Summer Social - June 2019

Thanks so much to the 200+ members and friends who turned out for our Annual Summer Social last Wednesday evening, at Grace Hall in London.

Whilst you can control most things when planning an event, the one thing you can’t control is the weather, so we’re grateful to everyone for making it another very successful and enjoyable evening.

After being re-drawn twice, the prize draw, generously sponsored by Lingo24, went to Chris Mowatt of Barclays Global Stock & Reward Services.

We’re thankful to our other sponsors too, Link Asset Services who sponsored the photo booth and Computershare, who sponsored the event programme.

Picking a date for an event of this size is never easy. The biggest worry is committing to a date and then ending up with a major clash with something else more important... In 2016 we had a close call with the EU referendum, in 2017 we ended up with a general election on the very same night, and this year our event took place in the midst of a Conservative party leadership contest (so far)… and through it all, Brexit remains unresolved.

Nostalgia is currently a popular and rather derided word, especially in the context of Brexit. It’s modern meaning is taken to be at best, a slightly sentimental, rose-tinted yearning for simpler, kinder times and at worst a nihilistic belief that the past was better than the future could ever be.

The word nostalgia has Greek origins – from nostos meaning homecoming and algos meaning ache, rather different to its modern interpretation. Time gives us no choice, no opportunity to
permanently pull the duvet of the past over our heads when the present sometimes gets too much to bear. So the best we can do is to be kind to one another and support each other as we move forward together.

Our members’ support for ProShare over the past 27 years is what helps us to move forward. Since last year’s Social we have signed up 9 new members, delivered 3,097 hours of learning through our Annual Conference, Focus Group meetings, seminars and webinars, and hosted 487 guests at our Annual Awards.

Thank you all once again for supporting ProShare and the share plans industry.