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Our annual seminar and AGMs
Our regular venue
MIC
Conference Centre, 81-103 Euston Street, London NW1, just 3 minutes walk
from Euston Station, 10 minutes from Kings Cross / St Pancras. Click the
centre's name for further details.
Annual Seminars
These prestigious events are held in
the Autumn each year in London;
they
address the national policy agenda and are open to both members and non-members.
Past themes have covered social exclusion, e-commerce, and better quality advice.
The 2007 Conference was held at MIC on 29th November
under the title "EQUALITY STREET". It included the following
items:
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The
introductory speech was by Brian Lewin, Chair of the Trading Standards
Institute who explained why consumer advisers were so vital to the TS
service, and how local authorities would be wrong to dispense with their
services; click here for
a copy of his presentation slides.
-
Next we
heard from Christine Cryne and Sue Cook from OFT.
Chris talked about progress on Consumer Direct, and how it would be taking
on more work with the rationalisation of other advice services, and the
setting up of the new National Consumer Council. Se talked about the "Save
Xmas" campaign which she was running, as a follow-up to the Farepak
disaster. click here for
Chris's presentation, and here
for Sue's.
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We then explored the difficulties that particular groups (disabled, immigrants,
young and elderly people) experienced in consumer matters, especially in
trying to access our services:
-
Samantha Mauger, from Age Concern London described how elderly people
should not be thought of as automatically vulnerable; people could
become vulnerable at any age - vulnerability was also dependent on the
circumstances of the transaction. Click
here for her
presentation.
-
Dr
Mandy Maddock, from
Disability Croydon talked about her experiences and research into
the needs of disabled people.
-
Gareth
Thomas, a student from Plymouth University, described how and why
students might not seek advice, and got badly treated by shops. Click
here for his
presentation.
-
Bozena Krahn,
representing the
Federation of Poles in Great Britain explained the difficulties
faced by Eastern Europeans - their English might be poor, and the
Government was cutting back on Level 1 literacy and numeracy courses.
They also were poorly treated by landlords over property they
might be renting, and could not get help from banks.
-
Lord Whitty,
Chair of the National Consumer Council, opened the afternoon session, and
told us the latest thinking in the development of the Consumer Voice proposals,
and how the new National Consumer Council would operate.
-
Kim Lewis-Williams from Cornwall Trading
Standards gave her personal view of how the Unfair Commercial Practices
Directive might work, and the effect it would have on advice staff. Click
here for her
presentation.
-
Finally, Steve Playle,
who leads the South East Scambusters Unit, described the work they did and
some of their recent successes. Click
here for an edited copy of his
presentation.
Please note
that all the above presentations have been converted to pdf format. Some slides
have been enlarged where they are not easily readable. If you have any problems
with any other slides, please contact Bob Imrie.
Annual
General Meetings
The Institute's AGM is also held
in the Autumn at MIC in London, usually the day before the Conference, and includes a training session/workshop on topical issues relevant to consumer advice
and free buffet lunch.
The 2007 AGM
was held at MIC on 28th November, and the
draft minutes are attached
here.
After the formal business there was a free
training event, where Wendy Moir,
from BT, talked about their 'switched on' programme, the updating
of the broadband network, and when it will happen locally. Click
here for her presentation.
National
Executive 2008
There are also two other appointed officers -
Marie-Helene Kutek who oversees the icanews email group, and Bob Imrie, who is
ICA's webmaster.
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