World Organization of Building Officials (WOBO) World Congress and Mexico Fire Expo Being a member of the WOBO, Mr Raymond Chan and I were appointed as representatives of the Institute to attend WOBO World Congress held in Mexico City on 21 April 2010. During the Congress, Raymond was re-elected as a member of the Board of Governors. We had the opportunity to attend the Mexico Fire Expo 2010 as well. A CPD event will be arranged to share our observations in this trip, together with those of Mr Robin Leung and Mr Edwin Tang who attended the first International Symposium of Building Officials in April 2010. Legco Question on Building Management Cases handled by Lands Tribunal You may recall that the Institute’s proposal on establishing a Building Affairs Tribunal for handling disputes on building management related matters was rejected while Lands Tribunal and mediation are currently utilized as the means to handle such disputes. In the General Council Meeting held on 25 March 2010, Professor Patrick Lau was requested to raise a question to the Judiciary about the number of building management cases handled by Lands Tribunal. The question and reply can be viewed through the following link: http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201004/28/P201004280117.htm. Based on this reply, you can judge for the effectiveness of the current means. Professional Participation of Operation Building Bright (OBB) Projects Joint Implementation Team of Urban Renewal Authority and Hong Kong Housing Society met representatives from the Institute on 7 May 2010 in order to reinforce understanding and promote active participation of our members in OBB projects. Our Vice-Chairman, Mr Vincent Ho and Honorary Treasurer, Mr Nathan Lee, representatives from several Building Surveying Consultancy firms and Dr Paul Ho of QSD attended the meeting. Comments were sought from the attendees about tendering measures recently launched by the Joint Implementation Team like waiving of administration fees for tender documents and compulsory provision of manning schedule in tender submissions. The measures aimed at increasing the interest from professionals to provide their services in these maintenance projects. While the practitioners shared their views, we would continue to set standards for maintaining proper professional practices by publishing standard documents like Standard Form of Contract for Maintenance Projects, Standard Specification for Maintenance Projects. Moreover, we are currently working on compiling reference cost data on maintenance projects for old multi-storey residential buildings.