Off the Road - for now!

We’ve now completed the first series of On The Road events and they can only be described as a great success!Events were held in Birmingham, Watford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Southampton, Bristol, Manchester and London. At each of the events the delegates heard from a number of speakers and also had the opportunity to get to know each other and discuss paraplanning issues which were important to them.

Our two main sponsors Life Trust and Arm spoke at each event.

Life Trust spoke to us about the financial effects of living too long (something we all think won’t happen!) and the impact this has a clients’ income at a time when they are less able to do anything about it.

Arm spoke to us about investing generally and more specifically about investing in private markets rather than public markets. About the difference between the two, about the opportunities these markets contain and about how the alleged risk with these investments is not always as great as you’d imagine.

Standard Life as host, also demonstrated to us their retirement planner tool.

And Phil Billingham of Perception Support spoke at a couple of events about the role of the paraplanner, the growing importance of the paraplanner in the modern IFA practice and how the paraplanner can have a positive impact on TCF.

You will notice that we tried to have speakers who were able to ADD something or who had a unique angle on a subject. On that point I must say a big thank you to all those who came and spoke at our events, all the speakers were excellent and added value to the day.

In addition to the wonderful speakers a large part of the day was spent talking, discussing issues which are important to paraplanners and sharing ideas and best practice.

These events, like the website, were organised specifically for paraplanners and they allowed paraplanners to meet other paraplanners and to realise that some of the problems we face in our day to day job are also experienced by others.

As a paraplanner, when you go to an event, invariably the majority of attendees with are advisers and you will be hard pushed to meet another paraplanner let alone share and discuss ideas. These events allowed paraplanners to do that and for that reason alone were worth attending.

But don’t take my word for it! This is a selection of the comments we received after the event.

• ‘Good well constructed meeting and agenda’
• ‘Excellent day - thank you’
• ‘Excellent workshop - can’t wait until the next one’
• ‘Very useful to meet other paraplanners and find out what I could be doing’
• ‘Day was great - nice to meet fellow paraplanners and share experiences’
• ‘Most enjoyable’
• ‘Whole day was excellent’

Apart from the day being enjoyable and good value, we also asked what were the two most useful things they had learnt during the day? Here’s a selection of the comments.

• ‘Particularly enjoyed hearing about practices used by other paraplanners’
• ‘Useful info on what research tools people use’
• Other opinions on asset allocation and fund research’
• ‘That other paraplanners have similar problems’
• ‘Understanding the Financial Services Compensation Scheme’
• ‘Tips from other paraplanners on ways to organise work’

These events were the first we held and though you had requested them we were unsure what response we’d receive. Having completed them the response has been fantastic with everyone who attended saying they wanted us to run them again.

We are therefore looking at holding the next series of events in February/March 2009. Places will again be limited so to avoid disappointment please let us know if you are interested in attending now.

Thanks to all who attended and made the days such as success.

Martin