Brentwood Business Networking Blog 15th December

Chairman’s Business networking Blog, Thursday 15^th December 2016.

At this last meeting of the year we had an altered format to enable us to try and cope with the Brian Painter Experience.

23 Members turned up, all bright eyed and bushy  tailed, sporting festive pullies of various sorts. There were even that ones that flashed all time, helping demonstrate that the Christmas Spirit was alive and well and living in Brentwood, at least between the hours of 6.15 am and 8. 45 am.

Howard Bullock gave us an update on the state of health, both physical and mental of his much dispossessed hound Obi; the waves of sympathy were palpable, at least from the blokes!

In David Plumley’s absence the Education Slot was dispensed with and we went straight into the 60 second round.

Marcelle Saad showed an eye wateringly expensive diamond but even that could not cheer Donna Evans up.  She was a bit Bah Humbug over the whole thing, Christmas that is, but things started warming up when Steve Roach told of a couple of charity live music events for the New Year.  Both of these seem to involve “a sit down curry”  In my view its only worth eating if it makes you sit down.

Most people were looking to wind down.  Not only was this true for Dean Caldon but also for Kevin Brooks, Alan Shaw and Scott Griffiths.  Terry Maylin however intends chasing the bad guys up to the last minute.

The School of Whimsy has been true to its nature to the last.  Not only was Alan Shaw trying to wind down but the whole 60 seconds wound down and away.  Brian Painter has an elderly lady client who is scratching her knees and ankles which apparently is a reaction to her recent divorce.  Nick Cooke was resplendent with a new trim.  Apparently the beard remained unpruned but he certainly looked neat and tidy and could not really be accused of looking like Saint Nick.

Two people produced poems.  The Bard of Hadleigh of course is driven in this regard but Kim Redwood-Lee chipped in with an offering of her own.  As she was awarding the Oscar however, it was not Kevin Radford’s poem that really caught her eye but Mike Rogers who produced a singing Santa who performed the whole of Mike’s 60 seconds.  Mike might find it helpful if he produced said Santa every week.

So with many best wishes being offered for Christmas and the New Year we moved almost straight from the 60 second round to the referrals round, thereby clearing the way for Mr Painter and his band of players.

The referrals round however was in reality the highlight of the meeting.  44 referrals were passed by 23 members and £24,600.00 of business was recorded creating over a 3 meeting month just short of the magical £100,000.00 worth of business recorded.

On the back of these figures we will ride into the New Year, but not before our Pilgrim had produced the live entertainment.

His warm up act was Paul Booth who told a few jokes, did a question and answer session with Mr Painter and then we were into the Quiz.

As usual the Quiz was 20 irritating questions whose answers including a hare, little Jack Horner, the number 9 and burping.  I believe Tina got 12 right and won the prize, a great effort.  The final act performed by Painter and his gang was the Secret Santa present distribution.

Donations for SNAP totalled £185.00 gathered from the meeting which was a tribute to Richard Reed’s tenacity in liaising between EBF and the Charity.

The final EBF act of the year will be the dinner on Friday night at Ask in Billericay High Street, starting at 7pm.

Our next meeting will be our first meeting of January when I hope we pick up where we left off on our regularity of attendance.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL