PeteW - Profile

Hi Steve,

Yes, I've been a member of the South Wales branch for 5 years - haven't experienced the pressure selling, though. I don't know about meeting/event attendance, as I'm one of the non-attendees. As a sole trader, the meetings never seem to be at a convenient time or place - but that's just me.

Still, I do think it's a significant campaigning organisation when it comes to small business interests, which is the main reason I'm happy to continue my membership. The focus is understandably biased towards the interests of slightly larger SMEs, as these are more complex than sole traderships, but it's better than not having any representation at all.

In terms of more concrete benefits - yes, the member benefits are potentially useful for many, though I had most that I needed covered before I joined. Still, the free legal helpline alone can easily save the cost of membership, as well as saving some worry when a bit of quick, qualified advice is all that's really needed.

As for whether the logo carries much weight with customers - whilst I haven't tried to measure that specifically, just about any form of borrowed authority makes *some* difference. I doubt that many of *my* clients recognise the logo immediately, but then they probably don't know what the UK Web Design Association is either. Still, such associations do tend to build trust, so I'm quite happy to feature the FSB logo on my site.