London Marathon 2012 Wk 13: In Dublin's fair city

Recovered quite well last week from the 14 mile run the previous Saturday. Run of this week was a early morning 40 minute jog around Dublin City centre. I was in Dublin to help make a pensions presentation to the NEC of the IBOA (the Irish Finance workers union)  The previous evening their lay officials had taken us out for a few Guinesses (I can vouch that it does taste better across the water).

To my surprise the next morning I did have just a little bit of a hangover. I had been assured by my hosts that the delicious herbal chasers that accompanied the Guiness were purely medicinal and designed to smooth the stomach and clear the head.  They were called Bushmills or something
like that? Very nice.

I firstly jogged around St Stephens Green which is a perfect City centre park full of history. Then under Fusilier's Arch and down Grafton Street.  At bottom is entrance to Trinity College where I did a quick circuit around the lawns.  Along O'Connell Street and across the bridge to the famous General Post Office which was the head quarters of the rebels during the Easter Uprising 1916.  There you can indeed still see what appears to be bullet marks on the outside columns.

Back across the river by a different bridge then to the hotel via side streets only getting lost once or twice.

I am running the London marathon in April 2012 using the official advanced training programme and will be raising funds for Homeless Youth charity "Alone in London". Click here to sponsor me.

AMNT Presentation to Irish Banking Trade Association

Yesterday, during a visit to their headquarters in Dublin, Janice Turner, the Joint Chair of the Association of Member Nominated Trustees (AMNT) and I gave a 45 minute presentation to the Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) National Executive Committee.

The IBOA represents 22,000 finance workers in the Republic and Northern Ireland. It has has been very supportive of the AMNT and its lay pension trustees NEC have played a key role in our growth. Their members are in Defined Benefit (DB) and Defined Contribution (DC) pensions schemes.

Being finance workers they are acutely aware of the value of pensions and the threats that all their schemes currently face. The employer pension "promise" and "covenant" is under attack. For example the UK regulated Banks suffer from unnecessary and damaging accounting standards while in the Republic there is also no equivalent of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).  This needs to be challenged.

I think that the IBOA committee members and officers appreciate that the AMNT is the only organisation that is run solely by member nominated pension trustees who want to not only defend and promote DB but also want to improve all DC schemes as well.

At some point in the future it would make sense to try and organise local pension training and briefings by the AMNT outside London. 

Many thanks to the IBOA for the warm welcome and hospitality they showed to us during our visit.