The Governance team is coming to the end of a very busy time since the summer.
As well as September and October run of committee and Board meetings, one of the key events for us was the nominations and elections process for central roles at the RTPI in 2026. As well as the Vice President and Chair of the Board of Trustees, we held elections for two new Trustees and positions on the General Assembly.
The Governance Team offers congratulations to Samer Bagaeen, who was appointed as Vice President and to Elle Cass, who will take over as new Chair of the Board of Trustees from Meeta Kaur in January 2026. You can see a full list of the new appointments for 2026 on our elections results page.
We also congratulate the newly appointed chartered, legal and student/licentiate members of the General Assembly, who will attend their first meetings from January 2026.
The elections may have concluded, but we are still making preparations to select members for four of our standing committees in 2026. This year’s committee allocation process has commenced, and we are accepting applications from now until 6 November 2025.
We have also just launched a campaign to appoint two new co-opted members to the Finance committee and a member of the Nominations Sub-Committee. Keep an eye on the governance role page on our website to find out further information about these roles.
On 8 October we held the last General Assembly of the year. It was held in Manchester just before this year’s Heads of Planning Everywhere roundtable and National Planning Conference. We had presentations about research into new towns in other countries and what learnings they can provide for us in the UK, employing AI in planning, and we received a special address from the President and Chief Executive of the American Planning Association who joined us for the meeting.
The RTPI always values the contributions made by its members to support and promote the profession. One of the ways we recognised the value of those contributions is through our Gold Medal Award. Members have been invited to nominate their peers to be a recipient of Award.
