Review of 2008/9

Well the CIM year is coming to a close and I thought now would be a good time to look back at our achievements here in the North of England...

Over the past 12 months CIM North has welcomed almost 3000 delegates to events that it has organised or sponsored. We have run our successful one day courses in Manchester and Leeds and our study centres have continued to turn out competent and confident marketers that are second to none. We have engaged with in excess of 2000 SMEs through partnerships with Business Link, local Chambers of Commerce and Lloyds TSB providing workshops, presentations and free one-2-one marketing clinics. And certainly not least we have engaged with the marketers of tomorrow by giving careers talks and promoting www.getin2marketing.com, which gives guidance and advice on breaking into the industry.

This all fits into our international strategy of building marketing communities, building our membership and building professional marketing expertise.

As a result The Institute has been successful in arresting the decline of membership, which we believe shows that The Chartered Institute of Marketing is relevant and our input into the local business community is of increased importance.

Each and every member that has been involved in whatever capacity should be proud of our achievements, I and The Institute thank you.

So to the future…

2011 is our centenary and our challenge now is to build an Institute that will lead us into our next century. We are moving forward from a position of strength, but rest on our laurels we must not!

We are focussing on what brings most value to our members and in particular:
Learning, through our new syllabus for our qualifications
Developing, through our improved Continuous Professional Development offering (CPD)
Belonging, through our physical and virtual networks

Our Aims are:
• To be the true voice of marketing
• To have strong links with government
• To be the first port of call for marketing learning and CPD
• To be the heart of marketing

We are here to represent and develop the profession of marketing. The Chartered Institute of Marketing if your institute, get involved in our exciting future!

Well done to Jeremy!

CIM North is committed to raising the bar for marketing in the region with the help of its dedicated Ambassadors and wider membership.

Local activities of The Institute not only benefit members but the wider business community and are undertaken by people who want to make a difference. These people have day jobs and are not paid by The Institute, so they do it for the love of and because they are passionate about The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Each year I single out just one of these people in the North West to give special recognition to. This year I struggled to find just one person –
• Should it be Jacky York who has brought the Cumbria branch to life?
• Should it be Ian Roe, who fought so valiantly to get Cheshire branch status?
• Should it be Matt Neary, who has opened up opportunities for us with the Manchester agency scene?

This year I want to congratulate a group of people, and they are my amazing SME Ambassadors: Davide de Maestri, Jeremy Bassett, Amanda Law-Lyons and David Mapple, supported by too many Chartered Marketers to mention here (but you know who you are).

The SME team, lead by Davide de Maestri, has gone from strength to strength and is setting a brisk pace for the other regions to follow in terms of activity, effectiveness and new initiatives. To give you some examples: a joint venture with Business Link on their Survive & Thrive events and many local business fairs they have attended giving free marketing clinics.

But I have to single out one person.

This person is a passionate supporter and Ambassador for The Chartered Institute of Marketing in Manchester and the region.

They became a member of The Institute in 2002, now a Chartered Marketer and proud of it, and has been actively involved in the local team, wherever he might reside, for a number of years.

He has been instrumental in many, if not all of the SME activities I have just mentioned and is also a member of our Medical Marketing Group and the Levitt Group.

He continues to work tirelessly, promoting CIM and spreading the word of professional marketing, which is greatly appreciated by myself, his team and The Institute. An example of beyond the call of duty is presenting to 140 delegates and generating £5k worth of work for local chartered marketers through a collaboration with Business Bolton.

I therefore present the award of North West Member of the Year 2009 and thank him for his dedication to Manchester Branch, the SME Group, the Region and to The Chartered Institute of Marketing to Jeremy Bassett.

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