Book now for the IPAF Summit and IAPA Awards in Dublin

The International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) is gearing up to make this year's Summit event one of its best ever. Taking place in Dublin, Ireland on 2 April, the event will have the usual seminars and guest speakers but will be augmented by the first ever International Awards for Powered Access (IAPA), being jointly organized by IPAF and Access International.

John Ball, IPAF president and managing director of Height for Hire, told Access International the he was expecting a record attendance this year; "As an industry event, it's very good for making connections with fellow professionals. I would hope that manufacturers would support it as they have in the past."

The full seminar programme has still to be established, but one guest speaker is likely to be Pat Cox, a former president of the European parliament and an ex-independent MEP (Member of the European Parliament).

Mr Ball said the event had been planned to make it easy to attend, with a free shuttle bus operating over the short distance from the airport to the venue hotel, the Crowne Plaza Hotel. "For UK people, for example, they are only 40 minutes away from Dublin, and flights have never been cheaper", said Mr Ball. Dublin Airport is an easy destination from many European cities, with direct flights available from 29 airports in the UK, 106 airports in Europe and served by 17 scheduled services to North America.

On the Wednesday evening before the Summit Mr Ball will be hosting an informal gathering at the famous Guinness Brewery, while the Summit itself starts at 12.00am the Thursday 2 April with the IPAF AGM (members only), and the seminars from 1.30pm (open to all).

The evening dinner will see the presentation of the first International Awards for Powered Access (IAPA). There are over eight IAPA award categories as well as additional IPAF award categories, and rental companies, manufacturers, training centres and equipment end users are all encouraged to enter. For details, and to download an entry form, see www.khl.com/iapa. The deadline for entries is Friday 30 January.

IPAF has negotiated discount prices for the Crowne Plaza and these prices are available until 1 February. For more details of the event, and to book your ticket for the awards dinner, see www.ipaf.org/events