This year’s conference has yet again come to a close.  With even more hard work and preparation than before, we were delighted to see the event sell out for a third year and extend to a waiting list.

Announced at the conference were the winners of the CertDR Learner of the Year and DRF Advisor of the Year – awards the DRF launched earlier this year.

As with any industry award, the selection of a winner must be undertaken with the highest standards of trust in mind and whilst we congratulate the runner up and winner of each award, I thought it worthwhile to explain how the winners were chosen.

CertDR Learner of the Year Award 2011

Over 140 professionals within the debt solutions industry are currently qualified with CertDR.  CertDR Learner of the Year Award was created to recognise the high standard of learning carried out by these individuals and congratulate them on their dedication.  The winner and runner up were selected purely on their average score over all three modules of this qualification.

The winner of the award this year went to Melanie Nicholas of Jones Giles who scored an overall average of 92.33% whilst runner up, Christopher Brennan of Debt Release Direct scored 92.22%.

In fact eight individuals, including Chris and Melanie scored 90% and above as their overall average – thus showing that answering one or two questions right or wrong can make all the difference.

Congratulations to all of those who are CertDR qualified and to Melanie and Chris in particular.

DRF Advisor of the Year Award 2011

Over the course of several months, DRF received nominations for Advisor of the Year Award.

The criterions for the nomination are detailed below:

Formal nomination to include details regarding the nominees:

• Customer satisfaction level

• Performance level

• Participation and approach to teamwork

• Level of industry knowledge and awareness

• Contribution to the company as a whole

In addition to the formal nomination detailing the above, each company making a nomination needed to send in client testimonials regarding the nominated advisor as well as encouraging clients to send in their own independent votes and testimonials.

Board voting:

To ensure there could be no biased voting for the nominations received, each nomination had the name of the advisor and company blacked out.  The documentation was then scanned and created into uneditable PDFs.

Each PDF was named Advisor A, B, C, D etc to ensure confidentiality.  For board members who had a nomination sent in from their own company, they were informed which letter they could not vote for.

Once votes were in, I was delighted to confirm this year’s winner of the award went to Matthew Foley of ClearDebt who received more votes from the DRF Board and independent clients than any other nominee.

Matthew was nominated by ClearDebt based on his integrity of character, professional development, ability to lead by example and his approach to going the extra mile in the standard of advice and care he provides to clients.  Matthew also received a high level of client votes sent in from people he had helped, directly to the DRF, explaining how his advice and care had given them confidence in a solution which could help them work towards a debt free future.

The runner up place was awarded to Hayley Newton of Ashley Park.  Hayley was nominated by Ashley Park for her pro-active approach to teamwork, responsibility and client care.  Ashley Park also felt she should be commended for her conduct and attitude in educating herself through courses such as CertDR. Hayley also received extremely complimentary votes from her clients who were impressed with the standard of advice and support she had given them.

I hope you will join me in wishing Matthew Foley and Hayley Newton every future success following their nominations and awards.

The winners of each award received a bottle of bubbly, a certificate and an elegant, personalised, glass trophy which I trust they can show off to their family and friends with pride.

Next year we aim to launch even more awards and to celebrate with an official awards dinner, so please, watch this space!