IoD Annual Convention 2016

Being a part of the Institute of Director's convention as a student was a fantastic experience and a great insight into the near future. The evening as a whole gave a very positive feel towards the future of Guernsey especially combined with Gavin St Pier saying:

‘Guernsey is great today – but it can be better tomorrow’ 

which made the idea of coming back to Guernsey when I’m older all the more appealing.

The theme of the evening: Unlocking Health, Wealth and Happiness for Guernsey was perfectly suited for us as students, as the entire debate was focused on the future of Guernsey, which we (as students) are inevitably going to be a huge part of.  This to me therefore made the convention automatically more interesting and I think the introductory video was excellent for grabbing our attention and maintaining this interest.

Guest Speaker: Jonathon Macdonald

The night also started well with guest speaker Jonathon MacDonald, who with a sense of humour and honesty highlighted that there are so many business opportunities in Guernsey that we need to take advantage of to make Guernsey an
even more attractive place to live. Overall I felt that MacDonald was a very inspiring speaker and for me was the most interesting part of the night, with his metaphorical usage of a ‘windmill’ and a ‘wall’ forever staying in my mind.

The Evening's Moderator: Alistair Stewart 

The moderator of the evening, Alistair Stewart who we met for lunch beforehand, coordinated the debate well. The most surprising thing was he talked about Guernsey as if he had lived here his whole life and had such a great knowledge and opinion on every topic. Knowing Mr Stewart is not from Guernsey highlighted to me how suited he was to the role of a moderator as it was clear he had done his research on Guernsey and the topics that were to be discussed.

The 5 Panelists - Gavin St Pier, Deputy Peter Ferbrache,
Meriel Lenfesty, Martyn Dorey and Chris Atkinson.

The five panelists were Deputy Gavin St Pier, Deputy Peter Ferbrache, Meriel Lenfesty, Martyn Dorey and Chris Atkinson. They all showed a great fondness for Guernsey, especially Chris Atkinson a former executive at Microsoft who has had the chance to live in places such as Singapore, yet still lives and refers to Guernsey as home. As the debate went on the topics looked towards how we can better Guernsey in every respect from Education to Housing. The future of Guernsey became increasingly more appealing  with Deputy Gavin St Pier identifying the States have a 5-year plan for Guernsey and combined with the surprising fact that two deputies were agreeing on something, both him and Deputy Peter Ferbrache agreed the new housing laws most definitely need changing.

Despite the daunting thought of having to speak in front of an audience of 500 adults I do feel the slight let down to the night was the very little involvement of the students. The entire theme of the evening was aimed at looking to the future of Guernsey. The education system and what would attract people back to Guernsey was even discussed for about 30 minutes. Until very briefly at the end Mr Stewart made almost no effort to hear our opinions on these subjects, I mean, we are literally the future of Guernsey. However, in saying this we could have been braver and contributed without the help of Mr Stewart.

Overall I was very happy to be a part of the IoD convention and feel that just in a few hours my outlook to the future and the possibility of living in Guernsey when I am older had all changed. Especially with the encouraging knowledge that both the financial sector and the states can work together to make a Guernsey a better place to live, with the Chair of the IoD Linda Johnson highlighting this by saying

 ‘It is not just a plan for the government, they need to talk to us and we will want to talk to them’