Following a meeting of the TAF Board in September 2023, we are delighted to welcome new officers who will lead TAF over the coming year. The new officers are:

Richard Smith, Chair

Richard is the Managing Director of the Road Haulage Association, one of the larger members of TAF representing with more than 200 staff and 8,500 members, ranging from owner operators to those with fleets of over 1000 vehicles.

Richard has been elected in the Band D (49+ Staff) category of members and will serve a term until 2026.

Julia Garvey, Vice Chair

Julia is the Deputy Director General at British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), the trade association covering the entirety of the UK educational suppliers sector with more than 300 members.

Julia has been elected in the Band A (0-9 staff) category of members and will serve a term until 2026.

Tim Doggett, Treasurer

Tim Doggett is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chemical Business Association (CBA) which represents the UK chemical supply chain.

Many CBA members are SMEs and include manufacturers, distributors, traders, warehouse operators, logistics and transport companies, as well as service providers and suppliers who collectively are the main chemical industry interface providing products and services to virtually every sector.

CBA members contribute more than £4 billion annually to the UK economy and employ over 10,000 people nationwide, handling in excess of 27 million tonnes and making over 2.25 million deliveries of chemicals each year.

Tim has been elected in the Band A (0-9 staff) category of members and will serve a term until 2026.

 

 

TAF member-only content

This content is only available to Trade Association Forum members, if you are a member please log in below and you will be able to view the content.

If you are from a TAF member organisation but do not have an account yet, please contact secretariat@taforum.org and we will set you up, or you can speak to the lead contact for TAF at your organisation who will be able to set you up.

If you are not a TAF member and would like to find out more about joining, take a look at all the great TAF member benefits here or get in touch with us directly and we would be happy to discuss.

 

We’re delighted to welcome a host of new Board members to the TAF Board after a hotly-contested election! Thanks to everyone who put themselves forward for a position, all the members who voted and massive congratulations to the successful candidates.

We would also like to say a big thank you to Lisa Collins (IABM), Tom Bowtell (BCF) and Jon Vanstone (Certass) who have stood down from the Board this year. They all played an important role in helping to turnaround TAF after the pandemic and their contributions are greatly appreciated.

The new TAF Board members are:

Graham Stafford

Graham is the Chief Operating Officer at the Fed (The National Federation of Independent Retailers) – a trade organisation over 10,000 independent retail stores across the UK and Ireland.

Graham has been elected in the Band C Member category (20 -49 staff) and his term runs until 2026.

Julia Garvey

Julia is the Deputy Director General at British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), the trade association covering the entirety of the UK educational suppliers sector with more than 300 members.

Julia has been elected in the Band A (0-9 staff) category of members and will serve a term until 2026.

Richard Ellithorne

Richard is the Membership Services Director at Builders Merchants Federation, having previous worked at a number of other TAF members and having been involved in TAF in various forms in the past.

Richard has a particular interest in trade association benchmarking and will be supporting on TAF’s benchamrking outputs during his term in office.

Richard has been elected in the Band B (10-19 staff) category of members and will serve a term until 2026.

Richard Smith

Richard is the Managing Director of the Road Haulage Association, one of the larger members of TAF representing with more than 200 staff and 8,500 members, ranging from owner operators to those with fleets of over 1000 vehicles.

Richard has been elected in the Band D (49+ Staff) category of members and will serve a term until 2026.

Suneeta Johal

Suneeta is Chief Executive of the Construction Equipment Association, the trade association that represents the UK construction equipment sector with more than 140 members.

Suneeta has been co-opted onto the Board in the Band A (0-9 staff) category of membership.

Tim Doggett

Tim Doggett is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chemical Business Association (CBA) which represents the UK chemical supply chain.

Many CBA members are SMEs and include manufacturers, distributors, traders, warehouse operators, logistics and transport companies, as well as service providers and suppliers who collectively are the main chemical industry interface providing products and services to virtually every sector.

