Committee members for the year starting March 09

The following members were elected onto the committee

Officers:
 

President:  Pat Deehan

Chair:  Joe Weir

Vice Chair: Brian McMinn

Treasurer:  David McClements

Secretary: David Johnston

PR: Vacant

Webmaster: David Johnston

Committee members:

      Sam McCord; Lisa Mann;  Mark Higgins

From the pen of the Chairperson

Highlights of The Chairperson's AGM Address 2009

Welcome

Sponsors and guests

We have various sponsors supporting the conference today they include Kwik Kopy

Our guests include representatives from DIA,DVA, MJ Kane & Co Accountants,  Trevor Edgar from Courthouse Financial Consultancy and Jack Forde who will be introducing us to some basic first aid.

Monthly Meetings

We have moved our meetings to Antrim and Cookstown.

This has helped us to engage with driving instructors from all  areas and take forward their concerns and ideas to the DVA.

It also encouraged new members to join and our membership has increased.

We welcome everyone to our monthly meetings and if you feel you can bring views and expertise you would be more than welcome to take a place on the committee.

Website

We set up a website: niadia.org

It offers members access to all the latest industry news.

It  provides members with free advertising on the site.

Please give your details to our webmaster via the on-site link

Meetings with the DVA

This year NIADIA was asked to be part of a stakeholder group, that was formed to take part in talks with DVA. The stakeholder group consisted of other ADI organisations to represent all driving instructors in Northern Ireland.

The group formed and is now known as Driving Instructors National Association Council (DINAC) .

The Chair of DINAC is John Penrose and he is also a current member of the NIADIA committee

How DINAC works

What work has been Done.

NIADIA has been instrumental in tackling the issue of illegal driving instructors.

We have worked with the DVA through DINAC and together we have agreed that all instructors will have an ID badge that will have to be worn when they are teaching.

The instructor IDs will be different colours for PDIs and ADIs

Trainee Scheme

This issuse needs tackling urgently.

We are currently studying the legisaltion to look at how people can be better trained and protected from unscrupluos trainers and schools.

We welcome your input in this matter.

We are pushing for a meeting with the Minister on this matter.

Learning to Drive Consultation

We responded to the Learning to drive Consultation paper earlier on in the year.

Our views and responses were similar to the DIA response and Steve Garrod will shortly be highlighting the main points of this document.

Lisa Mann (former Chair)