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Working on your behalf

Communications development i.e. keeping up with the times is an on-going battle, as I am sure you will appreciate, to ensure we have the right balance between financial outlay and member benefit.

in some areas but I can’t believe that. I do recall personally signing up for everything as that was what I was told to do – however, disappointingly for me there was no IPA input or IPA form to fill out during my initial training. From first joining the IPA to how you use the tools available is a matter for you, fill in a travel form, stay in an IPA house, apply for a member opportunity, go to Gimborn, take part in a sporting activity or even attend a meeting or two will all open up other doors for you because your friendship network will continually grow. Make time to commit to IPA activity is what I ask of you in 2018 so that you have the time to enjoy the many IPA benefits on offer and when you have achieved this New Year’s resolution tell your non-member friends about what they have been missing out on please! To conclude please remember without members we have no Association so ‘friendship first’ is always our goal. Continue to have fun and keep safe enjoying your IPA activity during 2018. Yours in Friendship Mick Luke Proud to be President of Section UK.

that we can communicate with you in the future. The ‘Triple MMM’, our mid-monthly memo, which is sent out via email is an example of where you maybe missing out on various key messages in between receiving the Police World magazine. Police World on-line or through your door under the stewardship of our Editor Neil Hallam continues to impress but could be even greater with more news stories and the accompanying digital photographs. The adage of ‘what you get out of something is what you put into it,’ does to a degree apply to the IPA. Monetarily you can potentially achieve this quite easily e.g. go to Gimborn for a seminar once in two years where you will be given £200 towards the course against £56 pound investment. Makes good business sense but there is a lot more to making a monetary return. Friendship, networking, social and cultural enjoyment and hopefully some professional development to name a few are immediate benefits that spring to mind. I know through personal experience that the IPA helped me in this arena on one promotion board due to attending an IPA seminar which gave me an example to evidence. As a member we are all volunteers – as nobody forces you to join anymore apparently – I was told that maybe that used to happen back in the day

The website over the last year has been developed and will continue to evolve reflecting Sections UK’s values of being ‘A VIBRANT IPA’. What I mean by this is that we need to ensure we are a happening Section and this can only be evidenced by activity with the news stories to support this. Hence my continual pleas for more news articles in order to keep the website fresh and relevant. The website is our main communication platform as news is updated daily with regard to events, competitions, opportunities and so on. Please take time out to regularly review the site. Our social media platforms continue to expand and this is an area I want to address in particular during 2018. All members who utilise social media should be part of our national page (if they so wish) as well as being members of their own Region and/or Branch page as a minimum. That way we should be able to ensure nothing that is circulated nationally from HQ is missed by members. A significant amount of the messaging will be to signpost members to the website which can now be viewed on your mobile phone more easily. We shall be reaching out to all members to update their email addresses so if you are reading this please send your current email through to HQ and your Regional Secretary so

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POLICE WORLD Vol 63 No. 1, 2018