CBA members contribute more than £4 billion annually to the UK economy and employ over 10,000 people nationwide, handling in excess of 27 million tonnes and making over 2.25 million deliveries of chemicals each year.

Tim has been elected in the Band A (0-9 staff) category of members and will serve a term until 2026.

 

The next TAF Board meeting is happening in September in Birmingham, at which the Board will elect the Chair, Vice Chair and Treasurer for the coming year. TAF Members will be notified as to the results of the election.

Organising awards is a challenge for any association out there and yet, absolutely worth it if done the right way. So, in an effort to help you out, we’ve prepared the top 10 tips for getting a successful programme off the ground. Read on to learn all about it.

1. Set goals to form a solid foundation for your programme.

Your goals form the basis of your awards programme. Take a look at some ideas of possible goals for your association awards:

      Recognise achievements  you can opt to celebrate milestones your members have achieved in your industry, recognize their overall performance, and so on.   

      Lift engagement  awards can boost your members’ engagement with your association during the entire lifecycle of your programme;

      Boost your association’s reputation  an awards programme will bring positive attention to your association (online buzz, media coverage, social media shares, likes, comments, etc.), with every subsequent edition amplifying the effect. 

      Get new members on board  the buzz and reputation of your awards programme could attract new entrants (especially if you opt to make your awards an annual occurrence) and prompt them to join your association.

2. Decide on the type of association awards you want to organise.

Once you set your goals, choose the type of awards you want to run. As an association, you have multiple awards options for your members — business awards, powerlists, awards recognising industry contributions, a competition to drive member engagement, etc. Choose the type that fits your goal(s) best.

3. Make a decision on whether to charge entry fees.  

Awards can be a great source of revenue for your association, which is where entry fees come in. Charging entry fees will also boost the credibility of your programme and draw more quality applications since your members are likely to pay more attention when crafting their entries if they have paid to submit them.

On the flip side, entry fees are not the best option for social impact programmes or in the case of powerlists.

So, depending on your specific case, decide whether to charge entry fees, make your awards free (and finance them with other revenue streams such as membership fees or sponsorships), or include a mix of paid and free categories.

4. If you charge entry fees, do it the right way.

While the choice is yours either way, if you do decide to charge entry fees, here’s how to get the best results:

      Charge fees at registration — this will ensure a higher submission rate since people are more likely to submit their entries if they’ve already paid to register for your awards;

      Add promo codes/discounts — offer a promo code to longer-term members, throw in a free category as part of your membership fee, or give an early-bird discount, all or any of these will create a sense of exclusivity and motivate your members to enter;

      Make payments convenient and secure — offer multiple payment options and do not compromise on the security of payments.

5. Plan the ultimate timeline for your awards.

Work on a timeline for your awards. Start with the date when you want the results announced. Do you want to recognize your association’s members come year-end? Or is late spring, right before summer kicks in, the ultimate time for your industry? Pick a date and work your way back, planning for sufficient time for every phase. Note that every awards program has four major phases:

      Registration — or the call for entries phase which usually is the longest one;

      Entry submission — the period where your applicants will submit their entries; this phase sometimes overlaps with the registration phase;

      Evaluation — the time set aside for jury (or public) voting;

      Announcement of finalists and winners, and/or an awards ceremony.

To ensure that all your phases run on time, with deadlines duly communicated, consider a software solution that streamlines all processes in one place and is equipped with email automation that will take care of reminders to entrants and judges.

6. Decide on the right budget for your awards.

No one said that organizing awards is cheap but it doesn’t have to break the bank either. Here are some must-haves to include in your budget plan:

      Budget for a solution — this type of software will take care of the bulk of your awards program and save the time and effort of your team, which is much more valuable. This way, you won’t need to budget for a temporary hire to take on the extra workload;

      Recognizing the winners — budget for any rewards for the winners (certificates, trophies, promo materials for winners, etc.) as well as an awards ceremony if you decide to have one;

      Set aside a marketing budget  — while you will likely promote your awards mainly among your membership base, using your own marketing channels don’t forget to budget for social media ads, and other types of paid advertising that will spread the word further in your industry, etc.

