Chairman’s Business Networking Blog Tuesday 1st April 2014
All Fools Day; I was on the lookout for April fool’s day jokes but was largely disappointed.
To start with every member turned up, apart from Iain Douglas and Robert Mayes both of whom sent their apologies.
We had two guests, Chris Adams returned following an earlier visit and promptly made an application to join which application was ratified and accepted by committee after the meeting and Dean Caldon once again visited us from EBF Brentwood.
The performance league had a winner for the month of March, Christine Arnold, no April fool’s joke here, well done Christine.
The Ed Slot, introduced by Nige Kirby, saw Scott Griffiths extolling the virtues of Street Life. No he had not been sleeping rough, as many of us have had referrals through this medium everything was on message there.
The 60 second round produced one or two interesting and amusing moments but no April fool jokes.
The highlights were:
Jim Henshaw likening himself to a parachute in the promotion of his services.
Scott Griffiths suggesting we looked at Google for April fool’s day stories but was not joking when he said he would be away on holiday for two weeks.
Ian Nicholson declared pensions are not sexy, it took 60 seconds before anybody allowed him to get a further word in edgeways. He then told of a lady who thought she had £30,000 worth of pension only to find she had over £300,000. No doubt she suddenly seemed sexy, at least to her relatives.
Fred Harcourt has been fixing a larger cat flap for a customer whose cat was putting on weight. His 60 second so tired him out that when I tried to tell the meeting in my 60 seconds about our debt collecting services he didn’t even bother to stifle his yawn.
Vivienne moved forward from her 60 seconds Oscar winning performance of last week to give us 4 reasons why we should use her but then made me wonder whether “integrating a portal system” was something of April fool’s jape, apparently not. I did wonder about Brian Painter’s 6 ¾ year old child who permanently sucked his thumb but, despite this rather bizarre client, the story seemed to be genuine enough. It was certainly no more unusual than Deans 3 bedroomed apartment which on a buy to let basis would give a 6 ½ % growth yield in Basildon.
When Nige Kirby stood up and declared that he was “sexy” I thought we were about to have an April fool’s day story but everyone laughed as ‘Ole Blue Eyes came back on message with talk of gas hobs when kitchens’ are fitted. I was surprised that Fred did not yawn at this juncture, but by then the end was in sight.
Finally Iain Martin stood up and talked about “retrofit”……there we have it, our April fool’s story; everyone knows there is no such thing as retrofit….don’t they?
The only other notable thing I can report is that Peter Hall produced scratch cards, Hugo Heij declared that running a business was not a lottery but Peter won the Oscar but only after Vivienne had done a circuit of the room trying to make up her mind.
Well done everybody for an entertaining 60 second round that had the added bonus of a change in the method of dealing with the running order which was altered by everyone successfully nominating the next speaker after their own 60 seconds, which is not bad for 7.30 in the morning.
Oh, and in retrospect…yes not retrofit, Fred Harcourt’s exhaustion was probably brought on by successfully operating the bell in conjunction with Hugo, stunning!
Not only had everyone remembered to nominate someone who had not previously delivered their 60 seconds, but there was a good response to the question answer session that replaced the normal 10 minute presentation.
Several “Thank you for the Money” slips and several referrals led to a good Referrals round.
Remember this week’s nomination for a potential visitor that we are all looking for…… an office supplies company.
Following the meeting, Jim chaired the committee meeting, which in addition to approving Chris Adams as our most recent recruit, laid the foundations for setting up Synergy Teams. Please respond to Jim’s email when it comes round and help the committee in establishing at least a couple of working teams as soon as possible. ‘Till next week…
Great meeting once again. A good laugh to start the day is good – several is even better!
What a clever way to generate feedback and to get in an April Fools Joke! I thought the performance league winner was that very sexy Ian Nicholson although truth be told he is not as sexy as the enchanting Christine!
Thanks Brian…..out of modesty I wasn’t going to mention that I thought I was the winner (though in truth I’ve no idea how I came to be)….. But I cannot deny Christine is infinitely sexier than me! I thought the meeting was back to its best this week…..can we keep the 60 second nominations?…..it seems a good way to do it. On another positive note I think I’ve got a florist to come along…..thanks again to the power of Twitter!!! (Thanks Scott). Looking forward to the synergy meetings…..and looking forward to seeing you all next week.