Latest update from Julie!

Pitter pat little April showers….. I hope that you are all managing to dodge the rain drops that seem to have swept the country over the past few days.

I have decided that being Institute President means that you move too quickly to be rained on anyhow!!

Since my last update I have started the AGM attendances for the associations. The first (as they seem to be first with most events) was the East Midlands on 15th April. Leicester I am afraid was a mass of road works, but I picked my way along to the glorious old town hall building, it is so nice to still see some of these housing local government as so many offices are modern buildings. Leicester Town Hall was undergoing a lick of paint but all the same it was a friendly and familiar feeling.

The Friday after, I attended my own AGM of Sussex and Surrey Association. We run our AGM as a normal meeting as well as having the President speak and election of officers we also have a guest speaker for a topical subject. This one saw Geoff Fisher SVP give an update on the 5 “R’s” (Recession, Revaluation, empty Rates, Regeneration and Rent service). Geoff felt that the change to the values on revaluation may well mean that the poundage (multiplier) will need to drop steeply to keep the overall contribution to the fund even. He remains quite confident that we will have a transitional relief scheme for the new list however … oh joy!

Monday 20th was a teleconference for the LTR faculty board. Despite various people calling in from laybys and “borrowed” offices, it was a good meeting and we were able to discuss some of the current issues affecting the revenues world. Particular concern was raised over the anticipated legislation concerning deferment of rates. The board has prepared an initial briefing paper to send in to CLG raising queries that we hope will be addressed when the legislation is finally released in July. Failure to address issues such as what happens if someone on the deferment scheme vacates during the period, and how should the pool be accounted for and contributions made in respect of these deferred amounts could lead to a real quagmire for administrators. We hope that the department will address all of our issues!

Tuesday 21st saw me arrive a little late for the London and Home Counties AGM due to my misjudging the time to take the changed route on the Thameslink train in to the City. Luckily they delayed the start of the meeting until my arrival and we finished almost on time! The meeting saw the installation of former Council Member Peter Scrafton as Chairman for the year.

Wednesday morning I was off to South Wales (Swansea) for lunch with the executive and AGM. Determined that I would not be late I gave myself an hour and half more than the journey time, thinking I could get a little retail therapy in before, however the accident on the M4 leading in to London meant that it took me 2 hours to get on to the M4 when this would normally be 50 minutes. I arrived in Swansea with 15 minutes to spare and the shoe shopping was therefore abandoned!

I listened to the Budget for part of the journey but it was the following day before I read the paper and picked up on the matters that affect us. I was very puzzled at the Chancellor's comment that LAs have had no increase in caseloads although the benefit expenditure has gone up. I am sure that all of our statistics disprove this. I may well be writing to the Chancellor to point this and a few other inconsistencies out!

I think that brings you up to date. I am off to Keele this week (students have been there since Saturday) for the spring revision course. Clearly this is a major week for our students preparing for the June exams and I shall enjoy spending a few days with them. Of course I wish them all the very best of luck in the forthcoming exams, but then hard work and dedication (demonstrated by all students that I meet) pays off too!!

London and Home Counties AGM - pictures

Charity Progress

I challenge you to come along on Saturday 18th July at midnight in Haywards Heath West Sussex to join in the sleepwalk!!!!

Team IRRV has entered to raise money for my charity St Peter and St James Hospice in Wivelsfield. The walk is for ladies only (but chaps you can come along and be stewards - or join in the men only event that will take place simultaneously in Burgess Hill - involving football !!!! - more info on this in due course, as it gets finalised) .

Ladies – it is a 10k walk round the streets of HH, you have to wear walking footwear (ie trainers not fluffy slippers) but otherwise it is nightwear (some of you may need to buy something for the occasion!!). Be as outrageous as you like!

As this is an official walk, not solely an IRRV event, you need to enter on the St Peter and St James webpage if you want to walk: http://www.stpeter-stjames.org.uk/events2.php?EventID=203

PLEASE MARK YOUR ENTRY TEAM NAME IRRV so that we know how much we have raised as a team.

If Haywards Heath in July is just not much of a pull, nor is the idea of walking around the town in your nightie, or you are a fella! Please consider sponsoring me instead…. I have set up a just giving page where you can donate quickly and securely on line and the money goes straight to the hospice.

This is the link : http://www.justgiving.com/julieholden1

Many thanks for your support, please let me know if you are coming down to take part, and thank you so much if you can sponsor me, £5 or £50 is all for a worthwhile charity and means so much to those who need hospice care.

Thank you for caring

Julie

South Africa visit - photos

Above : African wildlife
Below : David Magor, speaking in Pretoria

Red Nose Day!

Red Noses and Rhinos!

Apologies for the long delay in updating the blog! I have been a bit busy the last few weeks. This will be a super long entry to bring you up to date.

