Chairman’s Blog - Meeting  Thursday 26th April 2012

It was a relief to arrive at the meeting 5.50 a.m. – first there.   Why the rush of blood!?   To be frank the previous day had been very trying despite the help and best intentions of my EBF buddies.   Blocked drains at the office is another way of saying, we can’t use the loo.   You all jumped to my help with suggestions as to who could unblock the blockage and Dawn came up trumps with  a man with the likely name of Rod.   This he used to good effect.   Toilets were unblocked, drains ran clear – well as clear as you could expect!   His report is rather more disturbing, the blockage was caused by …well in short we have a phantom crapper.   Paul helpfully confirmed to me that crapper has Dutch/Germanic origins as a word and that Thomas of the same name might very well not have invented the flush toilet.   An uneasiness now pervades our office – do we want to catch the phantom?

Anyway enough of this, suffice it to say  I was calmed and reassured as always by our meeting.

28 members.   4 guests.   Suresh Kumar and Pam Sanders for a second time.    Mike Topping applying for and being accepted as a member and Peter Green a first aid trainer.

David’s Ed slot set the tone extolling the virtue and necessity of good communication and at the same time demonstrating his knowledge of Mandarin.   “Ahha” which apparently meant something that took him two sentences to produce in English.   Apparently in Banking circles the equivalent phrase in Mandarin is “Ehhe”.   All a bit much for that time of the morning.

The 60 second round as always had something of a theme.   Geoff Todd complained about wet weather stopping him getting on with jobs.   Richard Smith wanted it to continue to be cold and damp.   He was positively licking his lips as he explained how he could flush out the sludge from a radiator and Hugh started with a frog in his throat which would normally indicate wet weather – it brings them out.

It was Nick Cooke who gleefully indicated that dry weather made subsidence inevitable.   His ghoulish chuckle was one of anticipation of lots of houses disappearing down holes and his services being at a premium.   All of this delivered as he was facing the window seeing the rain pouring down.   Even our guest, Pam Sanders, talked about rain affecting the use of her marquees.

In the meantime on the other side of the room Mike Rogers found it difficult coping with the new foliage that our hosts have provided and Scott Griffiths, inspired by Nick Cooke’s reference to properties, provided a comparison between what he did and interior design.   It fitted quite well.   Your challenge next week Scott is to link what you do with Joan Juggernauth who was on the letter “D” this week.   She was talking about deep relaxation.  It still, however, seemed to come down to the Indian head massage, drinking lots of raki and going to sleep.  Still there are worse things in this world and indeed more difficult things.

Graham Thurston was talking about laying carpets from Newcastle to Leeds, or was it the other way round?   Presumably that would be with the carpet that looks like grass.   All in all a very reassuring 60 second round.

We had a Power Group Report this week by Paul Booth who gave us details of the Finance Power Groups further steps in arranging the seminar that we hope will attract Clients and Customers.   We are now looking to have this some time in September.   He then reported on the Business to Business Power Group that followed on.  It all seemed rather confusing with all of them apparently admiring each others tablets – it was probably a biblical reference to Jason’s favourite film – “Ehhe”.

The 10 minute presentation worked well.  Kevin Brooks stepped into the breach at the last minute and after a brief introduction fielded a question and answer session.  It did demonstrate how effective a short presentation with questions and answers can be for this slot.   He even regaled us with dressing up as Julian Clarey for a drag night which in fact was the wrong night – I had visions of how well it would go down if he had gate crashed the BNP’s annual dinner.   He certainly wouldn’t have been bragging about being clean and well scrubbed with smooth “office workers” hands.   I was disappointed that Brian Painter wasn’t with us to take full advantage of the rather sharp suit that Kevin was wearing.

The referrals round was good.   Not only did there appear to be more referrals than last week, but recorded business was slightly more than the previous 2 weeks put together – £35,658.00, we are in excess of £70,000.00 business recorded for this month which, perhaps whilst not the best month so far is very close to it.    Well done everybody.

May I finally wish Brian Painter speedy recovery from his intestinal problems.   Although he feels it is a Muslim curse he should know that Christians were suitably afflicted (specifically Spanish Catholics) by Montezuma.   He would certainly not have survived in our office on Wednesday.

Look forward to seeing you all next week and may all your Thursdays………..

Posted by Scott Griffiths