Chairman’s blog Thursday 12th June 2025

With the warmest day of the year in prospect 22 of us gathered, warm greetings were passed with another interesting meeting in prospect.

The Performance League

One week in and Paul Dulieu is out front with 98 points followed by Scott Griffiths on 65 and Terry Maylin on 64

Education Presentation

Our own educator Catherine Foley was this week’s presenter and her subject was how to sign off emails. Statistics apparently show gratitude based sign offs were most appreciated but the context is everything. It’s nice to have a subject matter that stimulates feedback and she certainly achieved that!

New Member Induction & Existing Member Renewal

Always a cause for celebration, this week we inducted Sarah Smith in the virtual assistant chair. Welcome Sarah, who has already been very visible  with1-2-1s. with various members and a visit to the finance and professions synergy team meeting on Tuesday of this week.

The 60 Second Round

Dave Moore was our adjudicator this week and he produced a tiling pattern book which almost totally obscured him when he held it up to the group.

Paul Corrigan is going back to basics. By that he meant training through apprenticeships new recruits to the business as the way of maintaining an effective workforce.

Toby Acton’s 60 seconds abandoned the metaphor for a piece that was more attuned to the Ed slot. He produced his recipe for success in business in three easy stages. 1st crystallise your vision of what you are going to do, then make sure you delegate properly and finally always be decisive. It is almost secondary as to whether you are making the right decisions. The worst thing is to make no decision.

Sarah Smith produced a focused 60 seconds. She produced statistics to confirm that engaging her was potentially 50% cheaper than taking on a an employee to do the sort of things that she can do.

If Dave Moore produced the biggest prop, Jon Foster produced the most entertaining. His demonstration with props showing how to pick a lock was interesting but the high point was a lock pick gun which he demonstrated and more importantly caught the bit that flew off into the air. I think it was a trick rather than part of the process! On the question of process, Joshua Ayettey explained process he engaged in with his clients in producing the end result.

Blake Hammond did not make mention of Christmas this week but did make mention of a ‘plant a tree’ scheme that he was launching with his products. Is Darren Lamb, by his mere presence, creating a green influence. Watch this space!

Dave Roberts had a light bulb moment. Another one to use props as he held up a light bulb, LED light bulb at that. Make sure you choose the correct colour. You can go from warm light to day light. Also make sure that is dimmable if you have dimmer switches. He probably wins the prize for most informative presentation but it was not even Jane Malyon who won this week. She was demonstrating but not in a protest kind of way. Whatever you do, whether you call it a scone or a scon, don’t use a knife on it. Use your hands to separate along the natural fault line. Surely this was an award-winning suggestion but Dave Moore preferred and awarded the Oscar to Joshua for his clear description of how he dealt with taking his Clients from point A to point B.

Well done to all for a very successful round.

Synergy Team Report

Paul Booth reported on the finance and professions meeting earlier in the week. Despite a small turn out there was a very detailed discussion of what we do and how we do it with newest recruit Sarah Smith in attendance.

10-minute presentation by Stuart Smallcombe

It was Stuart Smallcombe’s turn this week and it was a highly competent performance with the proper use of the television to illustrate his business, the personnel, and the work that he undertakes. Already this appears to be a candidate for 10 minute presentation of the year as a thorough going workmanlike presentation from an experienced  member. Let’s all think of his requirements as we go about our day-to-day business.