Boylston and a planning session at Broken Creek Vineyard in Shrewsbury and another audacious holiday extravaganza.
Looking ahead to our January program, we’re putting on a Mock Bid Competition. We form teams and our “Awarding Authority” (Marty Helly) feeds us sub-bid sheets. Teams need to digest which bids are complete and which have errors, omissions or qualifications. Addenda are issued making you check your work and subs submit revised bids from time to time to further confuse things. Enter the right bid amounts into your spreadsheet and you might come out the winner! Either way, you’ll leave with a pretty good sense of the chaos that happens on bid day, and maybe gain a new perspective on the timeliness of changes to the bidding information.
Lastly, the Northeast Region Conference will be hosted by the Boston Chapter on May 28-May 30, 2020 at the Hotel 1620 in Plymouth, MA. The theme will be Longevity/Durability/Resiliency, Building on History to Create the Future. Registration for the conference will open on January 2, 2020. Details are still being planned but check the Region Website at https://nercsi.com/northeast-region-conference/.