NATIONAL FREELANCERS DAY - CHAIRMAN'S SPEECH
Good evening and welcome to National Freelancers Day.
It’s great to see so many new and familiar faces – thank you all for coming.
My name is James Collings, and I am the Chairman of IPSE, the largest and most important membership organisation for the self-employed in the EU – well that’s if we stay in it!
The theme of National Freelancers Day 2016 is “how to be at the top of your game.”
This year we’re very lucky to have one of the UK’s leading training providers, QA Training, support the Freelancer of the Year Awards.
As more people make the choice to go it alone, it's vital that they get the right training to stay ahead of the competition.
In the year ahead, we will build on the IPSE Academy, our own training hub providing discount schemes, and we’ll work closely with leading organisations like QA to ensure freelancers have the tools they need to compete at the highest level.
Looking back over the last six months, it’s already been a busy year for IPSE.
We held our first ever Policy Conference in April, where we brought together leading political figures to debate a wide range of topics, from tax to freelancing mums, and from the construction sector to making sure you get paid on time.
The Conference opened with special message from the Prime Minister praising those who, as he said, “turned their living rooms into workshops, their kitchens into offices and their bedrooms into stock rooms to be their own bosses.”
The whole day was a huge success – and I’m extremely proud of every single IPSE staff member who helped to make this happen.
We’re doing much, much more this year to represent the growing number of creative freelancers.
The graphic designers, the copywriters, the developers and the filmmakers.
So we’ve made sure we’re there for you all with a bespoke, brand-new offering.
It includes all the business support and lobbying as the standard IPSE membership package, but also more tailored benefits too. For instance we’ve partnered with Adobe to offer discounts on their premium services, and we’re also offering discounts on training courses for design and marketing, to help creative freelancers reach the top of their field.
Only recently, one of the UK’s leading supermarkets got themselves into hot water after inviting artists to ‘voluntarily’ redo a canteen. This kind of attitude is a widespread problem for creative freelancers – and it cannot continue.
That’s why we’re also working with the Freelancer Club on the No Free Work campaign to help address the exploitative culture of unpaid work, which often plagues the creative sector.
There’s a stunning new IPSE creative website – which I recommend taking a look at if you’d like more information.
All of this means IPSE is well on its way to becoming one of the UK’s leading business organisations.
The way we work is changing.
There are now 1.91 million freelancers in the UK.
Who contribute 109 billion pounds to our economy.
And our research shows that once they begin freelancing, only two per cent want to return to employment.
So it will be no surprise to see the number of freelancers and their contribution to our economy increase over the next few years.
We believe this is something worth celebrating.
With thanks to our sponsors, we’re able to showcase and reward the fantastic work of freelancers from all over the UK. And we’re lucky to have 15 of these individuals in the audience with us today.
Now to the evening ahead. We really have a great line-up for you all tonight.
First up, you will hear from our host, Tom Rosenthal, followed by our keynote speaker, Christer Holloman. And of course, we’ll be announcing the winners of the IPSE QA Awards, to see who will be crowned the nation’s freelancers of the year.
Before we begin may I say a few words about our host this evening.
He is one of UK comedy’s rising stars, who has received widespread praise for his lead role of Marcus in ITV2’s hit sitcom Plebs and of Johnny in Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner. We’re very lucky to have him with us here today.
So ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming to the stage, Tom Rosenthal!