Caroline Stuart reports on the recently completed PFS Purely Paraplanning roadshows
By the time you are reading this, we will have finished the 2019 round of PFS Purely Paraplanning roadshows.
This year we have been to six locations around the country. Four of these were brand-new places, enabling more paraplanners than ever to get to a roadshow for the first time.
For those who were not able to get to any in person, we broadcast live from London to hundreds watching the livestream, again reaching more paraplanners than ever before.
With a mixture of technical sessions, soft skills workshops and practitioner panels sharing best practice, paraplanners come away from these roadshows with increased knowledge, skills and some great tips to help them do the day job. They are also a great opportunity to mix and mingle with your peers, build connections and share ideas.
Hitting the mark
Everyone is always busy and time is precious, so a day out of the office obviously needs to be worth it.
The content for the Purely Paraplanning roadshows is put together largely based on feedback from paraplanners attending the events and ideas sent to and picked up by the PFS Paraplanner Practitioner Panel.
This is why paraplanners know a day at a roadshow will be time well spent and why they are so well attended; they include topics that are relevant to paraplanners, covering subjects they want to learn about and things they find useful to help them do their job.
The Paraplanner Panel
The PFS Paraplanner Panel was set up just over four years ago and is made up of both in-house and outsourced paraplanners, with a wide range of experience and knowledge. The current members are:
Martin Green – Chadney Bulgin
Tom O’Hara – Warwick Financial Solutions
Alan Gow – Argonaut Paraplanning
Robert Harper – Four Seasons Financial Planning
Becca Tuck – Magenta Financial Planning
There have been a few changes to the faces on the panel over the years, but its purpose and goal remains the same – to help the PFS support paraplanner members as much as possible.
What have the panel members been doing?
We are involved in a number of things; in addition to working on the Purely Paraplanning roadshows, we have produced the PFS Paraplanner Pathways document.
This aims to introduce paraplanning to a brand-new audience and was launched last year. It is currently available on the CII Step Forward website via bit.ly/2JDF6VR but will soon be moving to the PFS website.
The PFS and the panel are working hard for paraplanner members and are always looking for ways they can help support this growing and evolving profession. This is where we need you – your voice and views are important, so to help you get in touch we have set up the PFS Paraplanner HQ Facebook page at facebook.com/PFSParaplannerHQ and a Twitter account: @PFSParaplanHQ
Your ideas and feedback will help ensure we provide paraplanners with the right support, plus we would really love to hear from you. We also use these to give information about things the PFS is doing for paraplanners. Don’t forget – we are your panel, so drop us a line, let us know your thoughts and make sure you keep watching for updates.
Caroline Stuart is Chartered financial planner and paraplanner at DB Wood
