Last year at the CIBSE Facilities Management Annual General Meeting, Stephen Gathergood and Natalie Atherton joined the CIBSE Facilities Management Group committee. They were part of a new team; David Stevens had taken over as Chair, Jo Harris stepped into the Vice Chair role, and there were a number of other new members to the well-established and important voice of facilities management within CIBSE.
We caught up with Stephen and Natalie to see how they have got on over the past 11 months and to hear what they have gained from their experience personally
Hello Stephen. Thank you for talking to us. Let's jump straight in, what do you think are your achievements since joining the committee 11 months ago?
Wow, 11 months already? They say that times flies when you are having fun, so who am I to argue? What a rush, this has been such an experience, and it is only just beginning...
Over the past 11 months, we have met some really great, enthusiastic, and like-minded people that all want to give something back. People who, despite being busy with paid work, want to engage and educate, and where the environment allows, innovate, and inspire others to think differently and to offer up their own experiences and expertise for the benefit of others.
As well as regular team meetings, we have worked to try to bring facilities management content to the CIBSE Regions and to embed the notion that great FM content is anywhere you find it… and that is often outside of London!
So far Natalie and I have been involved in both presenting and co-hosting webinars, I have written an article for Waterline, the journal of the Water Management Society. We have generally promoted CIBSE Facilities Management Group through our interactive platform on LinkedIn, the CIBSE – FM Network.
You have taken on additional responsibility since joining the committee. What would you consider to be the rewards?
Self-awareness - I am learning a lot about myself, and through my interactions with others I am also learning a lot about what’s important to them; what challenges they face in their job, where they feel there are gaps in knowledge or indeed just need to better understand their exposure to risk in all its forms.
Sense of accomplishment - facilities management is a vast subject area and can, when you consider the breadth of building engineering services, be complicated too. My involvement in the committee has allowed me to meet new people who I may never have come across before and through them, I have become more aware of the differing ways that FM complexity is being addressed. This different perspective being helpful to identify areas for improvement and to guide possible future publications or subject for webinars.
Self-promotion - an unintended consequence of joining the committee. The number of hits my LinkedIn account has taken has rocketed, clearly there are many people that are on a quest to better understand certain areas of FM or those technical disciplines for which they are responsible. One of the ways to do this is to reach out to CIBSE committee members, who can, if they do not know the answer themselves, assist with ensuring that any queries are properly directed to the subject-matter experts within CIBSE.
Achievement. Volunteering on this committee has allowed me to support CIBSE and the FM sector. The Group's mantra is "to promote the application of effective Building Services Engineering to the continuing improvement of FM." In some small way, and as part of a committed team, I am sure that with the continued support and enthusiasm of the entire committee we will prevail.
Thank you, Stephen. That has certainly provided some insight into the FM Group committee's enthusiasm for the subject. Natalie, why did you want to volunteer for the Facilities Management Group committee?
Stephen and I connected through a mutual desire to see more facilities management topics specific to engineering related CPD content shared in a more accessible fashion. As a relatively new mum based on the border of West Midlands and the Northwest regions, few of the face-to-face events felt accessible for me, and a lot of the webinars available through other sources felt like they focused on other elements of facilities management. I’m a great believer that if you want to see change, you need to help make it happen, so after a couple of months discussing what we could do, we linked up with the CIBSE West Midlands Region and then later the Facilities Management Special Interest Group.
It's great that you are working towards more accessible content. Is that what you feel you have achieved?
Our desire to volunteer coincided with the release of the updated CIBSE Guide M, so in addition to the London, in-person, launch event, we delivered an online launch with CIBSE West Midlands. As we were relatively new, we had limited knowledge of how to publicise the event but were still pleased with the 100+ attendees, and the fact that we had started to fulfil our goal of reaching a broader audience. Following the success of this event, CIBSE HQ reached out for support in delivering a Guide M series of #GrowYourKnowledge webinars. I took a lead in coordinating speakers for the various chapters and then handed over the proposed delivery schedule, which by all accounts seems to have been extremely well received with as many as 743 live attendees for Master Commissioning, Handover, and O&M Documentation. One of the best things about the #GrowYourKnowledge webinars is that they can be watched on demand, so these are even more accessible! We’re currently working to understand the numbers of live attendees and re-watches so that we can try to tailor future CPD events to meet demand, as well as covering CIBSE’s key policy areas.
You mention learning about publicising events. What else have you learnt over the course of your time on the committee?
In 2024, the Build2Perform exhibition contained a Maintain2Perform theatre and being part of the CIBSE FM Group committee allowed me an opportunity to get involved with not only the planning of the sessions, but also in the delivery. Despite working in maintenance for nearly 20 years, I felt like I’d struggle to add value due to working on the same site for the duration of my experience - a little bit of imposter syndrome, if you will. What became apparent was that I had been exposed to quite a lot of good practice, which isn’t common across the industry, nor is it adopted as a standard.
I’ve realised a few other things too, like raising your issues means that you’ll generally be able to find additional people to support your cause and make a difference. You can always bring something to the party. Stephen and I were recently thanked by FM Group Chair, David Stevens, for our one-year strategy for the FM committee to bring more face-to-face events to members outside of London.
Just being connected to the FM Group has raised my awareness of some industry “norms” that I was previously ignorant of, and that I have been able to investigate and discuss with leaders in my workplace for implementation.
Volunteering can give you a sense of community. I’d previously felt a bit isolated with other colleagues focusing on production engineering, and not having much in the way of FM connections. I now feel like I’m connected to the bigger picture and feel much better for it.
Thank you, both, for your time spent volunteering with CIBSE and for answering our questions today. It was great to learn more about the work of the Facilities Management Group's committee.
Stephen and Natalie have re-nominated themselves for the Elected Member positions within the Facilities Management Group Committee for 2025 – 2026. If you are interested in joining them, and the wider committee, in shaping the future of the Group, contact [email protected] to find out how.