Saturday, September 26, 2009
Latest from the President ...
I’ve just found enough time to do one more snippet before I head off to Bournemouth for the conference. I am granted one round up after Conference which I will look to do next week.
But to bring you up to date since the last blog, on 9th September - the Sussex and Surrey Association had a well attended meeting on take up for benefit’s looking at the Welsh experience. Prior to the meeting the executive met in order to present two certificates of service (awarded by the Law Research and Education committee in July) to Association President Ian Nisbet and Former President Colin Holden. I have to admit to a huge amount of pride in being able to sign and present Colin with his certificate, he had no idea it was coming and it was very richly deserved.
I then attended the IAAO conference (International Association of Assessing Officers) in Louisville (loah ville) Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Derby, the Louisville Slugger (a baseball bat) and Muhammed Ali.
Colin and I arrived on the Friday night via Chicago O’Hare where we had a five hour wait between flights. O’Hare domestic is not the best terminal to have an elongated delay but we did enjoy watching the passengers walk out to their planes, hand over their carry on bags (to be stowed in the hold) before being allowed to take off. We also watched arriving planes with their owners reunited with their carry-on on the tarmac!!!
We had been through three time zones by the time we arrived In Louisville and were a little disorientated as we gained 6 hours and then lost 1. Amusingly, our luggage arrived 3 hours before we did as it was loaded on an earlier flight!!!!
The conference opened with traditional singing from Kentucky followed by the motivational speaker, we then had the AGM of the association as a plenary session. The exhibition was in the main hotel and looked very different to our own as it is less “slick” but none the less full of interesting and exciting exhibits. We were delighted to see one of the company’s that is shortlisted in our performance awards there also.
We had Wednesday night to ourselves and decided to have a trip up the Ohio river on the Spirit of Jefferson. This was great fun and finished with a bit of a sing – a –long (or maybe it was just us) as we pulled in to dock.
The conference concluded with the gala dinner, the only real difference to our own being that the entire Council (or Board) sit on the stage looking out on the audience for the meal. I’m not so sure that would be favoured by our own Council members!
After the conference, Colin and I went to Washington DC via Chicago (where I met up with my long term penpal Angi who lives in Michigan. Angi and I have been writing since we were 17, we met up for the first time in Chicago, it was a great night!). Washington was a great as I remembered it 30 years ago when I lived there. We had a super time showing Colin the sights and wandering around in the sunshine and high 70’s temperatures.
Sadly while we were in the States we got the news that long serving member of the Scottish Association Executive Janette Proud had passed away. Janette had been suffering from cancer but she had such a fighting spirit and we had seen her at the Scottish Conference that it came as quite a shock. Her funeral was this Wednesday which was attended by over 200 family, friends and colleagues, I know that we will all miss her and send our condolences to her husband Dave and family.
I leave for conference tomorrow as we have a full two days of meetings beforehand, I hope to see many of you there and am looking forward to Thursday night when I shall pass the baton on to Geoff.
Take care
Julie
But to bring you up to date since the last blog, on 9th September - the Sussex and Surrey Association had a well attended meeting on take up for benefit’s looking at the Welsh experience. Prior to the meeting the executive met in order to present two certificates of service (awarded by the Law Research and Education committee in July) to Association President Ian Nisbet and Former President Colin Holden. I have to admit to a huge amount of pride in being able to sign and present Colin with his certificate, he had no idea it was coming and it was very richly deserved.
I then attended the IAAO conference (International Association of Assessing Officers) in Louisville (loah ville) Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Derby, the Louisville Slugger (a baseball bat) and Muhammed Ali.
Colin and I arrived on the Friday night via Chicago O’Hare where we had a five hour wait between flights. O’Hare domestic is not the best terminal to have an elongated delay but we did enjoy watching the passengers walk out to their planes, hand over their carry on bags (to be stowed in the hold) before being allowed to take off. We also watched arriving planes with their owners reunited with their carry-on on the tarmac!!!
We had been through three time zones by the time we arrived In Louisville and were a little disorientated as we gained 6 hours and then lost 1. Amusingly, our luggage arrived 3 hours before we did as it was loaded on an earlier flight!!!!
