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A Message from Paul Winder ...

In the spring of this year the Rowley’s Partnership Limited, who are based in Leicester, joined MGI. Most firms will by now have met one of the Rowley’s directors but if you have not get in touch with them and raise your firm’s profile, as well as theirs.

Two months ago we appointed JE Consulting, headed by Jo Edwards, to assist with our marketing for new members and PR. To highlight what Jo and her team have been up to you will find press releases attached to this newswire. Our website has also been given more of an edge to help us market to each other and to other firms of accountants. In particular more information about firms and partners has been added. Once you have reviewed the changes feel free to feed back any ideas you may have. Jo has also written an article for this newswire highlighting the approach taken to targeting potential new members.

There have been a couple of MGI schemes put forward to see if collectively we can obtain better deals on the content and cost of training and professional indemnity insurance. Whilst the PII scheme is very recent I am pleased to say that MGI Rickard Keen have made the switch to the new tailor made policy which offers far broader cover in respect of MGI and its associates as well as extending the general cover beyond that existing for many member firms. This is coming at a competitive price with potentially lower levels of excess and an expectation of further cost savings if we get sufficient take up. On the training front the two members who currently use Mercia en masse will undoubtedly continue to do so, but only one other firm has said they would like to follow suit. To get any bulk buying power we will need interest from more than three firms.

Its been a busy time for seminars and conferences of late. In the UK we have now held four seminars on practice management, financial services, succession and the roles of managers and partners. Overall these have been a success although undoubtedly some more so than others. Whilst ideas for next years seminars are evolving do please let me know of any specific requests.

A flyer will be circulated to each member firm shortly about our next seminar on September 18 on Marketing and the UK Conference, November 22-24, on presentation and networking skills amongst other things. There will also be a seminar in October with an HR theme. I am getting feed back as to good UK and Ireland   attendance for the International Conference in Amsterdam on 24-26 October so if you have been thinking about it get on and book it up!

In June the European Conference took place in Vienna which was a great success, see press release attached. Whilst the formal sessions were somewhat overshadowed by the politics of MGI, with the European Group being portrayed as disagreeing with decisions already taken by the International Committee (on which they are of course represented), by the end of the meeting a vast majority of European and other members from around the world were pleased to see how the association is moving forward.