It was our Anniversary Day and a Doris Day.
As we moved into our seventh year our annual review was presented to the meeting and the awards presented. The awards, from now on to be known as the EBFTAs, came later.
On our birthday there were 24 members present, a good turnout.
The Doris in question was the storm that was crossing the country during the course of our Anniversary Day. Somehow the weather seems different now that we name our storms.
Terry Maylin, our recruitment officer, showed the enthusiasm that will hold us in good stead for the approaching year and the hoped for increase in membership. He introduced to several members a visitor who became increasing bemused and declared he was in fact a guest of the hotel who had strayed, not a visitor to EBF. A lifetime achievement award would have been in order if he had managed to sign the bloke up, but anyway, in anticipation of things to come, we kicked off the 60 second round.
The 60 Second Round
Marcelle Saad got us underway with a short explanation of hallmarking. A lot of members could be observed pulling off their rings and peering closely at their inside edge.
Donna Evans showed off her wares. She has a “little man” who does pelmets and a “blind lady” who does Romans. The use of props is always interesting when one of them is a blind that unravels. Against all the odds she managed to sit down before the next person had completed their 60 seconds.
Matt Barry has a new slogan “we are bloody good at what we do”. Its catchy but it might just put off some clients.
Nikhil Shah talked about dental implants and produced a large scale model that would have been suitable for an elephant. At that stage I started feeling a bit queasy but most people seemed to admire this oversized denture.
Kevin Brooks is finishing off a job and has been asked to build an oak bar to match an oak staircase. One of Nikhil’s titanium screws might come in handy.
Alan Shaw is re-establishing himself as the leading practitioner in Whimsy after temporarily falling from grace. He has recently been involved in jobs where he has to interface with Health and Safety and not only does it appear that this is energy sapping but also mind numbing. Well done Alan it was nice once again to come to the end of a 60 seconds and have no real idea what it was about. It sort of restores your faith in the nature of whimsy.
Jo Eastwood stole Brian Painter’s thunder by talking about changes to the law regarding cigarettes. She passed round a cigarette packet that was to all intents and purposes unbranded although it did have a rather colourful picture of some cancerously affected internal organ. Apparently in 2020 menthol cigarettes will be banned because they attract youngsters, particularly young ladies. Following in the wake of Alan Shaw her performance was almost whimsical. Brian Painters performance also staunchly advertised the School of Whimsy. He apparently had enabled “Jim” to go on holiday. Said Jim had a fear of flying which meant that every time he flew he felt obliged to consume copious quantities of alcohol. On his last trip they threatened to throw him out of the plane…. It was only the fact that he was in the air that prevented the cabin staff from doing it. He had infact let himself down, his wife down, his children down, he probably even let the airline down. A couple of sessions with our pilgrim however and he even managed to do a crossword during a flight. Wonder if the man had even done a crossword before in his life. If he had not then our pilgrim had not only curative but inspirational.
Scott Griffiths boasted of a garage full of tools of all types that he had inherited from his grandfather. I had a vision of neatly set our garage with all these much cherished tools displayed neatly. I had not got Scott down as one of these irritating people who can always keep their tools tidy and clean. I am of the school that advocates opening the door and throwing tools in and hoping they will sort themselves out; I am always envious of the tidy mind. There was some reason for this reference by Scott. Basically the people who have tools however neatly displayed can’t do anything with them unless they have training.
Paul Booth treated us to a game of charades. The acuity of the members was such that he accomplished this within 60 seconds and also had time to say that the answer, being “match of the day” left it open to him to point out that he had no footballers as clients and wanted some.
So who won the Oscar on this anniversary meeting. Well it was Jo Jones. She got the nod from the stand in presenter, Howard Bullock by explaining how she was a life saver. Not by delivering mouth to mouth as you might have guessed but by insisting on a healthy life style of food and exercise for her clients.
This weeks statistics and points of note
The Meeting Secretaries report revealed over 30 referrals and £21,000.00 worth of business recorded and the Referrals round that rounded off the meeting reflected these good numbers.
Instead of the 10 minute presentation I presented the Annual Review. It will be posted on the Website for you all to relive whenever you get bored or suffer from insomnia. The upshot however is we have had a really good year, a lot of progress on business passed (a 20% increase) and numbers of referrals up. With our new recruitment policy we can look forward to what will hope to be a very successful seventh year.
The EBFTAs should receive some mention in this Blog. Brian Painter won a lifetime award for his resilience, good humour and general good eggishness over what has been a period in excess of 12 years within our group. Jill Willis won the best 60 second presentation. Howard Bullock the best 10 minute presentation. Terry Maylin and Paul Booth were the joint winners of the popular vote for best member and Scott Griffiths was the best member through the performance statistics.
So we now look forward to next week and being back to normal!!!
I just can’t get the image of Brain, Paul and Alan dancing to the sining maggot! Well done to all the winners – thoroughly deserved.
Matt – Just call us the Three Amigos. Just so you know, we are available for Weddings, funerals and barmitzah’s.
Great meeting.
Well done to Life Saver on her Oscar.
Sorry I wasn’t with you on this monumental day but as you can imagine we had a fairly hectic Doris Day . Well done to all the winners of the EBFTAs.
Another excellent meeting with end of year facts and figures to support our claim to be “The Best Networking Group” around!!
It isn’t just the statistics that make me draw such a conclusion it is the quality of the members themselves, well done to all of you.
Well done to Aidan for a great round-up of a very successful 2016. Thank you so much for my EBFTA award. Mrs B & I will be drinking it this evening.
If somebody had tipped me the wink that I was to receive an award I would have prepared a 10 minute spontaneous acceptance speech. What did I say about our Chairman’s use of poetic license? Much in evidence re my 60 seconds!! Matt, thank you for the compliment by calling me Brain, and my maggot was not sining he was singing!
I would like to nominate Aidan for the “Excellent Chairman Award” for leading us with authority, patience and humour and for the amusing blogs. Loved the one about Alan, I’m still laughing! Well done Jo “the body” Jones for winning the Oscar.
An encouraging meeting. A fruitful year completed and good plans for the future. A big thank you to the board
Mary Green Manor hotel guests, watch out watch out there’s a recruitment officer about!
A great meeting and so impressed with those figures!