If you'd seen a colleague who only instructs as a spare time hobby try 8 times to get weather, aircraft and FI(E) together for a re-validation proficiency check and then had to pay £150 plus transit time there and back to the FI(E)'s aerodrome plus flight time for the test, you would probably change your point of view!! Whereas for the seminar, you just have to book and turn up. Quite what we'll be doing at the seminar remains to be seen - if you haven't done a FI(A) revalidation proficiency check under JARs, you'll find the length of the test and amount of ground time quite an eye-opener, I think you'll find!!