7. Invite outstanding industry experts to your jury.

The jury is crucial for your awards’ reputation so you need to ensure that you have the right experts onboard. A couple of things to consider:

      Look for renowned industry experts — if your association operates within a certain industry, it makes sense to gravitate towards experts in that field who will both lend credibility to your program and have the necessary expertise;

      Keep your jury happy — you want to make sure your jury doesn’t regret evaluating. To that end, try to provide them with a handy way to evaluate entries (such as a special portal) which ideally works on all devices. 

8. Avoid any possible conflict of interest.

Especially in the case of a more niche industry, you run the risk of a possible conflict of interest. So, make sure that none of the jury members are affiliated with any entrant. To completely insulate your association and your awards from any possible risks include the relevant provision in the terms and conditions you make the judges agree to.

9. Decide on how to recognize the winners 

Don’t forget to plan on recognizing the winners and giving a shout-out to all entrants. You can do that with: 

      A website — have a dedicated space to announce finalists and recognize winners;

      Prizes, marketing materials — plan on giving out physical trophies, promotional materials, digital seals, etc.

      An awards ceremony — regardless of whether you opt for a live, online, or hybrid awards ceremony, having one is a great way to build a sense of community among your membership base and enable networking.

The last tip for organizing association awards includes picking a software solution that will take care of the bulk of the above tips by streamlining your whole awards lifecycle and helping you grow. Evalato fits the bill by enabling you to:

      Collect entries — Evalato’s registration form can be embedded on your association’s website, boosting conversions. Your entrants meanwhile get a dedicated space to work on their entries and submit only when ready. 

      Empower evaluation — choose from multiple voting options and provide your jury with a judging portal, accessible on any device that will keep your industry experts happy.

      Select and announce winners — stay in charge with real-time scores and results, and use Evalato’s public applications page to recognize winners.  

      Measure results and grow — detailed sales analytics provide you with insight on how to improve and make the next edition of your programme more successful. 

What’s more, with Evalato you can run other types of programmes such as a call for abstracts, powerlists, competitions, CSR, and other programmes.

Association awards can make a real difference for your membership base, and organising them is as easy as it gets with Evalato. Don’t just take our word for it, try Evalato for free (no credit card required) and see for yourself.

This content is partnership content provided by TAF’s awards management partner, Evalato.

The Trade Association Forum (TAF) is looking for new Board Directors, to be elected by TAF members.  Further details about the election process, timetable and commitment involved is set out in detail below. Please get in touch with ceo@taforum.org if you would like to discuss. 

At this time we are only looking for Board applications from within the TAF membership. If you are interested in getting more involved with TAF or have ideas you would like to share, we are always happy to talk to you.

About TAF

TAF is the association of associations, established in 1997 to represent and support associations to learn from each other, collaborate and build professional networks. TAF is supported by the Department of Business and Trade.

TAF’s Board is a group of proactive, passionate leaders, whose collective purpose is to build TAF’s capacity and achieve tangible improvements in how the UK trade association sector operates and is seen by stakeholders.

TAF is a private company limited by guarantee without share capital. Board Directors will be registered as Directors on Companies House.

Please check the gov.uk website for more information on Directors’ responsibilities – https://www.gov.uk/running-a-limited-company

In line with the Articles of Association, TAF’s elected Board composition should reflect its membership. Our articles currently stipulate that our Board be made up of:

  • TAs with 0-9 staff (5 elected board members)
  • TAs with 10-19 staff (2 elected board members)
  • TAs with 20-49 staff (1 elected board member)
  • TAs with 50+ staff (1 elected board member)

Diversity and Inclusion

TAF is looking to be representative of all those who work in the association sector, and the businesses that they represent. 

We particularly encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds who can offer different perspectives and experiences that enrich our community. 

We particularly encourage women and diverse applicants to put themselves forward for election to the Board. This includes leaders whose job role may not be Chief Executive.

