In my Candidate statement (which I’m sure you’re read) I wrote:

Continuing Professional Development is an important aspect of membership and by taking advantage of the opportunities we offer to learn new things and apply them in the workplace I’ve become a better public relations practitioner. Every member should be able to benefit better from the vast body of knowledge the Chartered Institute has and I’d like to see more employers actively encouraging this.

That doesn’t mean having to troll down to London and spend a day on a Workshop or similar – the CIPR can come to you.

Here in Yorkshire & Lincolnshire we have a regular breakfast diet of briefings and masterclass sessions worth 5 CPD points. Later in the year we will be bringing some of that London-based 10-point training to Leeds. A few months ago I headed to Manchester for an evening course on crisis communications.

I firmly believe that we need to offer more to our members outside Greater London. As well as the direct benefit of education we can also engage better with our members. And they can engage and network with other members, make new contacts, share best practice. You can only do that so far on Twitter or LinkedIn.

That’s why I’m pleased to see our recently-chartered Chartered Practitioners on the road as well, including in Birmingham on Wednesday evening (the Assessment Day is in October). And they will be in Cardiff at the end of September.

By raising our profile in the regions and nations we’ll be able to serve existing members and recruit new ones where they engage in public relations practice, putting a local ‘spin’ on national policies and programmes. And that will make the Chartered Institute more relevant to their working lives – which can only be a good thing.