As a valued member of the Insurance Institute of Royal Tunbridge Wells, I would like to welcome you to this year's programme of events. We have tried to organise these mainly around the second Wednesday of each month to make it easier for you to plan ahead.

In order to get even closer to understanding what we could do to make your membership more valuable to you, we will be surveying you to find out if the range of educational and social activities we have planned are what you are looking for and to see if new things like mentoring would appeal to you. Becoming a mentor helps to inspire people who are looking for ideas and understanding beyond the mentee's current expertise, linking up people who wish to share their experience with others in the industry. If the survey results show that new ideas like this are popular, we will aim to introduce a new mentoring scheme for members and amend next year's programme of events based on your feedback.

Supporting each of you is our main goal, which is why we aim to provide our members with a wide range of educational and social events that offer Continuous Professional Development and networking opportunities. We hope that these will offer you the chance to gain inspiration and knowledge, as well as having a bit of fun! 

Please have a look at the technical, soft skills and social outings described in our 'Events' section. We invite you to join our lunchtime lectures and breakfast meetings in Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge and Sevenoaks and to help us in raising funds for the Insurance Charities or our local charity, Pepenbury.

If you would like to get more involved in our institute, we would warmly welcome you. Please contact me or any of our Council members with your suggestions. To take part in decision making, why not consider joining Council, starting by attending one of our Council meetings on the first Monday of every month. We would value your ideas and involvement in providing the best possible support for our membership.  

I look forward to meeting many of you this year and to seeing more familiar faces.

Joyce Roberts BSc MBA ACII

President