Outgoing President's Message: April 2022

Dear Members,

This is my final message to you as the President of The Chartered Insurance Institute of Ipswich, Suffolk and North Essex. These last few years have flown by, and I write this message with a mixture of emotions.

In 2018, our then President Johanna Mulley spoke about her joy that the Insurance and Financial Services industries had evolved. That when she began attending our Local Institute dinners, she was one of 10 women that attended and there were barely any young professionals in the room.

I am so proud that we have continued to evolve and that two years ago I stepped into the Presidential Role, at the grand old age of 28. For me, I remember an overwhelming feeling of imposter syndrome, that perhaps I was not experienced enough or established enough in my career to take on this role or lead this team.

At this time, I had no idea that this theme would become so prevalent for entirely different reasons. Our member’s needs completely changed over the last 2 years, and I am so proud of how our council has adapted to this.

We moved our whole CPD programme online, which is something we had never tried before, and this meant that we went from being able to offer our members one CPD event a month to up to 5 in some cases. We also worked smarter and more collaboratively with our regions to give even greater access to different content.

We recognised the need for different types of support during this time, offering exercises classes, virtual social events and having a greater focus on how to support our mental health. A personal highlight for me was our Christmas Advent, our social media campaign to encourage some festive cheer when perhaps we were not feeling quite as cheery as we would have liked.

We are delighted that we are started to re-introduce face to face events and our recent student presentations and motor conference are proof that there is still an appetite and demand for this. We will continue to develop our offering and adapt to the new way of working going forward.

Fabba Theatre Group

As many of you will be aware, each year the President has the honour of choosing a charitable cause to raise money for throughout their term.

I have chosen to support to Fabba Theatre Group over the last 2 years, a self-funded theatre group based in Norfolk & Suffolk, for adults with learning disabilities. Fabba is designed to help it’s members progress in all aspects of performance, including voice projection, improvisation, emotion, learning lines and communicating effectively. The idea is that this will help them in their everyday lives. My younger sister Dani is part of Fabba and I have seen first-hand, through many teary eyed performances, the hard work and enjoyment that goes into each one. Fabba, would like to raise money for a van to enable them to store and transport scenery and props to enhance their performances, as well as a greater budget for staging and costumes.

I am pleased to announce that we have raised £1,380 on our JustGiving Page.

We also raised £1,932.95 at our Annual Dinner which will be split between Fabba and Lizzie’s fund.

A big thank you to everyone who donated and helped us spread awareness of these causes.

If you would like to make any last-minute donations, please follow the links below

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ciiipswichsuffolknorthessex

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sally-bramall3

Your Local Institute

Your local council is made up of a group of volunteers, and I want to say a big thank you to my fellow council members for their invaluable support and hard work these last 2 years, enabling so much to be achieved.

I will be forever grateful for the dedication you have all shown throughout. It has been great to welcome some new faces join along the way, but naturally due to work and personal commitments, we also say goodbye to some.

I would like to pay tribute to Phil Rawlings who will be stepping down from council at our AGM, Phil is one of our longest standing members of council and has undertaken many roles throughout his term including President. He has been a great support to the younger members and helped to develop our programme with his industry contacts. He played an integral role in organising our recent motor conference. Phil has taken the role of representing the Insurance Charities over the last few years and we thank him for all his efforts.

Why should you join your Local Institute?

If anyone were to ask me why to join our Local Institute, why to take on the Presidential role, I would tell them this…

I have made so many new connections over the last two years and raised my professional profile locally, as well as making many new friends. I have dealt with more challenges than I ever expected, and it has taught me so many things that I haven’t yet had to deal with in my day-to-day role. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone to do more public speaking, to challenge ideas more, to lead, but the main one is to believe in myself more. To believe I can do it.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this experience and will be forever grateful for the opportunity. I would like to thank Sarah Deacon for asking me to be her Deputy President, all that time ago. I would also like to thank everyone on council for trusting me to lead this team but also for your support and hard work for making the last two years a success. I’ve enjoyed working with every single one of you.

Thank you and Goodbye

I would Like to express my gratitude to Brewin Dolphin and Woodward Markwell, who have supported my journey within our Local Institute, it was lovely to see some familiar faces at our Annual Dinner. A special shout out to Davina Olson, for always pushing me to do more, to be better.

The Annual Dinner was such an amazing evening and the perfect end to my Presidential Journey, thank you Cassie, for organising such a wonderful evening.

Nathan, Good Luck in your new role, I know that you will be an amazing President. I can't wait to see what the next few years will bring. I hope you have as much fun as I did.