The TAF Turnaround

Following a period of difficulty, TAF is currently emerging from a successful turnaround. A new operating and commercial model has revitalized, refreshed and refocused the organisation. However, there is a lot more that TAF can do to support associations and lead the sector.

A supportive, engaged and committed board has been critical for weathering the storm, but to continue to rebuild TAF will require new Board members to come forward who can support TAF to continue to innovate and deliver for its members. 

We are particularly keen to work with Board members to facilitate and support them to lead their ‘passion projects’ to help them to build networks and skills and add to the very special association community.

Skills and experience needed

We would welcome applications from anyone interested in getting more involved in TAF. 

New members of the  Board will need to be committed to leading TAF on the path to financial sustainability, as set out in Inflect’s Budget & Renewals Strategy paper (available ot members on request).

We need all our Board volunteers to work with the executive and non-executive teams collaboratively and with the best interests of TAF in mind. 

However, If you were to push us for our thoughts on what skills would be the most useful we would say we particularly need: 

  • A commercial animal – to support us in building commercial partnerships that deliver revenue streams for TAF. We need to build long-term partnerships that deliver value to members, to TAF and to our corporate partners.
  • An entrepreneurial spirit – to help us to put TAF on a sustainable long-term footing. For TAF to thrive we need to try new things, have lots of ideas and take opportunities when they arise
  • A stickler for detail – every Board needs someone who reads the rules,  the minutes and who holds everyone else to account. 
  • A professional networker – We need to continue to build TAF’s membership by talking to and reaching out to as many associations as possible. TAF is a tiny organisation operating on the basis of one FTE. We need our Board to be an extension of the team, out and about promoting TAF at every opportunity. 

A training and development guru – We have ambitions to develop a TAF training and development programme and a stand alone association leadership hub to support individuals to grow and develop their careers in Associations. We need both expertise and a bit of capacity to make a reality of our ideas.

Time commitment

This is a voluntary, unpaid role, and your term on the Board will last for three years.

You will be required to attend 5 Board Meetings a year.

You will be expected to join ad hoc ‘task and finish’ groups to assist the Executive with priorities and projects. These might involve partnering with other organisations, delivering an event/survey/report, improving TAF’s constitution, data or collateral, or hiring a new Chief Executive.

If your association has the facilities, it would be appreciated if you could host an occasional meeting.

You will be expected to generally act as an advocate for TAF and its members, by engaging in TAF activities, on social media and in other related fora.

You will need to declare any conflicts of interest that may prevent you from wholeheartedly supporting TAF’s growth and development.

Applying and the Election Process

All TAF Member Associations will have the opportunity to vote for a Board Member from their band of membership. 

Please submit a short statement of no more than 250 words, expressing why members should vote for you. 

The TAF Board appoints or reappoints its Officers on a yearly basis, before the July AGM – Chair, Vice Chair, and Treasurer – which are selected from the Elected board members (co-opted Board members are not eligible to become Officers). 

Please indicate whether or not you are interested in taking one of these board leadership roles, which will involve more time commitment.

You must send your statement to ceo@taforum.org by the close of business on Friday 2nd June 2023.

Members will be asked to vote for candidates, based on their Statements. If you are not selected this time, there will be another opportunity to join, next year! 

If you would like to lead a special project or set up a special interest group, there is no need to be on the Board, just fix to meet with us. 

Whatever happens, please stay in touch, get involved and continue to engage with TAF.

While awards are a proven way to boost your association’s revenue and marketing power, as well as attract new members, they also have indirect, albeit no less significant benefits.

Given the right tools, you can use awards to promote best practices among your membership base and beyond. Let’s see how it works.

Awarding best practices in your membership base

Awards are one of the most efficient ways to promote industry standards and best practices among your membership base. You can opt to reward certain practices or efforts implemented in your membership base, such as:

  • Various sustainability practices —such as implementing a recycling programme, eliminating paper use, using greener commute options, etc.
  • Use of renewable energy sources — investing and/or using solar, wind power, etc.
  • Inclusivity initiatives — inclusive team-building activities, organising international potlucks to celebrate diversity, etc.

