It has been my honour to lead the Institute’s excellent Council in 2022/23.

The year marked our centenary as a Local Institute and we celebrated in style, with many past Presidents in attendance at the first Annual Dinner since March 2019, owing to the Covid 19 Pandemic, in June 2022. The event was a great success and the fund raising for our 2 charity partners Amelia’s Rainbow and the Insurance Charities made me particularly proud. Thanks to all those who helped raise awareness and sponsorship, sell event tickets and raffle tickets and make the Kings and Queens so much fun and so lucrative for the charities.

My first year as President also saw us have a 2nd Annual Dinner! (Is there a theme here?) as we recently held our 2023 event, once again at AFC Bournemouth, on 24th March 2023. The commitment and drive of the Dinner Committee (Sue Lloyd, Shirley Reeves, Jana Langdown, Chris Mills and Paul Dyer) helped to ensure that the event was better attended, the funds raised for charity greater and the (already high) bar set in June 2022 was raised further. My thanks to the Dinner Committee and Stephen Linklater and Paul Dyer (again) for the Kings & Queens.

In addition to the fund raising at the Annual Dinners we had a successful Golf Day raising more funds at Dudsbury Golf Club in June 2022, which will be repeated this June on the 22nd, again at Dudsbury, details on our website events page. We do hope you can come and support us! Thanks to Alan Boyce, Charities representative, Sue Lloyd and co for organising.