Message from the Chartered ABS team to our members
Chartered ABS and SBC response to COVID-19
We know that you are all incredibly busy organising to work from home, quickly developing online delivery of programmes, providing support for your students and colleagues, and of course caring for your families. We are all having to develop new ways of working, and fast.
We thought it might be helpful to let you know what we are doing to try to support you.
We have cancelled or postponed all events scheduled to take place before the end of June, including both the Research Conference and Exhibition and the LTSE Conference. For all of those events you will receive a full refund. Chartered ABS will accept all of the non-recoverable financial impact where we cannot simply postpone. We are fortunate enough to have reserves that will see us through in the near to medium term and we are operating under the knowledge that we are all in this together. Please note, this doesn’t mean we can subsidise for cancelled travel and accommodation plans made by our members. We hope that under the circumstances you, like us, will be able to sort this directly with your booking agents or providers. You will receive notification directly if you have been booked on an event. We have rescheduled the LTSE Conference for September and are working with the Research Committee to decide what we can do about the Research Conference and Exhibition work.
For our workshops, including CPD provision for Certified Management & Business Educators, we are looking to offer webinars and video content so that individuals can continue to access developmental support and networks.
For those on Development Programmes, we are looking at ways of delivering content online and then having an enhanced face-to-face session when we are able to engage in that way again. Again, we will be in touch with you directly if this affects you.
All committee meetings will be held via Zoom until further notice.
We have also written to the FT and the Economist to request a pause in their schedules for requiring data from you for their rankings. The Economist has expressed a willingness to listen to what our members would find helpful.
All Small Business Charter assessments and reassessments that were due before the end of this academic year have been postponed until next academic year. Schools due to be reassessed will retain their SBC award until they are able to be reassessed. We are in discussions with BEIS about how SBC schools can help the SMEs in their communities through this, with guidance and support.
The Chartered ABS team is on full working from home mode, so please do email us or call those of us with work mobiles (check the bottom of our signatures for details). Please do bear with us if we are a little slower than usual in getting back to you and if the refunds and further invoicing takes a bit longer than you are used to. Like you, we are busier than ever. We will get it all sorted. If there are other things we can usefully do to support you, please do get in touch.
Take care everyone and we will see you on the other side of this.
