Chairman’s blog Thursday 27th February 2025

There was light in the sky when the first of us arrived. No doubt the harbinger of spring but more importantly the anticipation of being able to get up in daylight to set off for the usual EBF Thursday morning meeting. Not that getting up in the morning in darkness seemed to be a problem this week. There were 25 of us in all including a relationship manager from NatWest who by the end of the meeting was threatening to visit us again next week.

The Performance League

Like Liverpool Football Club, I have a substantial lead in this the third week of the month but I am simply concentrating on recording the next referral. I have 285 points, Toby Acton has 169 points and Jane Malyon 161 points.

Education Presentation

It was a Ben Golding special. His extended behavioural metaphor was in praise of wildlife, in particular American eagles and as to how we should look to running our businesses. I did start taking notes but will limit myself to pointing out certain highlights. Eagles have very accurate vision. Their ability to focus is something we should all learn from. They don’t eat dead things and this apparently should teach us not to rely on past successes. Memories of my excellent sausage sandwich for breakfast tempered my enthusiasm for this particular metaphor. And they love to glide above a storm and so are therefore inclined to meet challenges head on. Enough already…… suffice it to say it was a metaphorical challenge that Toby Acton would be hard pressed to rise to.

New Member Induction & Existing Member Renewal

With the assistance of Catherine Foley, Terry Maylin has managed to bring the certificates for membership and performance league victories pretty well up to date. If you haven’t got yours, you probably would have today and should make sure you get here next week.

The 60 Second Round

John Hammond was this week’s Oscar presenter and he was immediately followed by Dave Moore who enlightened us by way of props as to the meaning of LVT…… Luxury Vinyl Tiles to the uninitiated. He was followed by Melissa Jackson who also told us something that we might not know, namely that she deals with the winding up of solvent as well as insolvent companies by way of Members Voluntary Liquidations.

Paul Corrigan is hoping to link up with a leading energy firm as a ‘trusted partner’ which will result in him fitting lots of heat pumps.

Jon Foster produced the prop of the week, to wit, a door locking mechanism which enabled him to demonstrate where you put the WD40 to make sure the lock gearbox keeps working. Vincent Goode also produced a prop. It was a blank piece of paper, he then went on to explain how he could transform it with his printing magic and just to let you know that he was serious about things, he invented the name Hank for himself so that it would rhyme with the jingle he signed off with. It was nice to be brought back to earth by Stuart Smallcombe recapping all of the services that he provides.

Dave Roberts was the final member who produced a prop to illustrate his message. His was a piece of wire aimed at illustrating the dangers in DIY electrics.

Jane Malyon introduced us to the word ingordiousness which means extreme greed at the expense of principles which somehow can be applicable to the consumption of cream teas. And obviously in doing so softened up John Hammond for Scott Griffiths who used the group’s presentations of their 60 seconds as a visual metaphor for Google listings of businesses. He was accordingly awarded the Oscar despite the revelation from Paul Dulieu that you can hold a funeral anywhere, not just a place of religion.

10-minute presentation by Matt Barry

This week’s presenter was Matt Barry who was runner up best 10 minute president presenter for last year. Whether we will remember his presentation next year when we come to vote again, I do not know. The presentation was excellently put together and demonstrated a lot of the skills needed to present a business to the world. However good the presentation was however what shone through above this was his enthusiasm for what he does and why we should feel in putting him forward, more than confident that he can help to further any business through branding of the highest order.

Notwithstanding the full turn out of members and the excellent content after the meeting we managed to finish on time