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!
