Raising Awareness of LSCA

LSCA president Viresh Paul discusses increasing the awareness of the LSCA society to all ICAEW members in London.

August 2021

Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity of bringing up the name of the London Society of Chartered Accountants to a number of Chartered Accountants from different walks of life – including those working in business, commerce, practice and even academia. But had they even heard of the London District Society?

Those of you who are reading this may not be surprised to note that every Chartered Accountant I spoke to within London who should have been aware of the LSCA could only offer me a blank response. The majority of you are unaware of all of the opportunities that the local district society brings on the table as the lines are blurred given we work so closely with ICAEW. And I know that many of you will not be aware of all the events that the LSCA put on for local members including our Business Bitesize Series, the practice radar events and the London Area Societies 2021 series.
 
Therefore, we need to focus on engaging with members who are unaware of all the good work that London District Society does and that is my prime mission this year as the president.

One way of addressing this is the publication of the District Directory which is in gestation and Version 1 of which may well have been released by the time to get to read this page. This will continue to be updated during the year and there may be more than one version issued. We can afford to do that as this would be a soft copy that can be downloaded or viewed on-screen.

The aim of publishing a directory of that nature is to make members aware of the various activities that have been and are being carried on by various sub-committees of LSCA.

The fact that these are all managed and run by volunteers makes it important for us to publicise their work so that not only do they get recognition but also the work they do benefit the membership as a whole. More importantly, when somebody says that they haven’t heard of LSCA we can send them a copy of the directory so they can see the width and breadth of the activities that we carry out for the benefit of ICAEW in general and all the London members in particular.

In the same vein, you will have noticed that this newly re-launched London Accountant carries articles highlighting the work our committees and groups are doing not just for members but also the students who one day will qualify as Chartered Accountants and need our support firstly to qualify and then directed down suitable career paths.

Let us get engaged in the work of our District Society and make whatever contribution we can to the success of the society which preceded the birth of ICAEW by at least 10 years. Hence, we are 150 years old now and the ICAEW will not be celebrating its 150th anniversary for another 10 years.