To promote best practices in your membership base, you can:       

  • Set up a separate competition — you can select specific best practices and create an awards programme to draw attention to them;
  • Include categories in an existing programme —  if your association already runs awards and your usual programme is paid (after all, awards are a great source of revenue), you can make specific categories free to encourage participation;
  • Create a public-voting powerlist — you can also opt to recognise the people behind some extraordinary projects or best practices;
  • Set up an innovation challenge — you can promote best practices by organising a contest, hackathon, etc., giving out prizes to the most outstanding solutions;
  • Run grant or CSR programmes — setting up a grant or sponsorship programme will help award and promote best practices further, granting funding to the most impactful initiatives among your association’s members.

As a bonus, recognising best practices with your awards program will boost its positive image, potentially expanding your network in the process.

Spreading the word beyond your membership base

Awards are a powerful marketing and PR tool and as such, can be used to promote best practices in a circle that spreads beyond your membership base. The ripple effect can be quite impressive:

  • You showcase the winners — it starts with your organisation and showcasing the winners and their achievements. An awards management platform like Evalato has you covered with a specially dedicated webpage. You can also announce the results on social media, distribute marketing materials, create a special report etc., emphasising best practices.
  • The winners publicise the award — then, the winners are also likely to spread the word about the award they have received through their own marketing and communication channels, further enhancing the impact.
  • Media outlets show interest — ideally, media outlets could also show interest in the awards and the achievements behind them, garnering even more attention and publicity.

The positive buzz related to your awards that promote best practices (or any awards programme, for that matter) will certainly attract new entrants to the next edition of your programme, potentially enlarging your membership base and, by implication, the impact of your awards.     

Growing your success with the right tools

What you choose to reward is up to you. In any case, however, you will need a reliable solution to organise the awards and magnify their impact. Here’s how Evalato makes it work:

  • Quick set-up with templates — while promoting best practices with awards is an important undertaking, it doesn’t mean it has to be time-consuming too. Evalato enables you to set up your programme in under an hour, especially if you take advantage of their new preconfigured customisable templates which cover not only awards but also grants, competitions, hackathons, powerlists, etc.
  • Multiple categories — you can create as many categories as you wish, make them paid or free, or opt for a combination of both (for example, adding free best practices categories to a paid awards programme);
  • Showcasing winners — Evalato lets you tag winners and showcase their achievements on a ready-to-use webpage that will help generate positive buzz;
  • Cloning a programme —setting up awards as a regular, rather than a one-time event will further motivate stakeholders to apply the practices you have opted to reward to quality for the next edition. With Evalato, you can easily clone your programme and get it going for the next edition with minimum tweaks.

The bottom line

In a nutshell, awards give you the power to nudge your association members toward practices that would benefit both your organisation and the community. As a bonus, they will improve your association’s image and standing, and even help you expand your membership base.

See how Evalato can help you organise awards to promote best practices: evalato.com.  

This content is partnership content provided by TAF’s awards management partner, Evalato.

Announcing the top 100 Women in Trade Association – the Powerlist!

Today is International Women’s Day and it is with great pleasure that we launch the inaugural Trade Association Forum’s Women in Trade Association’s Powerlist in partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses. Within this list of 100 women will be familiar names. Chances are they convene your sector, you hear them on the news and know of their successes in Westminster and Whitehall. After a gruelling six years championing their sectors while managing the fall out of Brexit, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine we thought it was time to shine the spotlight on them as they do so ably day in and day out for UK plc.

