Martin Vaughan CFP^CM, chairman of this year's IFP Annual Paraplanner Conference which ended yesterday, has hailed the sell-out event which saw record attendance as "fantastic."

He said: "The conference has been fantastic, truly excellent. The attendance was the best ever and it's great to see Paraplanners coming together in big numbers and sharing ideas and knowledge.
"The highlights for me have been the willingness of delegates to join in, the chance to meet up with old friends and the ability to get a huge amount of CPD activities done on the same day. Plus, of course, the speakers."
Mr Vaughan said he was very impressed with the conference speakers and interactive sessions which were of a very high quality and technically very useful for Paraplanners. He thanked all the speakers for putting lots of time into preparing their talks and understanding that Paraplanners needed technical updates regularly to help them do their jobs better. He also thanked sponsors and exhbitors which included some of the UK's biggest financial providers.
The conference was lead sponsored by Just Retirement with over a dozen other sponsors and exhibitors including ETF Securities, Prestwood, Morningstar, Architas, AXA Wealth, Cornelian, Henderson Global Investors, James Hay, NS&I, Nucleus, Prudential and Transact.
More than Paraplanners attended the event at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Warwick on 21 and 22 May, a record number, and the total attendance at the event was nearly 150.
IFP events and membership director Katherine Morgans said the event had beaten all expecations and she was delighted with the turnout.
She said: "There was a great buzz throughout this year's IFP Paraplanner conference and Twitter continues to buzz with positive feedback.
"We crammed a lot into this one and a half day event all of which seems to have been well received. It's a fresh, fun and very enjoyable event to run for a receptive and lovely bunch of Paraplanners. Special thanks to all the speakers and supporters."
The conference was chaired by experienced Paraplanner Martin Vaughan CFP^CM. There were keynote sessions from industry experts such as Mark Polson of The LangCat and leading Paraplanners such as Gemma Siddle CFP^CM, Joanna Hague CFP^CM and Clare Goodwin APP. Among the headline guest speakers were John Dashfield from Dashfield Coaching & Development.
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Other sessions included:
• Improve your memory – Nancy Slessenger, Vinehouse
• Pensions health check – Bob Gordon, Standard Life
• Technology to help Paraplanners rock - Andrew Reeves CFP^CM, FIFP, The Investment Coach Limited
• Maximising the benefits and mitigating the risks of drawdown – Just Retirement's Jan Holt.
• How to persuade anyone to do anything (well, almost) - Lee Warren, Invisible Advantage

• Financial Planner Online will be running extensive coverage and Tweets from the event - check out our daily coverage this week