Chairman’s blog Thursday 11th April 2024

23 members present, a good turnout heralded good meeting.

The Performance League

After one weeks figures Paul booth was out front with 81 points.

Education Presentation

Toby Acton’s area of professional expertise always makes for not only a good, but also a relevant, education slot. This week he was emphasising the importance for business owners to have people relate to them and their goals. You need to have a ‘story’. You need to be able to present it in about 90 seconds and it must consist of three to four basic elements. 1st you explain how you got started, you then might have been involved in a change of direction, you then follow up with where you are now with your business and finally finish with what it is that you want to achieve. Only after this well prepared story  will everyone you tell it to love you. It is of course very sensible advice for those of us who network regularly.

New Member Induction & Existing Member Renewal

Terry Maylin  almost broke out in a sweat. He announced the renewal of membership for Neil Bellham and also oversaw the induction of Andy O’Neill. An encouraging way to start any meeting!

The 60 Second Round

Now, Terry Maylin was really sweating. As the holder of the Oscar he had to adjudicate this week’s award as well as start the ball rolling with the presentations. His message was to landlords who might be panicking over the new regulations that will be coming into force regarding  future tenancies. His basic message was, don’t panic. The second part of his presentation was the importance of these regulations and that they do seek Terry’s advice in setting up any new tenancies and dealing with the ones that are ongoing.

I see a pattern emerging with regard to Chris de la Prida. Every meeting he’s going to stand up and tantalise us with offers of exotic holidays in faraway places that definitely make you wish you were somewhere else. Today was no exception. It started with Thailand.

It was nice to see Melissa Jackson back with us although there was no way in which she was going to outdo Chris in the tantalization stakes. Suffice it to say that she reminded us of her insolvency practitioner credentials. She is certainly a valuable member of our group. It’s very difficult to get excited about lawyers insurance brokers and therefore of course insolvency practitioners but they are necessary. By contrast Brian Painter was next and he is always capable of tantalising us with any new phobias that he comes across. This week he’s had three new ones and they were all bankers. Makes you wonder!

As I get older sometimes my hearing does not improve. Mike Skinner seemed to be telling us about good feedback he had received from a ‘community circus. All those elephants and the like!

Utility Warehouse has won another award from Which magazine, being the cheapest for fixed and variable rates.

Andy O’Neill, first meeting out as a fully-fledged member involved water related matters that are not just bacterial. Old people in care homes being put into baths that are too hot  for them is a case in point. It was unfortunate that this description was followed by Vincent Goode telling us about orders of service and tributes for funerals. It  was perhaps with a lightening of mood that Matt Barry celebrated Blue Serif’s 10th birthday with a video which, if our time keeper is to be believed, last exactly 60 seconds. Congratulations Matt. It was only later in the meeting that we were informed of Mike Skinner’s birthday tomorrow which I believe is a big one?

Prize for best verbalization of the day goes to Stuart Smallcombe who has recently ‘on boarded’ a bookkeeper which enabled him then to illustrate a chain of referrals that started with Terry Maylin. There he is again!.

The presentations continued to get more and more bizarre. It is apparently world hamster day and Toby Acton was able to use it to illustrate one of his missions in his business life, namely to stop being hamsters on a work related treadmill that did their health no good even if they weren’t flung from said treadmill.

Leann Reason, in the course of assisting people with interior design, is very much into advising how an extension’s floor space can be best used.

The round continued and it included another bizarre offering, this time from Scott Griffiths in that he wanted to have involvement with something other than toilets, cockroaches and moths and Jane Malyon stating that an early ambition in life was to be a fairy godmother and she felt that she had achieved this with her ‘hugs in a box’.

And so to the award of the Oscar. Stuart Smallcombe was chosen, not perhaps for his verbalization but more for his illustration of the value of referrals. He also managed to give Terry a name check. ‘Blow in his ear and he’ll follow you anywhere!’

This weeks statistics and points of note

Another good news story was this week’s statistics of 14 referrals and £21,000 worth of business acknowledged.

Synergy Team Report

Paul Booth’s finance group got together on Tuesday With seven of us in attendance.

10-minute presentation by John Hammond

Rather hopefully John had put the black out up to ward off the sun’s rays although they did not actually happen. Everything else went well. A slick on screen presentation took us all through the early years and also a well-illustrated documentation of the work that he covers. Access control, nurse call and attack, fire alarm systems and automatic doors. Locations showed an awful lot of chemical sites and some which, if he told us where they were, he would have to kill us. He didn’t and he didn’t.

Well attended meetings do seem to bring out the best in us and that would also describe our referrals and testimonials round given the volume of business and referrals.