We asked for recommendations for inspirational women in associations, women who champion their sector, deliver tirelessly for their members, and support their colleagues. We had two simple requirements in that nominees must:

  • Work for or in a UK trade association (defined as a UK membership organisation representing UK businesses)
  • Be inspirational, influential and brilliant…

We wanted to keep as open a door as possible for people to define inspirational, influential and brilliant in their own terms. It resulted in compelling case studies with considerable evidence of impact across:   

  • Policy engagement – supporting their sectors to open up global trade routes; secure billions of pounds of funding; and keeping trade going.
  • Creating industry wide coalitions – both in the UK and internationally.
  • Developing sustainable organisations – through membership growth and ensuring business profitability by showing impact and diversifying offerings.
  • Project delivery – a lot has happened through trade associations that deliver on the ground with sustainability and training being two big themes, along with delivery mechanisms such as events and education partnerships.   
  • Diversity and inclusion – including supporting colleagues growth (from women’s groups, split roles to menopause support) and actively evaluating and supporting the sectors work to build a more diverse workforce;
  • Crisis management – see above, there have been a few!

“A formidable champion for her members, vocal, visible and hugely passionate”

Said of our most nominated candidate Fiona Campbell who with 14 recommendations seemed to capture so many of the qualities shown in our leaders. We wouldn’t want to feed into the slight trite idea of ‘female characteristics’ for success, yet for those interested to know why these people have had such accomplishments a word cloud would pull out the following:

  • Brave (especially the CEO who polled her team on her management style);
  • Champion, advocate, tirelessly represents, persuasive, strong voice;  
  • Collegiate, inclusive, great team player, collaborative;
  • Fair, calm, reliable, well informed;
  • Formidable, driven, resilient;  
  • Inspirational, passionate, dedicated, determined;   

My significant thanks to Emily Wallace, CEO of TAF, for driving this project – it would not have happened without you. Equally my huge appreciation to our Judging Panel including Caroline Lavelle (FSB), Lisa Collins (IABM), Ellen Daniels (BCGA), Martin McTague (FSB) and last, but never least, the incredible Gaynor Pates (Chair TAF).

With over 250 nominations we had a significant job in evaluating the nominees and it was incredibly hard to filter to just 100. In the nominations we had a number of brilliant recommendations from a cohort of women who are clearly rising stars, who while don’t feature today we will ensure that they secure a place in their own list. Undoubtingly there will be incredibly capable, talented, and well-loved candidates we haven’t been able to recognise here as we pared down to the most notable for the work over the past few years. My apologies to them and we hope that you don’t see this as a slight.

We will shortly be celebrating with the women in the list. Next year we hope to revisit the group again and extend this wider to women performing other significant roles driving associations including Chairs and other members. More, as always, will follow. In the meantime our list and nominees will be getting on with the job while being inspirational, influential and brilliant – congratulations again to them!

Nicola Bates

Chair

Women in Trade Association’s Power List

Watch the highlights from the 2023 Trade Association Awards below

On Thursday 23rd February 2023, more than 320 people gathered to celebrate the best of the UK trade association sector, recognising excellence across 18 categories including the coveted Trade Association of the Year!

See all the winners here.

Recent news from TAF

Why Diversity Matters

By Lisa Jones, Corporate Partnerships Lead at Women on Boards Recently I had the pleasure of partnering with TAF and hosted an event looking at Why Diversity Matters. We covered

Read More »

 

TAF member-only content

This content is only available to Trade Association Forum members, if you are a member please log in below and you will be able to view the content.

If you are from a TAF member organisation but do not have an account yet, please contact secretariat@taforum.org and we will set you up, or you can speak to the lead contact for TAF at your organisation who will be able to set you up.

If you are not a TAF member and would like to find out more about joining, take a look at all the great TAF member benefits here or get in touch with us directly and we would be happy to discuss.

 

 

TAF member-only content

This content is only available to Trade Association Forum members, if you are a member please log in below and you will be able to view the content.

If you are from a TAF member organisation but do not have an account yet, please contact secretariat@taforum.org and we will set you up, or you can speak to the lead contact for TAF at your organisation who will be able to set you up.

If you are not a TAF member and would like to find out more about joining, take a look at all the great TAF member benefits here or get in touch with us directly and we would be happy to discuss.

 

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