25 including guests in attendance. A lively, if bordering on out of control, meeting – none the worse for that.
Jason gets sadder – 5.30 a.m. arrival. I arrived before 6 a.m. and thought I was late.
The enthusiasm permeated other members as they arrived with the many and varied Secret Santa presents stacked on a side table positively exuding seasonal bonhomie.
I really am getting concerned about David Plumley and his ongoing identity crisis. Please Adrian, don’t confuse him by pretending to be him, I think that was the start of the problem. He then produced a Fez and pretended to be Tommy Cooper…… that was the most convincing bit and deserving of an Oscar, if not the Oscar. Following the Finance Power Groups dinner earlier this week I can reveal that he also does magic tricks. He did the one with the cloth over the glass of wine,both disappear and the glass reappears empty and the cloth is used to mop up the red stain that is then spreading over his trousers. Before you all snigger just remember that you have been receiving education from him for the last year, you might even have believed some of the things he told you.
However, this meeting must go down as the Brian Painter show. If we retain any doubts as to whether David Plumley should be educating us, today’s meeting demonstrated to all of us for once and for all that we should not be letting Brian hypnotise us. My first mistake was handing him a bell, but I soon realised that the laughing caterpillar posed a far greater threat to order in the meeting. In the face of a go slow onslaught Howard maintained his composure very well only to find that Mr. Painter was joined by none other the man with the identity crisis both trying to slow him down so that the stupid caterpillar could make a noise.
Then there was the quiz!! Not only were the questions imaginative, the answers were too. I hear that the Premiership is considering 2 referees on the pitch…..they don’t know the half of it.
Then came the handing out of the presents and the referral round. It strikes me that multi tasking has never been a particular forte of the group and this was amply demonstrated by – yes who else – our pilgrim ably assisted by St. Nicholas Cooke who only needed to don the hat to be the complete Santa.
Oh and by the way – Brian Painter also won the Oscar although his 60 seconds, poetic and thoughtful, was probably the highlight of his contributions.
I think it was Nick Morgan who when invited in the referrals round to make comment as a guest said in a somewhat bemused manner “are all the meetings like this?”
Were we on this Thursday a sharp punchy networking group focused on business? – no BUT we were jolly nay happy and humbug aside I am looking forward to next year’s Christmas meeting.
There simply remains my suggestion that we all reflect on what has been a successful year. Both the year and the group are probably best characterised by Paul’s uplifting summary of our achievements set against the realisation that this assessment was by a man who entertains his Christmas dinner guests with an inland revenue quiz.
Come back Brian Painter all is forgiven……
Until next year.