Last year the IAM conducted, and is about to repeat again, a series of Forums aimed at cascading information to the membership of local IAM affiliated groups such as EKAM. Unfortunately, Tariq and others couldn’t attend so it falls to me to try and summarise a little feedback on the event I sat in on this last Saturday morning, 12th October 2024.
There will of course be a far more structured and detailed report on the outcomes from all of the Forums when they are complete and this will be shared with all members. However, the focus of our club night on Wednesday is to look at some of the questions raised around how EKAM fits within the IAM. I will try therefore to share a flavour of what was discussed and a few of the areas covered so as to help inform our club night discussion.
So, for those who like numbers, here are a few for the IAM: -
- Nationally we have:
- Around 70,000 members, not all of whom are advanced drivers/riders,
- 68 Paid staff,
- Some 5000 volunteers in total,
- Of whom some 4000 are observers (3964) – this number includes those training and local observers awaiting sign-off to national observer standard.
The IAM is keen to emphasise the high value they place on the skills, time and efforts of volunteers. They are in the middle of a two-year process to secure recognition to the Investors in Volunteers Scheme. Which, inevitably prompted questions about recognition. There are award schemes which aim to recognise individual efforts but the cold hard fact is that the IAM has concluded, in a climate of reducing membership and falling incomes, they cannot offer incentives such as reductions in membership fees, discounts on course fees or other similar financial benefits to our volunteers.
The organisation is putting considerable effort into designing new products to increase income. They are investigating particularly what may prove attractive to younger drivers and riders. An interesting point that came out of their research is that younger drivers and riders are not, repeat not, fans of e-learning and digital training. It appears younger drivers and riders want to learn ‘hands-on’. But they aren’t joiners and do not want to be members (apparently of anything). As a result, IAM are looking at what might be provided on the basis of pay-as-you-go schemes whilst tailoring digital products to older age groups (27 to 55 years of age). There were other initiatives discussed, for instance the value of young driver champions and young driver skills days.
If you have some good ideas, they would love to hear from you. And they are particularly looking for input from observers on future strategy.
There was a fair bit on upcoming changes. The IAM website is going to be updated and a new version is under development now. There is a lot of work going on to get the IAM brand better recognised, on developing products and on growing what we offer. There is a new head of funding, developing a funding strategy effectively from scratch, clearly to better secure the IAM’s future.
One talking point was something called DARTS. It is a database electronic system which appears to mirror the functions of Tracker, and a few more. Development of it is not yet complete. As we and other groups have put considerable effort in getting Tracker up and running, I asked what the implications were for Tracker users as and when DARTS becomes operational. I was told IAM will wish groups to use DARTS.
From the floor there were a number of points raised but two that resonated were: -
- For improvements in comms between IAM and the groups, e.g. more direct personal contact from ASDMs and for IAM to seek and take note of group views when policy making, and
- To promote intergroup training days and forums so as to better improve knowledge and consistency in what we do, and how we do it.
There was a lot more but I hope, for now, this conveys the essence of the presentations and discussions. The collated report from all of the Forums will be available once they are all completed.