SPR Annual Dinner 2023
16 November, Royal Air Force Club

For the second year in a row, the highlight of the SPR social calendar took place in the historic surroundings of the Royal Air Force Club on London’s Piccadilly.  Some 120 members gathered to revive old acquaintances and make new ones, both over drinks in the bar and later at the sumptuous dinner, where most were entertained at tables that had been bought by leading companies in the field of property research.

After conversations swelled to a crescendo at the pre-dinner drinks in the Churchill Bar, where wartime RAF luminaries gaze down from the walls, it was soon time to move upstairs to the elegant   Sovereigns' Room.  Once everyone had found their tables, they were welcomed by Alex Dunn, the outgoing SPR chair.

 Alex began by thanking Becci Williamson, Chris Dunn and Joanna Tano for their tireless work organising the event.  He said that the last 12 months had gone incredibly quickly for him, even if it was a difficult year for the business. But at least everyone now knew the difference between core inflation and headline inflation.

 Over the year the SPR had got its members back together in the wake of Covid, at seminars, social events and site visits, and feedback was very positive.  He asked members to keep telling the committee the kind of events they wanted.  Alex also mentioned the mentoring programme that has been launched this year and encouraged members to come forward as mentors and mentees.

 Alex then handed over to Yi Wu, chair for the year to come. She said that she was particularly looking forward to working with the committee including new members Sara, Laura, Mohamed, Tom and George, and went on to describe how her SPR story began four years ago when she moved to the UK.  After her Bayes Business School colleague Tony Key (an SPR fellow since 2010) suggested that she join the SPR, and her online search identified this as the Society of Psychical Research, she wondered if Tony was telling her in a British way that she wasn’t very good at her job. But it turned out that the SPR was also the name of a welcoming and engaging community for real estate researchers.  She explained that the SPR committee aims to strengthen that community next year by forming working groups of members, who will have the chance to collaborate and share knowledge on the subjects they deem most important: ‘your society, your voice’, as she described it. In this way, members are encouraged come forward and help the Society embrace the innovation that is set to impact real estate in the near future - including by finding people from outside the industry to get involved in its events.

 Yi concluded by urging those at the dinner to contribute generously to the raffle, which this year supported Centrepoint, a charity that helps more than 60,000 homeless young people in London every year.  The meal then got under way with a delicious mushroom tartlet, which was followed by a main course of roast cutlet of pork, mixed bean cassoulet and grain mustard mash, with a scrumptious sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

 Following on from Yi, Andrew Smith gave his last as speech SPR President.  Saying that it had been an absolute privilege to perform this role for the last nine years, he suggested that the Society was now in fantastic shape, testament to the work of the committee over these years; notably, the SPR had bounced back after the travails of Covid to achieve record membership numbers.  Having begun in the 1980s when property research was just starting out, people with a research background had now moved into the highest positions in the industry, and research was even influencing property’s role in the wider economy.

 Andrew’s final duty was to introduce Yolande Barnes as the new SPR President.  He noted that each President seemed to have served slightly longer than the previous one, and extrapolating this trend he would expect her to be in the role for at least the next 15 years.  In any event, he looked forward to supporting her every step of the way.

 Yolande said that she was enormously honoured to take on the role at a time of unprecedented change. Some of the most important changes would require property researchers to educate their colleagues in the industry on what to expect.  She anticipated that the Society would continue growing and developing, and said that always encourages her students to join, particularly because of the quality of the events – including the programme of webinars that had developed during Covid and helped to build a new online community.

 She then proceeded to hand out the two prizes awarded for the Ian Cullen Research Prize. The Under-30s prize went to Andrew Blennerhasset of Savills for a paper entitled Semiconductors and the logistics sector - a sector which she stressed didn’t even exist when the SPR was founded.  Subsequently she presented the Open Prize to Alexey Zhukovskiy, Ismail Mejri, Irene Foss and Hans Vrensen of AEW for their paper on the Next wave of physical climate risk.

 Towards the end of the dinner the raffle prizes were presented by George Armitage of Oxford Economics and Mark Stansfield of CoStar, the latter employing some deadpan stand-up delivery to much hilarity. The prizes included a £250 token from CoStar, an English sparkling afternoon tea from Cromwell Property Group, a book token and chocolates from PMA, a boxed wine set from Savills, champagne from Oxford Economics and Income Analytics, a piece of artwork donated by Yi Wu and three hampers donated by the SPR committee.  In total, the raffle raised an impressive £1698.00.

 Many of the diners stayed on for post-dinner drinks back in the Churchill Bar, which brought this memorable event to a fitting close.

 Tim Horsey