Hello Dave and Shaun,

Was a great day, the biggest summit yet and already receiving very positive feedback.

Don't put shame on the AAT members Shuan, they are more than welcome as is everyone  Saw a couple of IFA and AIA members too. Also saw CIMA and ACCA but they were joint ICB members so probably don't count 

Great to see so many new faces as well as the familiar ones and have a chat with some. 

Pics to follow next week.

The Luca Awards are on the 9th December.

Afternoon Dave,

Now much as I want to just chat about the first bit you know that I'm going to latch onto the anti ICBers line don't you.

think that you've got me a little wrong as I'm not really anti anyone. I'm certainly always willing to listen to those who try to redeem themselves or admit that they have made a mistake or argue their corner and win.

I'm certainly not anti Garry Carter who has to be admired for creating something from nothing. I have spent quite a bit of time pondering the ICB business model that he used and demographic that he targeted. I can see flaws in the maturity element of the model but for inception and growth stages of the life cycle I have to say that the model was pretty near perfect (gold star and a book contract to Garry for that one).

However, all professional bodies make mistakes and regardless of the body I'm not one of those who adheres to the kings new clothes approach and will say when I think a body is making a mistake.

With the ICB I think that their change of approach to marketing this year has been poorly received and I think that some other things and long held beliefs have been ill conceived, all of which I have chatted about on site with James who put the ICB's view and also took on board any criticism as only through acknowledging such can one grow stronger.

Somethings he has argued well and others have I believe helped towards changes in the ICB's approach.

For example, the idea that accountants cannot do bookkeeping is still there but seemingly not now such a strongly held belief. Back in 2010 AAT was considered by the ICB pure accountancy but now is considered for exemptions where obtained within two years.

If people such as myself didn't stand up and say, "Hang on a minute, this is wrong", then the assumption by various professional bodies would be that what they are doing must be right.

Everything has to be considered a two way dialogue rather than simply an assumption that one party is always in the right.

Thats not anti ICB in the same way that previous complaints about ACCA regulation 8 were absolutely not in any way anti ACCA, or the discussion (which I can't now find) about CIMA's attitude to students in a last minute change of exam vanue, or the IFA's plagerism issue where their exam copied word for word the ACCA paper (its a whole different IFA now to that one).

Professional bodies like people make mistakes, they fix it or explain it and move forwards.

ICB are more active on here than most so their efforts get questioned more than most.

They are neither always right nor always wrong (like myself).

If they did not try to improve any failings then they would get serious grief from me (trust me, what they have had thus far is not serious grief), but, James does listen and things do change.

For example, if people are riddiculing an advertising campaign in private but saying nothing in public then the campaign will be seen as a success.

Is it not then better for people to stand up and say "hang on a minute. How you are seeing things is not how it's being perceived by the intended audience".

I'm actually thinking here more about the Crunchers Sheep video than the ICB but I would assume that the first thought of those reading the last line was that I was talking about the dollar bill.

As always this site is dedicated to the betterment of the industry as a whole no matter which body people may belong to or aspire to.

We try to guide people to the best professional body for their needs which for many is AAT, some is ACCA, some IFA, some ICB or IAB or ndeed any number of other bodies.

The key is to look at what the individual is looking to achieve and the doors that they are looking to open. You can only do that by being truly independant of everyone.

And always remember that for any advice given others are free to disagree and make their own suggestions.

And if you think about it we have exactly the same debates over software as we do over professional bodies.... Just wished that someone at Sage would listen to end users about their licensing being messed up.... I'm pretty sure at the moment that the Sage licensing team are actually all secretly working for Intuit!

Nobody selling anything be that software, professional membership, franchising, cloud offerings, training, networking, etc. will ever get a free pass on here as the site is intended for the benefit of the people in the business or thinking of joining it.

Site members are given a complete range of alternate views, often with those of us in practice disagreeing over matters (look at the difference between mine and Marks perceptions of VT. I consider it to be the best bookkeeping software in the market regardless of cost, he considers it an entry level option. Those are personal views, neither of us is wrong, we argue our corners and viewers make up their own minds based on unbiased oponion).

The above is all just a long way of saying that I am no more anti ICB than I am anti Sage (lol, just messing with you Dave). With ICB there is always the feeling that the niggles can be fixed but with Sage its more a feeling that they feel that they are the market leaders and do not need to listen... Just like Lotus 1-2-3 had the entire spreadsheet market... And as they say, those who do not know their history are destined to repeat it.

Hope thats clarified my position,

Talk later matey,

all the best,

Shaun.