10 April 2019 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
After months of planning, the big day arrived. It was a great pleasure to see so many old friends, and make some new ones, at Royal Holloway, University of London at the BUFDG conference this week. It is a huge commitment by sponsors and members to attend the conference and we are acutely conscious that everyone is seeking their own version of "value" and "value for money". We hope that on balance, everyone thought it was valuable, and thank you all for your support. To help you relive the conference and share the proceedings with colleagues, we are currently preparing materials that will include photos, slides and links to relevant information. If you didn't attend, the materials will show you what went on and maybe encourage you to attend next year. Thank you to everyone who has completed the survey of FD members on the future of the annual conference - the initital results are already very useful, but the higher the turnout, the better. We are hoping for a decisive result, but recognise we may end up with a 48:52 split in opinion. If it turns out this way, please let me know if you think it would be the right thing to do to turn the business model upside down and follow an untrodden path, or attempt to identify what really doesn't work and reform, but keep what already seems to work quite well.
Conference 2020 will be at the University of Salford 5th - 7th April, with all Institutions in the Manchester area contributing in some way - save the dates!
