ACFA News - Chairman's Newsletter

Chairman’s Newsletter May 2010

RDR, hung parliament, volcanic cloud, FSA, FSCS levys, oil slicks, Leeds getting promotion; but not to worry - God’s in control!

I don’t know about you, maybe it’s because I have just turned 50, but this year seems to have flown by, and having spoken to a few members, times are quite tough and challenging out there. So the title of this year’s conference seems quite apt. It’s at times like these that our faith is put to the test. Macro economics may change but His wisdom never does. Please pray for all members and especially those you know who are struggling. There is the opportunity to meet and pray for each other at the regional meetings arranged, see below.

ACFA Conference 2010 – November 16^th & 17^th: High Leigh Conference Centre, Herts: ‘Does God turn up in Business?’

Please put these dates in your diary, booking forms out soon. We have noted the comments made from the feedback from last year’s conference and you will notice changes to the conference format.

Confirmed speakers: Mark Lloydbottom, of Crown Financial Ministries and David Oliver – Business Entrepreneur, speaker and author. Mark’s book, Biblical Finance: Reflections on Money, Wealth & Possessions will be sent out pre-conference to booked delegates.

Media and Communication

The Public Forum, rather like the Members’ forum, is up and running on the website. People have viewed but not posted comments. What else do we need to do differently to encourage you to use it? Or is this just an issue of shortage of time? We have some client testimonials, as asked for, and these will be posted on the public site soon.

I gave a profile interview as ACFA Chair for Money Marketing. I felt it went ‘ok’ – considering the interview was carried out by crackly mobile phone as they had forgotten the interview until the last minute. The article will soon be available in the media section of the ACFA website.

ACFA profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have taken a while to launch, but work is going on. We expect training for updating and managing this to be completed soon.

ACFA adverts are to be placed in ‘New Wine’ and will appear in the October 2010, January 2011 and April 2011 issues to drive readers to the website.

We are looking to appoint PR advisers (at reasonable cost) to help us effectively put ACFA’s name in the areas we need to.

Membership

Those of you with fully up to date membership will have received your personal ACFA membership certificate and reprinted copies of the Biblical Principles of Financial Planning leaflets. These are for use with clients and other business contacts.

The committee has awarded Alan Hiscox, as Founder Member of ACFA, lifetime membership. Congratulations, Alan, and thank you.

A reminder of the three things I asked of you at the conference:

1. Apply (some) biblical principles of financial planning (BPFP) – to clients and, ourselves.
2. Tell others (professionals and advisers) about the BPFP and ACFA
3. Meet other ACFA members regionally – it does not matter how many.

Regional Meetings

Some of you will have received emails inviting you to a regional meeting. These are taking place in some regions, (we could not get these organised in all regions). The Scotland meeting will be held in June. South West & Wales and the London regions hope to meet later, for a meal and fellowship. This is an experiment and we will feed back the value of such meetings at conference.

Other news

• Angela Hardy – unfortunately Angela has resigned as ACFA Secretary due to her family needing more of her time; their gain - our loss! On behalf of the committee I would like to thank Angela for all the hard work she has put into the Association over the time she has been with us – you will be missed. Cathy Cleveland (Mrs Graham) has very kindly agreed to temporarily step in as Secretary whilst we look to recruit again. If anyone knows any potential candidates, please point them our way.

• Martin Andrews kindly audited last year’s accounts and these accounts will be available on the website very soon.
• The committee have monthly teleconferences but met ‘face to face’ in London for a half yearly meeting during may, kindly hosted by MPL Ltd, thank you Aidan. Decisions were made to move ACFA forward in terms of marketing the Association more vigorously, using PR, an Ambassador role, exploring strategic alliances and updating the ACFA marketing plan.

Please continue to pray for us as a committee; we have all found business life ‘difficult’, in various ways, over the last few months and this has somewhat affected our effectiveness to carry out our committee duties. At least two of us hold a teleprayer meeting every Wednesday and pray for members of the Association and ACFA business.

Blessings to all,

Mark Crofts

ACFA Chair