Internally Yours: Your AIBC Intern Architect Rep to Council Blog

The Year in Review

Is anyone out there interested in becoming intern rep? This is the blog posting for you.

The first step is to look in your pile of mail for the intern nomination forms from the AIBC. Sign one sheet, write answers to the questions on it, and send it in to Dorothy Barkley, Executive Director (ED) at the AIBC by March 22nd. Get any three other interns who are in good standing (have paid their dues?) to sign the other, sign your name on that, and send it in too.

If there's one of you, you're it. If there's more, there will be the first ever election for the AIBC Intern Representative. If there's none, well, we shall see...

There are actual "Terms of Reference" for the Intern Representative. The minimum requirements include acceptance of the terms of that piece of paper sent to the ED, attending the AGM, attending a 1-2 hour introduction to AIBC governance meeting, attending the monthly meetings for Council (3 hours monthly) and Intern Architect Committee (IAC) meetings (1.5 hours monthly), reading the agenda and past minutes for both meetings (1.5 hours for Council meetings only; 15 minutes for the IAC minutes and agenda), and talking at the AGM after the year end (1-3 hours prep). The intern rep will likely also be on an additional Council-created working group, likely Effective Registration.

If you so wish, you can add to this list: briefing through the 1-2" Governance manual that the ED provides you (2-3 hours); reading the new proposed Architects Act that's in there; finding, printing out, and reading the current Architects Act to compare, the AIBC Bylaws, the AIBC Intern Architect Program requirements. You can add items to the agenda for your meeting at your discretion, and the time required for these items are dependent on the nature of it. For example, when I researched how much interns paid in fees across Canada, it probably took 1-2 hours. You are encouraged to attend a few AIBC social events to represent Council at these occasions, like gallery openings or private receptions (1.5 hours monthly).

To actually understand the governance model, you might want to hoof it to the public library and take out a book on the Carver governance model. You might get interested in a book beside that talks about compassionate governance, and read that too. Unless you've been on a council before, you might want to also take out Robert's Rules of Order. Unless you know how to read budgets, you'd want to breeze through "Accounting for Non-Accountants", or "Accounting for Dummies." Despite that, you find you still continue to wonder about the budget, particularly that related to interns.

You find that in Council meetings, the emphasis is on the big picture for everything. And that in IAC meetings, the minuscule rules. You find that neither group is particularly interested in the other, even though you try with all your might to make the issues of the other group sound relevant. You continue to wonder, and in particular, who you are and if you're really supposed to be at that particular table for a reason, because that's the kind of person you are.

You find that your only peer is another intern rep, and you find that that connection is stronger that the connection to that of your provincial association (however strong that might be for you). You enjoy exchanging ideas that help interns in both jurisdictions.

You can broaden the scope by researching registration and internship across the country and in the US (or more): previous AIBC intern surveys, resources for interns, different requirements, events, etc., and if you find something, such as NCARB discounts on study materials (1 hour), Archiflash flash cards (15 minutes), or Norm Dorf (10 hours), you can take the initiative and present it to the IAC and other interns via the Intern Update newsletter.

You might want to do some research just on the side. Like reading Donald Luxtons "Taming the West: The Thirty-Year Struggle to Regulate the Architectural Profession in British Columbia" Journal for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 1998, 23:4, pp 108-123. Or go through the latest AIBC directory, count up all the women architects and see how many there are (7% ish). You might use that Norwegian you learnt a few years back and find out that in Norway the number is 32.5 % (Source, 2004, in Norwegian: click here), and wonder how that happens. You might wonder how the attrition happens in BC, with a women:men ratio at UBC's school starting at 35:65 (for the past 20 years) and remaining the same for AIBC interns, so you read the RAIC's report on this. You might want to flip through the last 5 years of architectureBC and find out how many new architects by internship there are each year (4-5% ish), and how many are becoming new interns per year (15-20% ish). You might research and compare the numbers with the industry needs in BC Futures, scratch your head, discuss this with people.

You might actually get pretty active and make proposals, such as roughing out policy and guidelines on the AIBC supporting firms that facilitate the Intern Architect Program. This doesn't take that long (3-6 hours) compared to, say, how much overtime an intern-friend does monthly at an office.

For fun, you can continue this blog (2-4 hours monthly), you can set up a monthly social gathering and go to it (2-3 hours monthly). You might be asked on short notice to add something to the newsletter (2-4 hours monthly). Though sometimes you can kill two birds with a stone and write in this blog and let it be available for the newsletter. You can try to see if a intern event could happen at, say, an Arthur Erickson house, and coordinate with the IAC, the Intern Coordinator, the AIBC Communications Director, the leasee of the house and the municipality that owns the house (10 hours).

You will probably enjoy connecting with other interns. General e-mail correspondance could add up to 2-4 hours per month, depending on how fast you type.

You might try to get interns involved in something you find interesting, or that someone asked you to publicize out to the interns, like Canstruction Vancouver. It might be that no-one responds, and so you're it (20 hours). But you like it, you win an award, and you're asked by the AIBC communications coordinator to prepare a write-up for it (1-2 hours).

You might get lucky and not be directly involved in a certain initiative, like a competition that someone's presented in passing to you, but feel good that you used your knowledge of the world of AIBC, as little as it may be, and helped that initiative come into reality without you doing a hell of a lot.

Out of the blue things happen of course. You're asked to do a book review by the AIBC, because they'd like an intern to have a voice on things, which is great so you say yes, and so you read something (3 hours) and write something (3 hours).

And, so that you actually represent interns, you should probably do an exam or two, and tell people about your experience (40 hours each).

You try to decline work, such as volunteering to represent the IAC at the ARE seminars (minus 2-4 hours), hoping that someone else on the IAC will do that. You also find you don't log your experience hours for a year (minus 2-4 hours). Every now and again, you find you don't add something to the newsletter, or blog, or you miss a Good Times or meeting.

All this for a one-year term. You are told that it is best that the position of the intern representative should be filled with a different person each year, so that the AIBC and Council is and appears representative of the diversity of people it embodies as members and associate members. Despite the time you've invested in making the position one of engaged representation, you do agree that the effects of the experience are lasting and should be shared with others. You do agree you've put in a damn good year, and it's time for someone else to have the fun.

And of course, like anything, without doubt you receive so much more than you put in.

posted by Lisa @ 7:59 PM