Chairman’s Blog - Meeting  Thursday 3rd May 2012

28 members and 3 guests in attendance.  Jeff Conway from Global Services Contract Cleaning, Terry Hattle from Cobalt Secure Data Destruction and Tony Croft from Inspire.

I thought the scrambled egg was the best ever, but as usual, I suspect I will be in the minority.

David Plumley provided an excellent Education Slot, details of which are published on our Web Site.   I must have misheard, but I thought he was advocating being careful around graven images (Icon Tact).  On reading his blog I see this was in fact, “eye contact”.   This just demonstrates how is pays to keep it simple.

Membership Certificates were issued to Andy Smith and Claire Greenslade.   Winners Certificates for the EBF Performance League for the months of March and April were awarded to Kim Douglas and Paul Booth respectively.   Well done to both.

And so it was that we passed seamlessly from the business card box to the 60 second round.   This week I struggled to find a theme, but here goes…..

Geoff talked about drains, Joan finally produced a letter of the alphabet that stood for something – “E” for energy – it did become more interesting, however, when she talked about stretching skin and body parts for people who were AC/DC and Nick Cooke fantasized over “Silent Witness”.   Alan Shaw fantasized about blowing up buildings (“call me Osama….!”).   Richard Smith seemed to espouse both Joan’s body parts and what gas could do to help Alan Shaw.

Well done for Andy Smith spotting the flaw in the golf club’s dress code and turning up in overalls – that’s the problem with rules…………..

Mike Rogers avoided the foliage, but talked rubbish and failed to mention the comfort and convenience of your own home.   Paul Booth posed the question what is iXBRL.   I thought it was a bicycle, but apparently and rather boringly it’s something to do with Customs and Revenue and accounting on line.   No wonder Jason Nortey stroked his beard and uttered a “EhHe”.

Tina Walker is looking to support people in France and China and anywhere else abroad – charity begins at home I say.

The prize for the most down beat 60 seconds must inevitably go to Brian Painter, not only did he manage to visualise a jumbo jet crashing, but one crashing every day for a year – made you want to reach for the cigarettes.   However, not to be outdone by this he was immediately followed by Richard Reed who seemed to think air travel was a good idea and certainly better than smoking.   All of these contributions were to no avail.   Marcelle Saad won the Oscar by simply giving us a lot of information about what she did and why we should all buy emeralds this month.   Fair enough, it should be what we are all trying to do in 60 seconds.   Welcome back Marcelle…………..until the next time.

The 10 minute presentation showed Terry Maylin selling himself rather than his products very successfully.   It helped maintain his street cred, but I have to say if he keeps using the funny handshake this might be lost in coming weeks.

We missed the calming and sonorous tones of our resident Bard, Kevin Radford, the sabbatical that he is taking for a few weeks will not preventing him from processing our referrals so keep them coming, but deal with him direct.   If this really works well he will not need to attend at all, but if nothing else his poetry would be missed.   Come back. all is forgiven.

Actual recorded business passed for last month was a healthy £69,000.00 and £19,500.00 recorded business was passed this week.    We are maintaining the momentum.   We done everyone.

I received a referral from Mike Rogers to make sure the sun shone on his Son’s Wedding on the 4th May.   I do cater for all events, but it was short notice.  Will dry do?

I look forward to seeing you all next week.

Posted by Scott Griffiths