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19th October 2024 is an extremely important date for all church treasurers and trustees alike. The annual ACAT conference is to be held this year at Eden Baptist Church Cambridge.
Several factors have conspired in recent years to discourage attendance at such events.
Having attended most of ACAT’s pre-pandemic conferences over the past twenty years the most significant benefit has undoubtedly been a greater appreciation of the support available for church treasurers.
Being a church treasurer can be extremely challenging at times. The annual conference is an opportunity to get away from the immediacy of your church and the issues you are grappling with. A conference environment with all that is on offer provides the chance to rethink some of the financial administrative processes. Make them more efficient. How can I work smarter rather than harder? Are there ways of reducing the stress which inevitably can come with the role of treasurer?
The Annual Conference has several important components which together can provide solutions to some of these challenges. Speakers with a wealth of charity and church backgrounds and experience can offer new thinking on practical issues.
Technology tools able to simplify much of our financial administration, continue to develop significantly. The conference is an opportunity to meet with providers of a range of such products and services. In our professional and business lives many of us have benefited significantly from commercial annual conferences. In this respect, the ACAT annual conference is no different.
Networking, the opportunity to meet others involved in the same or related activities, is a much-used (and abused) term. However arguably one of the singularly most important benefits of the annual conference is meeting other treasurers from different parts of the country. Realising the issues we must deal with as part of our responsibilities are the same irrespective of geography.
Finally, the annual conference can be an opportunity to spend some time in a different part of the country. Somewhere never visited. Cities and locations we might be dismissive of as places to visit are frequently pleasant surprises.
Cambridge is arguably one of the U.K.s jewels. So, 19th October. Eden Baptist Church. Book it now. £10.00 early bird fee is a steal……Or why not bring your spouse/partner and make a weekend of it?
You won’t regret it.
