Business Networking in Billericay – a Weekly Review 4th March

Chairman’s Business Networking Blog, Tuesday 4th March 2014.

17 members in attendance, for the first time for several weeks there were no visitors but we have the promise of several coming up in the next week or so.

It is with immense pride that I can report that my Leadership Team managed to stand up and introduce themselves without a mistake. They all remembered their names, what their title was, and what they did. It doesn’t get better than that!

We had apologies for absence from Ian Douglas, Mark Waller and Brian Painter the latter two being on holiday.

It is important that members not attending do tender their apologies and their reason for their absence. At the time of preparing this blog, Jim, having successfully introduced himself and remembered his title will be sending out an email to all of you confirming the procedure for making your excuses, namely directly to him and or Scott Griffiths and not on the group general email. We would not want any apology for absence to encourage anybody to do likewise.

So excited was I at the response of the Leadership Team and Scott Griffiths having nothing to report in relation to the Performance League, I passed round the business card box and jumped straight into the 60 second round without a thought for Nige Kirby’s Education Slot. I blame the rather strange contraption I was wearing to monitor my blood pressure. Nothing happened during the meeting that caused it to register higher than usual, for which my thanks to you all.

Unfortunately however the main subject of the Ed Slot was the delivery of the 60 second round which perhaps would have been usefully delivered before rather than after today’s round had taken place. Within the context of the Educational benefits of Nigel’s exposition and the great scheme of things this was really irrelevant; I am sure you will all be better prepared next week and its all part of the learning curve…

One of the other things that Nigel cautioned about was the use of acronyms advancing details of your business and the referrals you are looking for. This is a particular issue for those in the IT Business. This week’s acronyms however came from unlikely sources. Second up was Anne Clarke who talked about a seminar of sorts on auto enrolment on pensions. If that was not puzzling enough she talked about AAT and I was lost. My sense of bewilderment was maintained by Paul Lefever who talked about testing systems, incoming earth and ECB’s and RCB’s. I suppose the idea is that if said ECB’s and RCB’s are important and you don’t know what they are you should call on Paul. Eye-catching from his presentation was an electrical safety test for £75.00 which will probably cover ECB’s and RCB’s.

Vivienne was fairly soon on her feet after Paul Lefever had sat down…now I was in real fear for my mental health, she talked of the consultative approach to transportation and shipping charts, I have made my mind up, I must have a 1 2 1 with her when no doubt all will be revealed. It is a good job that Jim Henshaw came to my rescue by clarifying that he was an intermediary between the client and provider. He then went on to talk about tied, multi tied and whole of market. There is no doubt that the visitor from Mars who had learnt English but little else would have felt on another planet…..

Christine Arnold brought us down to earth with perhaps the quote of the meeting “…source it, print it, and supply it…”. It reminded me of Peter Kaye “live at Blackpool Tower” in talking about booking holidays over the t’internet “…clicked it booked it F….d off”.

I think I was getting slightly light headed by now with the effect of the blood pressure monitor squeezing my arm, they’ve put it in the wrong place I hear you say…. What I really needed to relax me was a group coaching session, Hugo made it all sound quite relaxing, even a bit touchy feely. Even Fred Harcourt, down to earth decorator was talking about being one of the “Dulux Select”. I had visions of him putting on a big furry dog suit and going off to find his brushes.

Nige Kirby of course could not resist it, he had to remind us all of his reference last week to his long probe and its effect on boilers. Christine was still in shock but he did move on to gas fires which apparently don’t need long probes but apparently are only of interest to those who are aging with greying hair…. Does anybody apart from me own one?

Iain Martin was very much more up my street this week. Although he used an acronym it was, yes you guessed it, TV. Now even I know what a TV is and I also know what TV boxes are and I understand why they should all be working to their optimum. His health check for said equipment was therefore quite appealing. Of course Adam Hotson brought us down to earth, talking about self assessment tax returns, but we certainly sat up when he said could apply that any director of a company, whether he is on PAYE or not, should have one.

Just when I thought it was all over Robert Mayes admitted to not having his name on my list and therefore his became the final 60 second offering; there must have been something in his orange juice…he talked about moving doors and windows in order to brighten up your kitchen. I had visions of him moving windows round in a house and creating problems such as sliding doors to the bathroom, French windows to the toilet and a rather small frosted glass opening for the lounge. Perhaps it was the blood pressure monitor making me feel rather light headed. It obviously worked at one level however because the nice Mr Heij awarded me the Oscar which demonstrated great generosity of spirit. I think the euphoria of 24 medals in the Olympics got the better of him.

So in my mildly euphoric state I introduced the late Ed Slot which led into the 10 minute presentation. Richard Willis showed his developed presentation skills using the TV (see, I am good with acronyms after all) Screen to reinforce the suspicions that he really is rather good at marketing and we can feel confident in referring him when we get an opportunity.

The referrals and testimonials round is starting to be consistently effective and so a meeting with one or two firsts came to an end. It was the first meeting that had daylight in the sky when I arrived at 6am. It was the first meeting of the year when the majority of the meeting took place bathed in bright sunshine.

Why should we all not be looking forward to next week?