Chairman’s Blog – Meeting Thursday 5th July 2012
27 members present, 1 guest. Rob Conroy from Intelligent Business Solutions Limited.
Unmitigated joy at being back within the bosom of EBF. Arrived early only to find that Paul Booth had been there since 5.40 a.m. – but he was on the door this week.
I had fond memories of my last meeting because of the soft scrambled eggs. Although it has not spoilt my day this weeks’ firmer offering I feel was more to the taste of the majority. However, Howard Bullock’s description of “bouncy” made you feel it could have been put to better uses than food.
Undeterred by this the meeting kicked off well with Scott Griffiths reporting Nick Cooke as the almost run away winner of the EBF Performance League for June with 335 points. His success was part of a very successful month which Scott later in the meeting reported to us showed business written for the month standing at £88,212.00, almost identical to the previous month and well on course to top the million for the year. A great effort by all of us. This week set the right tone for July with recorded business of £27,307.00 and I counted 35 referrals at the end of the meeting – a fantastic start.
As is usually the case the 60 second round developed certain themes. It all started with Mike Topping declaring that he was looking for an elderly lady with a big boat. Mike Rogers was also looking for wealthy old ladies, but without boats. Graham Thurston, hands commendably out of his pockets, had witnessed a near heart attack with one of his Clients brought about by – no, not an old, but a very young lady, apparently the aged Husbands almost juvenile Eastern European Wife. Jason Nortey also seemed to feel he could be of assistance to all ladies with or without a big boat. With all this talk about boats it was hardly surprising that Kevin Radford, as the resident bard and therefore always attuned to the mood of the meeting, tried to sell us his insurance products for fleet management. It was all becoming almost as tacky as Claire Greenslade’s tacky items that she passed round the table. Joan Jaggernauth was this week on the letter “n” which apparently stands for non-invasive, but I couldn’t quite work out whether vibrators were non-invasive (and therefore she uses them) or they are invasive (in which case she presumably doesn’t). Not to be outdone Richard Smith tried to sell us his Summer Sizzler Offer of a power flush (something everyone should have at this time of the year).
Scott Griffiths and Brian Painter very effectively took up David Plumley’s challenge of having a one to one and then swapping roles for the 60 second round. Scott Griffiths gave a very effective 60 second assessment of Brian Painter’s wares, but Brian Painter was inspired to give us a music hall series of one liners to advertise Scott Griffiths wares and finished up with the memorable bye line “the Geek will inherit the earth”. With well deserved inevitability Brian Painter got the Oscar.
Your beloved Chairman usually scrupulously avoids mentioning his own involvement in the meeting, but I do feel it is necessary in this blog, not because I manfully took on the 10 minute slot without notice, but in order to tell you about the effect of my rather grumpy assertion that although I was willing to step into the breach at the last minute for the 10 minutes I wasn’t willing to write out another biography. Our Education and Development Officer, however readily took up the challenge. Please may I for once and for all dispel any suggestion that I have a small patch behind my left ear (I don’t know of what), that I have previously been a pentathlete , knitting instructor or ballet shoe maker and that certainly my hobby is not the collection, the arranging and the production of artistic sculptures from navel fluff. I can only emphasise that this scurrilous suggestion in my simulated biography also had no connection with old ladies and big boats. I did, however, rather like the idea of counting amongst my pets a fully trained flee circus.
I really must try not to go away on holiday in the future.
What a good meeting!
See you all next week.