Over the past two days Iain McLaren and I have been meeting members at events organised by our area committees in Stirling and Dundee.
As well as highlighting the excellent work done by our
committees, attending these events continues to be a great reminder of the
variety in our membership; those in practice and business, newly qualified and
nearing retirement, and everything in between.
We welcomed back a recently returned member from Kazakhstan
and bid farewell to another soon to leave Dundee University for a very senior
academic post in Adelaide, Australia (another ICAS community in the offing!).
It is great to see the numbers attending continue to grow
and welcoming increasing numbers of 'first timers' who always leave saying… “I'll
be back!”
We updated members on the latest developments from the
Institute, our strategy of building a professional community, and the changing
nature of the Institute. Did you know we are approaching parity in the balance
of males/females in our recent intakes of students, and that by 2014/15 we
expect to have a majority of members based outside Scotland.
We want people to know they have fellow members they can
contact –living nearby, or working in a similar field – and that ICAS is
working to boost these connections and build these communities.
It is not all about listening to Iain and I, and it is great
to get the feedback on how we can better serve and engage with you.
As they say, there is no substitute for hearing it
first-hand and face to face.
I look forward to meeting you at an event in the future.
Anton Colella
Notes to Editorsview
ICAS – the professional body of Chartered Accountants (CAs) – is a regulator, educator and influencer. We act as a thought leader and voice of our professional business community. The CA qualification is unique to ICAS in the UK. It is recognised and respected internationally. We have more than 21,000 members and students across the UK and in more than 100 countries around the world. We provide support, advice and services to our CAs throughout their professional lives. Our members are business advisors, business leaders and entrepreneurs. They play leading roles in 80% of the FTSE 100 companies. Half our members are based in Scotland. The other half work in England and around the globe. ICAS is the world’s first professional body of chartered accountants, founded in 1854. We are a member of The Global Accounting Alliance (GAA) – an alliance of the world’s leading professional accountancy bodies, which was formed in 2005. The GAA is intended to promote quality services, share information and collaborate on important international issues. It works with national regulators, governments and stakeholders, through member-body collaboration, articulation of consensus views, and working in collaboration, where possible with other international bodies, especially IFAC.