Secretaries' Forum 2009 Presentations

Events

The 2009 Secretaries' Forum was held at the Chace Hotel, Coventry on 21st April. The event was launched by Co‑operatives UK Chief Executive Dame Pauline Green , and then there was a talk from Andrew Gold, Chief Operating Officer of Mutual One Limited, who gave us his ABC Guide to Co‑operatives Best Auditing (download slides).

The next talk was from Tom Wainwright of Cobbetts Solicitors, who gave a whistle-stop update on The Companies Act 2006 for Co‑operatives (download slides) and what new provisions were in force and likely to affect Industrial and Provident Societies.

This was followed by a talk about Ethnic Diversity in Co‑operative Enterprises (download slides) jointly presented by Dorothy Francis, CaSE-da and Chair of the Co‑operatives UK Ethnic Diversity Steering Group, and Mags Bradbury, National Projects Manager, Membership for the Co‑operative Group.

After lunch, Mark Simmonds and Sarah Alldred of the Making Local Food Work project facilitated a consensus workshop looking at Dealing with Difficult Behaviour (download report). This demonstrated the use of a "sticky wall" to gather ideas from a diverse group of individuals, and then work together to combine them down into a series of mutually agreed responses to the subject.

This was followed by a talk from Bernie Grady, Director of the Business Information Division for Experian, on Creating a Co‑operative Credit Reference (download slides). This was a run through how how credit reference agencies set about creating a credit reference for a business, and a number of handy tips on how to ensure IPS co‑operatives can ensure they are visible in the absence of an FSA online register.

To round off the day, there were two brief presentations: the first was from Deputy Secretary and Head of Legal Services for Co‑operatives UK, giving an update on the Government's plans for Updating Co‑operative Legislation (download slides); the second was from Co‑operatives UK Chief Executive , who talked about Co‑operatives UK - the Journey So Far (download slides) and the future for the organisation following the announcement of her retirement.

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