Soft skills are the overarching theme of the 2014 Business English Trainers' Conference which takes place this Saturday (7 June) in central London.

The achievements of retiring English UK chief executive Tony Millns were celebrated at a special dinner in London this week.

During his 15 years in the job, Tony masterminded the creation of English UK from predecessor organisations dedicated to state and private language centres, giving the industry a single voice and pushing to raise standards.

The future is bright for the English teaching sector, but English UK member centres need to play their part by lobbying their politicians and working with the association to build growth.

English UK's 10th anniversary annual conference was a time for evaluation, celebration, and a bit of exhortation from the outgoing and incoming chief executives as well as politicians interested in the ELT industry.

Can't get to the annual conference? Follow our blog here and on Twitter at#eukac14

Martyn Clarke's an expert in implementing change in education projects. He's going to be telling delegates at the Annual Conference that the self-help books approach to managing change doesn't work in the real world, where the situation is much more complex because of the number of people and opinions involved.