AISMA Alert – April 2010

Calling all members – help us raise £15,000 for Médecins Sans Frontières!

To celebrate our 15th anniversary, AISMA is calling on all members to help raise £15,000 for Médecins Sans Frontières. With some fantastic fundraising events already in the pipeline we have so far raised over £3,000. But we have a long way to go to reach our target so please think about joining in!

There’s a special website to help you organise your fundraising, including event suggestions, a sponsorship form, Gift Aid forms and advice on how to generate some local publicity for your own firm. There is also information about the work of Médecins Sans Frontières and instructions on how to donate.

Every member taking part in the AISMA Big 15 fundraising challenge will feature on the website. Luke Bennett, AISMA Executive Committee member, has already raised a substantial sum with a 15 mile indoor rowing challenge for his colleagues at Winter Rule and is planning on doing it again at the conference – so come ready to sponsor him. Debbie Wood from Moore & Smalley is holding a bumper Quiz evening and there are more in the pipeline.

The head of fundraising for MSF will be speaking at the Conference where we hope to confirm the final total raised.

Even if you are only a small firm – you can raise money using some of the ideas on the website. To visit the AISMA Big 15 Fundraising website go to http://aismabig15.org.uk/

2010 Conference

This year’s Conference is on 13/14 May at Eastwood Hall, Nottingham.

Full details and joining instructions have been circulated to members via emaill. Please let Mandy know if you have not received yours. We have also posted the conference programme on the website with the Alerts. Please book early to ensure your places. We look forward to seeing you there.

There will be various activities taking place at the Conference in aid of the Big 15 fundraising challenge so that everyone can get involved and hopefully raise further funds.

Peer Reviews

Future peer reviews will include pension certificate preparation and interviews with the nominated specialist. Please be aware that any change of nominated specialist will trigger the new style interview process to ensure that the incoming specialist is able to uphold standards.

This year’s survey

You should have already provided Ian Mackay with the email address of the individual in your firm who will complete the survey. If you haven’t, do it now please.

As soon as you receive the email from him with the spreadsheets to complete, please deal with this promptly so that meaningful figures can be obtained before the conference. There is a huge amount of work to be done in preparing the results of the survey and it is not fair to Ian to leave this until the last minute.

Lack of response to the survey will be one of the pointers for an accelerated peer review.

Reed Business School

Reed Business School has again agreed that members of the association will be offered a discount to attend Reed Business School. This discount will be 10% on all tuition fees on any Reed Business School courses. Please ensure that when completing your booking forms you mark clearly that you are an aisma member in order that the 10% is recognised and deducted in Reed’s accounts department.

‘Reed Business School is an accountancy and finance tuition provider that delivers courses for ICAEW,ACCA,CIMA and the Certificate and Diploma in Financial Planning and gives AISMA members a 10% discount on the cost of tuition. We are situated in the Cotswolds and run courses on both a residential and non-residential basis.

Students come to us from all over the UK and take advantage of our ‘get away from it all’ policy which allows them to focus single mindedly on their studies whilst being catered for and staying in our on-site accommodation. (£28 pppn inc food)

We also provide retake/revision only courses for students who have not been successful first time around. Our pass rates on these courses and our first time courses are excellent. (Please see website www.reedbusinessschool.co.uk for accreditations) For references, pass rates and any further enquiries please email rbs@reed.co.uk or call 01608 674224.’

As usual if you have any questions on an administrative matter contact mandy.godden@honeybarrett.co.uk

If you have any PR matters you can contact Rosalind on rosalind@dewargreen.com