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Annual general meeting

HIAF’s annual general meeting is always an opportunity for members to ask questions about how HIAF is run and to give feedback. This year’s meeting, like others in the past, was a lively event with a question about the level of cash in hand that HIAF holds and a suggestion that members’ subscriptions should be used to provide services for the membership. To reassure members, HIAF does provide a good number of services for members such as free member events, the website and our much-valued and respected internal audit programme guides.

HIAF needs to be prudent because we have seen a contraction in the volume of members’ subscriptions as the sector has witnessed the number of group structures grow and many internal audit services outsourced. It is vital that HIAF builds and maintains a strong financial reserve because the funding we previously received toward the IAPG’s may not be there in future. We are waiting to see if future funding will be available from the TSA.

We would welcome however views on any other services that members want to see HIAF providing – please let us know your thoughts.

During the proceedings, there was a question about the venue for the 2010 conference – is a five star hotel appropriate when the costs are met by businesses in the social housing sector which should be using their resources to provide better services to residents. The conference market is highly competitive; with scores of organisations competing for a slice of ever-limited budgets. HIAF purposefully uses a professional and trusted conference organiser which has given us access to an excellent conference venue, negotiated on the best possible terms. Still, we would like to know if the type of conference venue would impact on the likelihood of members attending the conference.

Please pass on your answers and comments to Gordon Mattocks.

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