2018 at the SWW

It's always good to keep up with your self-regulatory body and to know what our plans are so here is an SWW update halfway through the year.

Not sure whether this is the same for you but 2018 is flying by for us. Membership is up month on month, we've already had to add extra course dates for our most popular course, the SWWEPP Wills and Estate Planning Certificate course earlier this year, and our team have attended 8 regional groups already this year.

On a recent course, one of the delegates (who wasn't a member at that point) described the SWW as a family and said it was refreshing to see the approach that we took to both new and existing members in terms of support we give.

Whilst I'm sure that many of you already know this, we have two primary functions:

1. To provide a framework for voluntary self-regulation. In a nutshell, we ensure our members meet pre-determined standards (set out by our Code of Practice) and engage with both the public and other professionals to promote ethical practice.
2. Our representative function gives us the ability to support, train and work with our members to ensure that objective/function 1 is met.

This week we have just appointed two new team members who will be joining us in the next month. Kiera has gone over to join the team at the SWW Trust Corporation so Janet will be replacing her and Liberty is coming in to help us deal with an ever increasing number of enquiries from the public and in relation to membership.

As the largest self-regulatory body of our type we are obviously doing something right. Feedback suggests that full members appreciate the technical support, the course content is engaging and relevant and on the whole, members are busy. We're not content to sit still though. We will strive to continue to offer a consistent and reliable service to members and are pleased that business is busy. We also welcome all/any feedback you have which will help us to continue to grow.

Our quarter 3 and 4 plans are to continue to develop Sure Will Writer - Professional Will Suite which will be on show at conference on the 8th and 9th October. We also plan to develop the relationships we have with organisations like Solve Legal who are behind Today's Wills and Probate, Certainty and Safe 4 all of which have great benefit to SWW members and their clients.

We've got two more editions of Focus SWW - our consumer facing e-mag in production and plans to develop the SWW website further. As well as expanding our team in house the SWW's Professional Standards Board are recruiting passionate and enthusiastic new participants. If you're interested in joining and for more information feel free to send me a message or message Darrell Storey on LinkedIn.

I'm sure I've missed lots that we're doing but stay tuned for more updates.