Welcome back to The Treasurer. I hope you managed to escape the office at some point over the summer and find time to relax – on the beach, in the countryside or maybe just at home with the kids (if you call that relaxing). For some reason, I always think of September as a new beginning. Perhaps it’s that long association with the start of the school year. Or maybe it’s the feeling of the world returning to normal as colleagues and contacts return to work and the stream of out-of-office replies shrinks to a trickle. In any case, it will be interesting to see what the autumn and winter bring for us, not least because at the moment there is a sense that we are seeing the beginning of the end of economic gloom.
At the time of writing, the summer seems to have passed somewhat uneventfully. We haven’t had any more eurozone bailouts, the eurozone is itself predicted to emerge from recession in the third quarter and the Bank of England is increasingly positive about the UK’s economic prospects, forecasting growth of 1.4% this year. Whether this is just a temporary period of calm before another storm blows up or a sign of things to come, it is too early to say, but for the first time in a while I am beginning to feel that the worst may be behind us.
As you know, we relaunched The Treasurer just over a year ago. So the summer break seemed a good opportunity for the ACT to carry out some reader research to glean your views on the new-look magazine. It seems that overall you are very happy with it. So much so, in fact, that 75% of respondents said they spend more than 30 minutes reading each issue. For more detailed analysis on the research, see page 28.
Still, it would be remiss of me not to remind you about The Treasurer’s website:
www.treasurers.org/thetreasurer. Here, you will find complete digital editions of the magazine and exclusive web content that is released throughout the month to complement the printed version. Please come and visit because you will find plenty more to enjoy.
Finally, it’s awards time again. The Deals of the Year Awards are back and there are 10 cracking gongs up for grabs. Now is the time to shout about all your achievements in 2013. What’s the point in being modest when there are CV brownie points at stake? See page 9 for more information on how to enter.
Good luck!