Chairman’s Blog 6th June 2013
A well attended meeting, 29 members and not a seat left in the house.
The Ed Slot was delivered by Scott Griffiths who educated us as to how our membership fees were used in relation to our web site and related to Social Media promotion.
In dealing with what we put on our profile page he produced the quote of the morning, “crap in – crap out”. What that should mean to most of us is, get your profile page properly set up as to content and you will benefit. I am not sure there is an opposite to “crap” but whatever it is, if you put it in, that’s what you will get out. I think I have probably clarified that for you all.
I waxed lyrical last week about the quality of the meeting but I do think that we surpassed ourselves this week, not least in the 60 second round.
Thematically speaking, members seemed to be drawn to lists.
Stewart Roberts started on his list of what we need to be “fantastic”, apparently nothing less will do. Passionate, inspirational, and a delightful were the first 3 characteristics that he listed but he ran out of time. 4 more to come next week apparently. Mark Buckley listed all of the other things they can do. I ran out of energy when we got to TV aerials and telephones. Mike Rogers listed himself on the signing in sheet as “the Mr Big of the Mortgage World”. I was at least expecting a list of reasons as to why he should be so named. Instead he rambled on about badly laid laminate flooring and promptly sat down. It was left to Richard Reed to provide the memorable list. A holiday traversing Route 66 found him listing the towns that you would be staying in. Some of us who are old enough to remember the Rolling Stones’ early days knew the next town before it was out of his mouth. It should have been particularly appealing to the motor bike fraternity in our number but Adrian Crosdale, Terry Maylin and Ed Crocker seemed to be unmoved but perhaps they were day dreaming of where else they could get their kicks.
I at least realised an ambition this week ,when Graham Thurston brought in samples of his grass “carpet “. He described the various types available including one which was apparently “bog standard” I had visions of a reed bed, suspect I missed the point.
Of the more worrying contributions Alan Shaw told of a lady in Brentwood with an extension and a block wood shed at the bottom of the garden that was likely to affect the planning permissions she would need. Hey presto!!, the matter was resolved by cutting down her shed (in size that is). Brian Painter told of a lady with claustrophobia arising from being zipped into a sleeping bag. Of course our hypnotic hero cured her and she promptly flew off on a camping holiday. Personally I would put up with claustrophobia rather than go on a camping holiday but there we are, each to their own, which puts me in mind of Adrian Crosdale’s contribution. He is looking for Local Authorities who could be persuaded to put LED lights in their public toilets thereby saving an enormous number of man hours replacing light bulbs, so let’s all keep a look out for public conveniences for Adrian.
I indicated at the outset that our 60 second round was characterised by people providing lists. The ultimate came from Marcelle, June is the month of the Pearl, apparently they come in all types of lustres, complexions, sizes, shapes and colours. Yes the 5 characteristics of a pearl, which I have always regarded as a waste of a good oyster, ultimately won her the Oscar.
As if we had not had enough of Scott Griffiths with the Education Slot, he popped up to do the 10 minute presentation and delivered a tag line to the effect that success is not the key to happiness but happiness if the key to success. It is entirely appropriate that he owned up to locating this epithet by way of Googling. The “Guru of Google” gave a clear exposition as to what services he can provide and really no excuse for us not to being able to recognise when we can recommend him for referral purposes.
We passed from Scott Griffiths to the referrals and testimonials round and as the first one of the month it was quite outstanding. Almost £25,000 of recorded business and by the end of the round 45 referrals, 10 of which were from Mike Rogers. They were genuine and at least for today he was the “Mr Big of the Referrals Round”.
All in all the meeting lived up to Stewart Robert’s urgings that everything we do must now be fantastic. It was a fantastically good meeting set to a backdrop of glorious sunshine outside. I hope it is not an unreasonable wish that next week is as good a meeting and I look forward to seeing you all then.
Great article Aidan – well written. I agree that I think this was possibly one of the best ever, if not the best meeting that we have had. Lots of business passed and new business opportunities, but at the same time there was lots of good humour and atmosphere.
The good Karma from the meeting also followed through to after the meeting when I went out onto the Putting Green at the golf club. I was “on fire”. Shame it’ll probably never be like that when i’m actually playing a round.
What a great meeting and I can’t believe I won the Egg Awards and thank you for those that put me forward. Have a great weekend and see you all next Thursday.
My apologies for failing to mention in my blog the Good Egg award being awarded to Tina. It was more than well deserved and a fitting acknowledgement of all the work she does in the background to enable the meeting to run smoothly.
Aidan
A Fantastic meeting full of Fantastic people. Definitely a great way to start the day !!!
Another great meet with lots of business past around, well done to Mike for passing 10 referals !!!
I’m off on Holiday next week so i’ll See you all in 2 weeks time 🙂
Yes it was an especially “fantastic” meeting, fantastic number of referrals, fantastic amount of business done and some fantastic humour to boot.
All in all a fantastic way to start a Thursday.
All 29 seats taken – let’s see if next week we can get over 30 and some visitors. Great meeting.
Scott, what did you think to “Guru of Google”….reminiscent of the “Sultans of Swing” or was that before your time, I think not!
It was a great meeting indeed. Well deserved award by Tina.
J