The conference opened with traditional singing from Kentucky followed by the motivational speaker, we then had the AGM of the association as a plenary session. The exhibition was in the main hotel and looked very different to our own as it is less “slick” but none the less full of interesting and exciting exhibits. We were delighted to see one of the company’s that is shortlisted in our performance awards there also.
We had Wednesday night to ourselves and decided to have a trip up the Ohio river on the Spirit of Jefferson. This was great fun and finished with a bit of a sing – a –long (or maybe it was just us) as we pulled in to dock.
The conference concluded with the gala dinner, the only real difference to our own being that the entire Council (or Board) sit on the stage looking out on the audience for the meal. I’m not so sure that would be favoured by our own Council members!
After the conference, Colin and I went to Washington DC via Chicago (where I met up with my long term penpal Angi who lives in Michigan. Angi and I have been writing since we were 17, we met up for the first time in Chicago, it was a great night!). Washington was a great as I remembered it 30 years ago when I lived there. We had a super time showing Colin the sights and wandering around in the sunshine and high 70’s temperatures.
Sadly while we were in the States we got the news that long serving member of the Scottish Association Executive Janette Proud had passed away. Janette had been suffering from cancer but she had such a fighting spirit and we had seen her at the Scottish Conference that it came as quite a shock. Her funeral was this Wednesday which was attended by over 200 family, friends and colleagues, I know that we will all miss her and send our condolences to her husband Dave and family.
I leave for conference tomorrow as we have a full two days of meetings beforehand, I hope to see many of you there and am looking forward to Thursday night when I shall pass the baton on to Geoff.
Take care
Julie
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Scottish Conference
Well here we are, it is September and the trees are starting to turn from green. This is my penultimate blog entry with only three weeks left now until Annual Conference in Bournemouth and the handing over to a new President. I must say I have an inkling of what it feels like to be old father time on New Years Eve, with the bouncing baby new year waiting to get started! (not that Geoff is a bouncing baby – but you get the drift ...)
The end of August was a quiet with very little activity, which meant I actually managed to have some time in the office, which turned out to be a good thing as staff were on leave and we had the annual billing and the adjustment to rents to put through. The rents are being adjusted tonight but the billing went well so all seems to be in a much more stable position, phew!
Last week saw the Annual Scottish Conference in Crieff and what a great conference it was. I was transported back to Brighton 2 years ago as during the opening morning the fire alarm went off and we had to start the evacuation! Bizarrely the hotel staff attempted to restrain the delegates in to the room as they felt it was the safest place to be!!!!!!!!!!! Anyhow, we all got on with the day “un-singed” and had a great debate about Debt Relief (Scottish Debt Arrangement Scheme and LILA route to bankruptcy), Welfare Reform and on to the launch of the Committee of Inquiry in to Local Taxation in Scotland. We were delighted that the 4 MSPs representing the four main parties, all stayed after their session to participate in the press conference launch. Those of you in Scotland can hardly have failed to see the amount of press coverage that it generated (click on headline above to view the BBC article) and we are really pleased about that. We now must deliver the inquiry with some firm proposals for discussion and further debate in the halls of parliament.
The conference was not of course all work, work, work; we had a lovely dinner on the first evening with the past presidents of the Scottish Association and honorary members. We were delighted to have so many distinguished legends in the Institute with us including Ron Skinner, Eric Geddes and David Shepherd. David had been National President in 1968 and having retired some time ago it was lovely to meet with him and see that he was incredibly fit and well. David has promised to attend the Past Presidents' luncheon in July next year, I look forward to seeing him again at that time. The Gala Dinner on the Wednesday was a great event with the awarding of the best in Scotland entrant to the IRRV Performance awards (Well done Dundee!!), an interesting after dinner speech from Bill Jamieson who told us of the events that lead to the collapse of Barings Bank and how he had the inside track and was able to “break” the story and finally a great time dancing the night away with the Ceilidh band albeit with some dubious Scottish dancing!
