As a member of the Institute’s member communications working group I would welcome your views on the revamped icaew.com website

I believe it looks crisper and fresher, but can you use it better than before?

The problem used to be that there was so much information on there that you couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

Another criticism was about needing to know your ICAEW membership number and password for some pages and not others, has this changed for what you need?

This presentation was rolling whilst the attendees of this year’s agm were networking and enjoying a curry at the award winning curry restaurant at Baylis House, Slough earlier this year.

15^th May 2008

Thames Valley Society of Chartered Accountants
President’s Review of January 2007 – May 2008

Normally our formal financial year would span two presidencies however as I have been your president for two years I thought I would report on the eighteen months since my last report. Our strategies have been nurtured from infancy leading to a higher level of support for members than ever before.

Chartered Accountants in Business

Our CAB group goes from strength to strength, with quarterly meetings with various topics, again we have held some successful soft skills events, hosted by one of our members, Joy Ainley. More recently another of our volunteers, David Harmes put on a successful evening event (“Putting the Numbers Front Seat”). Our next CAB event has just moved from the planning board to the flyer, we are taking over the Oxford Union in June when we have four star speakers for and against the proposition “This House believes Corporate Responsibility will not survive the downturn”, you should find a flyer in the pack, my thanks to Michael Cooper for his efforts in putting this together.

Practice Support Groups

We now have four practice support groups with Newbury successfully joining Oxford, Reading and Thames Valley East, new members are always welcome. During the year, together with the group chairmen I attended two of the three Practice Advisory Group forums where the new group wanted input from the general practitioner, should any of you want to see what Moorgate Place has to offer for the practitioner I highly recommend these events.

Job Club

The job club has not met for some time, with the current “Credit Crunch” we might find it valuable to resurrect it..

Technical Advisory Committee

The TAC is kept busy with monthly meetings reviewing Institute pronouncements.

Continuing Professional development (CPD)

As can be seen in the Treasurer’s report the SESCA managed CPD programme runs from strength to strength, with over a 1,000 course seats in each year.

Annual Dinner

We held a successful annual dinner at the Ashmolean Museum and the Randolph Hotel, where the Randolph surpassed itself with the quality of the local Thames Valley sourced produce.

Annual Conference

The annual conference, held in Stokenchurch, again ran in two streams with delegates mixing between practice and business focused lectures.

New Members Dinner

This year the New Members Dinner will be amalgamated with the Annual Dinner at the Crowne Plaza in Marlow.

This is a presentation I made to the Ordre des experts-comptables in Orléans, summer 2007. I was part of panel that they had put together to discuss doing business with their neighbours, in this case the UK as a precursor to their national conference in September.

Well it’s all over, thank you for the opportunity and your support over the last two years

At last night’s agm Michael mentioned online forums, coming soon, I found this on YouTube:

This clip was recorded from France24’s website:

http://www.france24.com/en/20080326-sarkozy-carla-bruni-france-uk-brown

at the time of President Sarkozy state visit to the UK March 2008

It won’t play here, right click, save and then play using something like Realplayer

Please use the comment link below to add your comments on your likes and dislikes of Thames Valley District Society communications. I am particularly interested in:

• Whether you separate the communications from the TVSCA from that received from the ICAEW
• What you like
• What you hate
• Whether you prefer e-news (email/website)
• Whether you want paper
• What you actually get – brief synopsis

Welcome to the June edition of Stoppress. May I take this opportunity to thank my fellow main committee members for voting me in as your president for a further term. I hope with this second year I can actually achieve some of the ideas promulgated during the last one. A presidential year has three phases: the first, June to about October, not much happens (primarily due to holidays); October through January you find out what is going on; then February to May you find out what you can change – too late to try and implement anything, so this year I will be off to a flying start! I would also like to thank David Duval and Graeme Gordon for stepping up as Deputy President and Vice President respectively, with Michael Cooper following on, so we now have a succession plan for the next three years at least. Come to the Business Confidence Monitor briefing at the Rye Hill golf club near Banbury. This free event is run in conjunction with Orange as one of Bretherton’s Professional Lunch Club events.

Paul M Tate
President TVSCA

the full version of Stoppress can be found here http://cecollect.com/ve/ZZh30f762661GaQS742

For those looking for the Williams F1 dinner photographs, they can be found here