4
4 MAY 2011
8.30am
I’m in earlier than normal and am really excited to be presenting to new employees
today about the DC Section of the BAT UK Pension Fund. We run these roadshows
quarterly and about 20 employees usually participate in each session.
I’ve just been down to the Auditorium here at Globe House to check everything
is up and running. We have 23 people attending this morning and it should be a
good event.
While the presentation contains important information, I like to keep things informal
and give people the opportunity to talk. The London sessions are usually particularly
interesting as we have such a diverse range of employees from different countries
and with different experience of pensions and savings.
I’ll blog you later with an update – feel free to ask me any questions!
12 noon
Phew! After a dash to Waterloo, our Pensions Administration Manager Michael
and I are now on the train to Southampton for our afternoon session.
Thank you to everyone who attended this morning – it was quite a lively
event and we had questions about taking your pension overseas and pension
transfers as well as contribution and investment decisions.
4.30pm
Quite a different session. There were a couple of new employees who are in
their 30s and hadn’t made any pension savings before joining BAT, so we talked
about making AVCs and other forms of saving for retirement as well as the BAT
UK Pension Fund.
We talked about the new ‘Plan it’ modeller on the Pension Fund website
, which helps members to work out
their income needs in retirement and links through to a pensions modeller
where members can work out what they might need to contribute to achieve
this level of income. At any point in time, a member can access the Pension
Planner page of the website which illustrates ‘at a glance’ how close they are to
reaching their retirement goals.
It’s been a long day – I’ll certainly sleep well tonight – after checking the footie
scores of course!
ABOUT ME
JO FELLOWES
Pensions Project Manager,
British American Tobacco
Travel lover
Wannabe photographer
List obsessive
Baker of all things sweet
Middlesborough FC supporter
“I’m an advocate for financial education in the
workplace, ensuring members of the Fund have all
the information they need to make decisions about
their pension arrangements over the course of their
working life to ensure a healthy retirement.”
•
•
•
•
•
SEMINAR PROGRAMME:
These seminars are aimed at new employees
who are automatically enrolled as active
members of the BAT UK Pension Fund.
Session time: c 1 hour
I kick things off. The first 15 minutes is interactive
to get people thinking about their future rather
than what they have to do later that day. We share
ideas of what we believe a pension is and what
we want our retirement to be like – whether that’s
sitting on a beach, looking after family or going to
all the home games for your football team!
Michael Groves
, the Pensions Administration
Manager, then follows up with the details on how
the BAT UK Pension Fund works.
I go on to talk about the members’ role in the
Fund – the decisions they need to take and
the things they need to think about as well as
introducing the tools available to help with this.
Finally, there’s opportunity for members to ask
any questions they may have about pensions in
general or the BAT UK Pension Fund.
These sessions are purely educational and no
financial advice can be given.
Me ‘taking the plunge’
at Bloukrans Bridge,
South Africa
A Blog in the day of… (Jo Fellowes talks about her
