What an exciting time of the year, wasn't Conference fantastic again. The buzz at the annual conference never ceases to amaze me, the speakers, the late nights and early morning.

I am so proud to be a part of this wonderful community and the IFP. I can't really claim any credit for conference success, but it is an annual reminder to me of what makes our Financial Planning community so special. Awards are an exciting part of any conference and I absolutely loved the new format with the Gala awards dinner. IFP awards are not given out and you know that any award winners really are at the top of their game! Huge congratulations to all of this year's winners. Well done Andy Page CFP as our branch chairman of the year.


{desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile}

As a judge, I can confirm that Keri Carter is the worthy winner of our very first CFP Professional of the year award. Having known Keri for some time I was determined to be fair in the judging process. This resulted in my being very hard on Keri much to the surprise of my fellow judges who were blown away by the professional presentation she gave in the final round of the process.

CFP professionals really do represent the highest standard in Financial Planning and Keri certainly proved this. I have great respect for our Accredited Firm of the year, Fiscal Engineers. Their attention to detail in the whole client experience is an example to us all. I am very reliant on the paraplanners that I work with and applaud IFP for its work on increasing recognition for Paraplanning. 

Dan Atkinson showed the quality and experience that we have in the UK in this area. Well done Dan Atkinson who was a worthy winner! The David Norton Award is made to the firm with the most potential to become Accredited. Many of the past winners are well known in the profession so huge congratulations to this year's winners Old Mill Financial Planning. I hope we'll be welcoming you as an Accredited Firm soon.

{desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile}

Whilst thinking of achievements, the new Diploma in Financial Planning launched early this year. This is now the route to achieving Certified Financial Planner professional status with updated standards and the introduction of a multiple multi choice paper in addition to the usual case study. We have had the first two candidates pass this now so a very well done to them. Whilst there are now over 1000 CFP professionals in the UK, we should still remember this is not an easy task to achieve, and nor should it be. It is the equivalent to a final year degree paper, and I am sure none of you would attempt a degree paper without full preparation and expect to get a good pass, so why treat the CFP any differently?