A note from Geoff Coughlin

Hello everyone!

It was so good to have the opportunity to talk to many of you at our recent AGM and, of course to join in with a huge thank you to both Roger, our outgoing Chair and Ashley, leaving as Secretary after a decade of unbroken service - what a debt of gratitude we owe them - thanks both and so glad that you will both be carrying on in your Observer roles, plus Ash has agreed to help maintain and update our website for the time being.

I have to say that I am so proud to be taking on the Chair and Chief Observer (C&CO) roles, also welcoming Sarah Watkins as our new Secretary and of course, Simon Clayton is staying on as Treasurer for a new term - thanks both for all you are doing and no doubt will do going forward!

It’s my hope that I can bring some fresh ideas and energy to the C&CO roles and to that end I wanted to share some thoughts and actions so far…

We are a successful group!

As if we didn’t know this from all Roger’s great updates in the past! This is no accident, it has come about through a huge commitment of time, energy and experience from our Observer Team. And, of course the Committee members plus the support you all give as members of IAM RoadSmart and our Lincolnshire group - that support through your annual memberships is crucial to our ongoing success and I want to thank you in advance for your ongoing support and commitment.

We currently have around 50 Associates in training at any one time - amazing! We should all be very proud of this and remember… success breeds success! And... 17 qualified National Observers (NOs) on the team.

Lincs Observer Team

Initiatives such as the PCC Young Driver programme and positive experiences all Associates have during their Advanced Driving Course with us means that we continue to attract strong numbers of new Associates and this has created a situation where several of our Observer team (including me!) have 4, even 5 Associates on the go at any one time taking them through their courses. This isn’t ideal at any level - we are all volunteers and my aim is that no Observer in the group will have more than 2 Associates in training at any one time, except in exceptional circumstances. This will take time to achieve and to make a start we will be running a new National Observer (NO) training programme in the group starting imminently and involving 3 new NO candidates - thanks so much for agreeing to get involved and I can’t wait to start you off. It’ll take a few months for this initial new group to become qualified but it’s a start. Later in the year we will be running another NO training course, hopefully including 4 more candidates, all with the aim of achieving a team of 25 fully qualified NOs in our group. We all have busy lives with many things to juggle in our work and family lives and so I want all our Observers to really enjoy their role, feeling supported and part of a highly successful team delivering an outstanding service for all our Associates - our customers.

A full meeting of all the Lincs Observer Team is set for Tuesday 16 July and I’ll provide an update on this later.

Our Lincs membership group

As you know we have all enjoyed some great events and presentations in the past and these will continue and I am pleased to say that Jonathan Herrick (remember Jonathan’s great presentation on first at the scene of an accident / his Firefighting career recently?) has agreed to head a new Events Group within IAM Lincs - much more to follow on this for what to look forward to in 2025 - our programme is set for the rest of 2024. WE NEED YOUR IDEAS! As I have already said above, your support by renewing your memberships of IAM is crucial, so what would you like the group to provide in terms of activities and events going forward? Any ideas that you have, please email them to me at the address above and I’ll pass them on to Jonathan and his group. 

Committee structure going forward

I have to say that having now fully taken on the Chair and Chief Observer roles and with Sarah getting to grips with the Secretary role the full extent of what Roger and Ash have been doing is staggering. Given that all this is done on a voluntary basis, we need to re-structure all the roles being undertaken in the group and widen the scope of who does what to ease the burden on any one individual, involve more members of the group and, frankly spread the load. I’m excited to say that we’ve had a very positive response and several members of the group have stepped forward to help by giving some of their time and experience in a whole range of areas to ensure that we continue to be the most successful group in the country. So what you may notice is that we’ll develop task/sub-groups for different areas of our operation. I must thank Simon C for his fantastic support in taking on more tasks linked to his Treasurer role and of course Stephen J (see below) by agreeing to start gathering ideas and a group together to assist with the new Young Driver Group (YDG). Jonathan H (Events) and more to come.

Lincs Young Driver Group (YDG)

Stephen Johnson has agreed to take this on and lead a new initiative to attract past, existing and future young drivers to IAM Lincs - I’m just working with Stephen to clarify his new role. This is a challenge and I believe that if we are able to offer something different, exciting and valued to young drivers who we work with, we should be able to build a sub-group dedicated to their needs. More information on this as the initiative develops.

That’s it for now and I am really looking forward to getting to know more of you in the months ahead and hope that you all have a great Summer - take care everyone and thank you again for all you do.

Very best wishes and safe driving!

Geoff C