Thursday 12th March saw the annual lunch of the AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) in Haberdashers Hall in London, a very modern building with a water fountain in the middle of the courtyard. Then Friday we were at Claridges (Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant) for my Presidential Luncheon. This event is an annual event for the IRRV President to entertain other Presidents of kindred organisations. As it was also comic relief, red nose day, it seemed only right to present each of our guests with a red nose for an official photograph, just to prove that we can all have a little bit of fun regardless as to the fact that most of the time we are pretty serious folk! My thanks to Paul Sanderson (“Honorary President of the VOA” for the day!) for the photographs which I will upload as soon as I can.

As always it was a great afternoon which ended in the bar a little later in the evening. We were impressed by the paparazzi presence at the door, but sadly it was not your President that was drawing the attention but first Lily Allen and then apparently Posh and Becks were due to turn up!

The following Thursday was the Examination and Assessment Board meeting, the first meeting to consider the papers for the June examinations. I don’t normally attend this meeting as I am an examiner as well as President, but as this was the first setting of the new papers for the revamped IRRV Certificate, The Chief Executive and myself went along to present and discuss this paper. This is quite an exciting time for us as this new examination syllabus is fit for purpose in the modern world of Revenues and Benefits and is aimed at the right level of qualification and competence. It complements the NVQ and in time could be the “foundation” level of the full professional qualification. Those discussions are still in the pipeline and nothing is as yet decided by Council but this is one possibility that could come through.

The following Sunday (arriving Monday morning), we flew to Pretoria for a conference held by the International Property Taxation Institute in partnership with the African Taxation Institute. I presented a workshop concerning good practice in tax collection. As well as enjoying the conference, Chief Executive David (who had three session to speak or facilitate!) and I have embraced the opportunity to fly the flag for the Institute, there are so many opportunities for membership and development in Africa, we hope that this is simply the start of being able to bring practical good practice and advice to the practitioners over here. The interest and questions that followed the session proved that the problems here are not so very different from our own in collection and enforcement of taxes. I will do a write up of the conference for Insight soon to share with you all the work that is going on here.

Having gone all that way it seemed a bit daft not to add a couple of days leave and we did get a chance to go “walking with Elephants” on the Tuesday before the conference started. What a fantastic experience. I never thought that joining the Institute all those years ago would afford me such fabulous opportunities.

After the conference we were flying back on the Sunday so we were able to go North to the Pilanesburg National Park on the Botswana border. Although not as large or as famous as Kruger National Park it still boasts the big five (Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo and Rhino), We were lucky enough to see four of the big five including a race to see a leopard when the truck hit a bump in the road and sent me about 18 inches in to the air! Bumps and bruises aside we were able to get there in time and have some fabulous pictures and a lot of wonderful memories.

Having returned to the UK, I had the rest of the week in the office and then had a week full of meetings including the AGM of our Parochial Church Council. Now whether it is that I am horrendous at saying “No”, but I am now a Deputy Church Warden for my local church. After that I had until Sunday to prepare for the next Council round which was the “at home” round where we traditionally come out of London to the area of the President of the day.

On Saturday I had a small get together to celebrate my forthcoming birthday, as I write I haven’t quite reached the magic “0”, however I seem to be clinging to this age with the very smallest part of my fingertips! Sadly before I even had time to recover on Sunday I was bound to attend the Felbridge Hotel in East Grinstead for the next Council Round.

We have just spent two days going through the process where we have furthered the educational reforms, annual conference preparations and had a long discussion on wide ranging governance issues. Watch out for the summary that John Roberts puts in Insight in the coming weeks. Monday night was an opportunity to raise some money for my chosen charity. We had a great evening including a charity auction, I was lucky enough to have had donations including a Swarovski necklace, radley items, tea for two at the ritz, dinner for two at the felbridge hotel, malt whiskey, mobile phone and Nintendo DS as well as red letter days at a spa and driving a ferrari. There were also three “promises” of the handymen (Ian Ferguson. Dave Chapman and Kerry MacDermott), a dining experience (Carol Cutler, Caroline Hopkins, Tracy Crowe and Mary Hardman) and a day out with Gary Watson in his Mini Traveller!!!!!!

I am so very grateful to all who gave of their time or donations and the guest auctioneers who handled the “lots”, this was a good fun evening and raised nearly £1500 for my charity.

The next event will be the sleepwalk on 18th July in Haywards Heath. I am going to set up a just giving page for those of you who would like to sponsor me to walk around haywards heath in my PJ’s at midinght !! We are going to make a bit of an evening/ morning of it (including an event for the boys) so if you would like to take part, please register by contacting the hospice directly (their link is on our main page). If you would mark your entry “Team IRRV” - we will know how much we raise from the event. I will also have a just giving page set up shortly so that if you can’t attend the event yourself but want to support us you can sponsor me directly.

The hospice is a great cause so please do give some consideration and helping us to reach a great total of money.

Well I think that brings you up to date, I promise not to leave it so long next time!


Julie