I am honoured to be entering my second year as President of the Insurance of Sussex after a surprising and entirely virtual first term that was a challenging time for us all. I’d like to thank my colleagues on council and all our members for their ongoing support and perseverance.

Looking ahead to 2021/22 planning is still difficult and although we are certainly seeing some return to normality, Covid remains a reality and at this time we maintain a conservative position on a return to physical events. We still have limited visibility going forward and so will continue to be flexible and agile in our planning. I hope you have enjoyed our virtual programme in recent months and have found our varied content useful. We will continue to adapt our subject matter and platforms as the situation evolves and in line with your feedback.

I think our goals for the year ahead could be summarised as back to basics. We will focus on the core objectives of supporting our members from both a professional development and well-being perspective and strive to raise more for our chosen charities. Both The Insurance Charities and our nominated charity, Mind, have been doing an amazing job over the last year and we continue to be very grateful for your support in raising much-needed funds for them. As we reach the end of the furlough scheme / other government initiatives and a new economic reality comes to the fore, I think our members and our charities will need our support more than ever and with your help we will do our utmost to be of assistance.