Colin's Column - A guest on the blog

Good Morning to you all. I must admit to being slightly nervous at doing my first blog – unlike Raymond and Michael I am not one for long rants. Anyway it is a privilege and a pleasure to do my first blog to all you good folks who are studying on our courses.

I feel that I must start with an apology to you all, for having to suffer the Browney and Downey show. I do take full responsibility for employing them both, but you should all be thankful that you only have to suffer their blogging.

They really are a pair of clowns but in saying that they do put their clownish behaviour to very good use. If you have yet to attend an introductory course or a revision course I would recommend that you do. Both Raymond and Michael are excellent communicators and presenters and I can assure you, that not only will you learn a lot, but you will really enjoy the experience. We are lucky to have such gifted class room presenters and we constantly receive excellent feedback from those who attend classes.

Being a qualified teacher (with merit in the practice of teaching) I thought I was reasonably good at teaching but I am not a patch on these two. Sitting in some of their sessions makes me feel a bit inferior and if there is any presenting to be done they are at the top of the queue to do it. So get yourself along to one of their sessions, you will learn a lot and enjoy the experience.

We are blessed in the Institute with a really good team and reference has been made in earlier blogs to young Peter who runs our examinations. Some of you may remember Peter from his days at Jewel and Esk Valley College when he taught a range of courses. He has a tremendous knowledge of our courses and despite his reputation for being quite scary as our examination manager, he is a really nice chap.

The other important chap is our team is Giles who looks after developing our new qualifications and publishing all our books. A busy chap he also looks after the Financial Education Partnership and in his leisure time his hobby is to edit the Scottish Banker Magazine. Giles is always looking for new articles for the magazine and for feedback on the workbooks. Please give him a call sometime and do not be put off by his accent, he is from Stonehaven – honest.

We have of course lots of other important people who work for us both full time and part time in the education team and I am sure the Browney and Downey show will tell you more about them later. Thanks for reading my blog and good luck with your studies.

Colin