Of the 24 Members present, 20 of us were in place and busy networking by 6.30 am. The numbers were affected by holidays as they will undoubtedly carry on being affected for the next 6 weeks or so.
Education Presentation
No surrogate this week, it was David Plumley himself who addressed us. The subject was continuing Education. The obligation to keep up to date with innovation and new trends applies to all of our businesses in differing ways but it remains important to all of our businesses. To neglect long term planning is failing to provide the quality that our customers and clients should expect. With his words ringing in our ears we embarked upon the one minute offerings.
The 60 Second Round
John (“no job too small”) Freeman read a ditty from his mobile. This week I will not keep you in suspense. The judge of the Oscar was the Bard o’ Hadleigh himself and he is ever supportive of fellow travellers and accordingly awarded the Oscar to EBF’s very own “Odd Job”.
Jo Jones was on about injuries this week. Shall talked about trauma and a cute injury or was that “acute”. She also explained that although icing your knee might be good for 5 to 10 minutes, do not leave the ice on for an hour.
Jo Eastwood will not be here for the next 2 weeks. She is apparently going to Vietnam and she thinks she will be visiting micro brewery’s. Yes this may be true, provided she avoids the snakes.
Cathy Neat was boasted an Uber booking which will not of course include black cab drivers. Nothing politically correct about us.
Bill Carey provided the saying of the week if not perhaps a useful tag line. He boldly declared that he would “leave no stone unturned”.
If Bill produced the saying of the week it was a close run thing with Mark Scarff who declared “imagination is your only restriction” He then went on to illustrate that this was not necessarily the case. Absence of materials could be relevant.
The School of Whimsy was reduced by Alan Shaw’s absence but Nick Cooke and Brian Painter made up for his absence. Nick Cooke was asked to design a bungalow so that it could be turned into a house in 2 weeks. He declined as he will spending the next couple of weeks appearing in the Superman Movie.
Brian Painter regaled us with a tale of a punter who would not go on holiday, which aversion had been triggered by his father handing over his business to him and then promptly dying. Anything to do with retirement positively turned him off. I don’t think he has been completely cured because he apparently sent our Pilgrim a card from Cornwall. You would have thought he had gone further afield but hey ho!!!
Terry Maylin, on top of the news as ever warned us, hot from the press, that Employment Tribunal fees have been abolished and that these can be claimed back from the government if you paid them in a claim. Anyone who wants to make a claim or who has made a claim should see Terry….. send them along.
Several members picked up on David Plumley’s Education Slot theme of keeping up to date i and accordingly offering quality. Kevin Brooks (without shorts this week) has to keep up with all legislation with the various areas of building work. Kevin Radford offers cyber liability in his insurance policies. Stuart Smallcombe talked about dedicated fibre optics being more cost effective and more available to all sizes of customer. Kim Redwood-Lee has a new package that is exciting her, is ready to go and will increase the quality that she offers to her clients. Alan Moller took up the theme by confirming the importance of keeping up to date as to the advice that he gives and the materials that he uses.
All in all a very instructive and entertaining 60 second round.
This weeks statistics and points of note
Equally encouraging were the numbers 20 referrals and just short of £19,500 worth of business recorded.
- 24 members present
- 20 referrals
- 19,500.00 business recorded
- Oscar winner John Freeman
10 minute presentation by Mark Scarff
Mark Scarff produced a very accomplished and professional presentation. He demonstrated the importance for new members to get up there and do their 10 minutes. He clearly set out important things to him in his business in doing his work and then produced a selection of illustrations of what he actually does produce. Really was quite stunning. We can clearly now look for referrals for him that cover a wide range of joinery. Congratulations Mark on a great presentation.
Well done to the mini-me “bardster” and an amusing blog as always Aidan . Well done Mark for a vey good 10 minutes and as Dean said .” I now know the wood from the trees”. If you could do one on leaves that would be useful on my rambling so I know what the trees actually are.
To me this week the meeting focused on quality, quality of the members themselves, quality of the business that they represent and the services they offer. A great bunch of professionals who make attending this networking group worthwhile and enjoyable.
Well done to Mark on his first 10mts and to John Freeman on winning the oscar, stealing the thunder of our resident bard.
Outstanding 10 minutes from Mark. We are fortunate to have such high-quality members.
Great Meeting and great 10 minutes from Mark Scarff – I didn’t realise that there was so many types of wood. Looking forward to seeing everyone next week. Have a good weekend.
Great meeting and good 10 minutes Mark – really helpful to tell us and show us what you do- some fantastic work there..
An excellent education slot from David. Thanks! I’ve been meaning to register for The Guardian writer’s master-class series for a while now…I’m feeling like now is the time!
A first class 10 minutes presentation from Mark as you wood expect. Thanks, Aidan, for reminding about my 60 seconds, I’d quite forgotten what I’d whimsied about!
Great meeting , excellent presentation mark thanks again Aiden for an amusing blog 😊
To my senior bard I say thank you for recognising my effort 😉.
To my co members, I 2nd what Richard Reed said.
Aidan, you have more than a knack for writing the blogs!
Mark, I’m just wondering if you’re a chip of the old block? Great 10mins, thank you!
David, it’s always good to be reminded to keep up with training, education, and adding strings to bows, so to speak 😊.
Great bunch of people, and a very useful group of business’s too, both for each of us, and our clients.
See you all next week
Excellent meeting last Thursday as always and a very god bloog too. Hats off to Mark Scarff for his superb 10 minutes. The other blog on the 100k trek from Glasgow to Edinburgh was very well written indeed and I thought very empowering for the leaders, the Scouts and the parents of the Scouts.