As always it was an excellent conference, set in the beautiful surroundings of Crieff Hydro and, although I was sad to say goodbye as President to the Scottish delegates, I really hope that I will be invited again some day to speak to the conference as it is such a hard working and enthusiastic group. Many thanks to all chairs and “questioners” who put the speakers at their ease, but were challenging and thought provoking in their own right.
Colin and I fly out for the IAAO conference in Kentucky on Friday and we are spending a few extra days leave on the end, so my final update will be during Bournemouth conference week if I get time …. Or perhaps Geoff will be so kind as to let me do a round up even after I have passed the chain over!
The end of August was a quiet with very little activity, which meant I actually managed to have some time in the office, which turned out to be a good thing as staff were on leave and we had the annual billing and the adjustment to rents to put through. The rents are being adjusted tonight but the billing went well so all seems to be in a much more stable position, phew!
Last week saw the Annual Scottish Conference in Crieff and what a great conference it was. I was transported back to Brighton 2 years ago as during the opening morning the fire alarm went off and we had to start the evacuation! Bizarrely the hotel staff attempted to restrain the delegates in to the room as they felt it was the safest place to be!!!!!!!!!!! Anyhow, we all got on with the day “un-singed” and had a great debate about Debt Relief (Scottish Debt Arrangement Scheme and LILA route to bankruptcy), Welfare Reform and on to the launch of the Committee of Inquiry in to Local Taxation in Scotland. We were delighted that the 4 MSPs representing the four main parties, all stayed after their session to participate in the press conference launch. Those of you in Scotland can hardly have failed to see the amount of press coverage that it generated (click on headline above to view the BBC article) and we are really pleased about that. We now must deliver the inquiry with some firm proposals for discussion and further debate in the halls of parliament.
The conference was not of course all work, work, work; we had a lovely dinner on the first evening with the past presidents of the Scottish Association and honorary members. We were delighted to have so many distinguished legends in the Institute with us including Ron Skinner, Eric Geddes and David Shepherd. David had been National President in 1968 and having retired some time ago it was lovely to meet with him and see that he was incredibly fit and well. David has promised to attend the Past Presidents' luncheon in July next year, I look forward to seeing him again at that time. The Gala Dinner on the Wednesday was a great event with the awarding of the best in Scotland entrant to the IRRV Performance awards (Well done Dundee!!), an interesting after dinner speech from Bill Jamieson who told us of the events that lead to the collapse of Barings Bank and how he had the inside track and was able to “break” the story and finally a great time dancing the night away with the Ceilidh band albeit with some dubious Scottish dancing!
As always it was an excellent conference, set in the beautiful surroundings of Crieff Hydro and, although I was sad to say goodbye as President to the Scottish delegates, I really hope that I will be invited again some day to speak to the conference as it is such a hard working and enthusiastic group. Many thanks to all chairs and “questioners” who put the speakers at their ease, but were challenging and thought provoking in their own right.
Colin and I fly out for the IAAO conference in Kentucky on Friday and we are spending a few extra days leave on the end, so my final update will be during Bournemouth conference week if I get time …. Or perhaps Geoff will be so kind as to let me do a round up even after I have passed the chain over!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Some photos from Scottish Conference ...
Above : Julie at the Students' Presentation
Above : Julie with the Provost of Perth & Kinross & Brian Jeffrey, Scottish Association President
Above : Julie hosted a dinner with former (and current) IRRV Scottish Association Presidents
Above : The IRRV launched its committee of inquiry on local taxation at Scottish Conference. We were pleased to welcome MSPs from the main four political parties to Conference - from the left - Alasdair Allan MSP (SNP), Jeremy Purvis MSP (Scottish Liberal Democrat), Andy Kerr MSP (Scottish Labour) and Derek Brownlee MSP (Scottish Conservatives) 
Above : Julie with Conference Overall Sponsors - Gandlake - Rob De Felice and Carol Hill
Above : The Equita Presidential Penalty Challenge at Crieff!
Above : Julie with Brenda Miller and Jane Crawford of Dundee City Council, winners of the "Best in Scotland" performance award
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