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Central European Circle Meeting

Last week I attended the Central European Circle Meeting for the first time. There were over 40 delegates with a very strong showing from Germany. The meeting ran from Friday evening to mid Saturday afternoon so took very little time out of the working week of most of the delegates attending.

The meeting, with only one overnight stay was priced very attractively, which gave all present an inexpensive network opportunity.

There were a variety of topics discussed, including a presentation from Thierry which was a general MGI update. Lazlo gave an update on the Eastern European circle and highlighted that the European conference in June has slightly changed its format from previous years and will run from 9 – 11 June, from the Thursday afternoon to the Saturday lunchtime. It will follow the same format as the UK and Ireland conference. I then gave a short presentation on what’s happening in MGI UK and Ireland. 

There was also much debate about the ‘network issue’ as it appears German regulators are continuing to take a harder and inconsistent approach to MGI. Firms working in Germany are unclear to what the final outcome will be and are working hard to convince authorities that they are not a network. As a consequence of this, the Europeans are looking into what the cost would be to member firms if MGI in Europe, at least, are deemed to be a network. There was also a review of the marketing opportunity in Europe to see how member firms could effectively target multi-national companies as potential clients.

Overall, Lothar Stache of Votum ag can be very pleased with the circle meeting his firm arranged as it provided MGI delegates some useful updates and excellent networking opportunities for a relatively small outlay of time and money.

Paul Winder