September CEWW Forum Report
In order to provide more localised support to its 200+ Local Groups IAM RoadSmart (“IAM”) has four geographic regions. Solihull Advanced Motorists (“SAM”) is located within the Central England and Wales Region (“CEW”). However, due to the size of CEW a number of groups within the western part of the region formed an administrative unit known as Central England West and Wales (“CEWW”), which has an elected committee made up of members from the local groups. CEWW holds meetings, or ‘Forums’, to which representatives of all the local groups within CEWW are invited. These Forums address various administrative and technical issues affecting the local groups, and is the preferred way of communicating concerns and ideas for improvement to IAM Head Office.
On behalf of Solihull Group, Glen Bell and David Heath attended the CEWW Forum on
Saturday 17th September 2016, at the West Mercia Police HQ and Conference Centre at Hindlip Hall near Worcester. IAM was represented by Ian Firth, the Regional Operations Manager.
There are 35 local Groups within CEWW, and representatives from about 25 Groups attended this Forum, which was convened for two main agenda Items:
- Convey to IAM a number of queries and concerns about the new Advanced Driving Course and its associated standards;
- Receive updates on various administrative and strategic topics from IAM, which were delivered by our Regional Operations Manager Ian Firth.
Discussions were lively and helped with our insight into IAM’s intended strategic direction, which in brief is to make IAM RoadSmart a household name in road safety, and make us the preferred “go to” source for advice on road safety issues.
The new Advanced Driving Course, which replaces Skill for Life, is proving successful and well-liked by most Groups, though as expected there are a few aspects of it that we thought could be improved.
Ideas from the discussions will be carried forward to the IAM Conference in October and debated in workshop sessions to help IAM move forward to achieve its strategic goals.
Members and Associate Members of SAM are welcome to contribute ideas that may help IAM in their bid to upgrade their public image, and in the first instance these should be sent to Glen Bell for forwarding to our Committee.
David Heath
