Chairman’s blog Thursday 2nd July 2026

Toby Acton paralleled our business with the World-Cup. A great Education slot. Scot Griffiths also then educated us about how AI and Bots have changed how we search and what this means for our own websites. He can help you with all this...
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A new month and another meeting hit by holidays and individual members business commitments. Nonetheless there were seventeen of us networking from 6:15 AM onwards

Performance League

The month of June is now behind us which saw Paul Corrigan not only the winner but the winner by a substantial margin. He was out front with 317 points. Scott Griffiths was second on 215 and Sylvia Neveda on 198. And so, we move into July!

Education Slot

The master of metaphor mesmerised us with a World Cup/football (or is it Soccer) allusion. If half time was your ‘end of year’ you must look forward to a new year as you would look forward to the final 45 minutes of a football match. What have you been doing during the year; standing still, hogging the ball, out of position, not training hard enough!  So what are you going to do in the second half! You’re going to move about, pass the ball, make sure you are in the right position and make sure that you are fit enough to last to the end of the game. Such mastery did not deserve interruption, for which my apologies. You are clearly not put off as you continued to dribble throughout the rest of the meeting. Off to such a ‘simile fest’ we were all up and ready for the 60 seconds round.

60-Second Presentation Round

Sally Waters was last week’s Oscar winner. Not only did she adjudicate this week but also gave a very interesting presentation whereby she revealed a collaboration with Jane Malyon over a ‘retreat day’. To know more about these, go on to her website. It is very effective for a group to get involved in collaborations between members.

She was followed by Blake who used his laptop to produce a smart home display. Know how you can be in total control of your life without getting up from your armchair. Not to be deterred from his theme Toby Acton maintained his metaphors with a reference to his motivational mapping or rather motivational leaks. He was talking ‘teams’ and he was talking underperformance and identifying changing dynamics within a team as people move forward with their careers. He really was on fire today!

Clara Downton was upbeat about the mortgage market and she’s in particular helping divorcees with their borrowing needs post matrimonial breakup.

Steve Chilton explained about the work experience opportunity that his company were offering three people this coming week and the things that they were going to do with them. Spoiler alert. Sally was sufficiently impressed with this arrangement that she deservedly awarded the Oscar to him.

Catherine Foley is finding that AI is actually opening some doors for her in the humanization of content on websites.

Do IT matters leave you puzzled; Stuart Smallcombe was also able to suggest the Microsoft licences should be reviewed to make sure you are not entering into too many. He can provide a free audit.

Standout performance of the of the round also could be attributed to Howard Bullock whose use of the 8 ball enabled him to illustrate how market analysts can give very little useful information when dealing with the generalities that they inevitably do. He can provide specific and individualised retirement guidance even whilst performing neck massage to Paul Booth.

Potential best use of prop over and above Howards 8 ball who is John Hammond’s mobile phone-activated door lock, although he was actually defeated in this instance by Wi-Fi.

Already mentioned in dispatches by Sally, Jane Malyon emphasised the importance of her sandwich surgeon husband Roger in the production of her excellent freshly produced afternoon teas.

All in all, the very entertaining 60 second round and so we were all set up for the 10 minute presentation.

Meeting Secretaries Report

Scott Griffiths delivered the meeting secretary’s report and confirmed good business recorded of £24,500 although referrals were down. A good positive start to the month.

New Business Passed Between All Members
£ 0 +

10-Minute Presentation by Member-Name

For someone at the heart of the Ebf tech section, Scott expressed himself not entirely comfortable in presenting without the television but he had no need to fear… It was a clear informed and exceedingly useful analysis of what is relevant now to being successful in the Google rankings. AI charged BOTS dominating the information that is used for analysis and as well as explaining to us what a BOT was, we were treated to BLUF… Which means…’ bottom line up front’…, not the place inhabited by Billy Goat Gruff. He was able to give us a clear indication of how he can guide us all in relation to our websites and I for one am more than happy for him to make sure that all of my content is “chunky” as he advised. His explanations were like curtains opening onto a bright sunny vista. I’ll sign off on Scott’s presentation before I give too much of an impression of how good it was!

After a great presentation we all referred and testimonialised each other until the meeting finally drew to a close and we all went on our merry way.

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Toby Acton
Toby Acton
3 hours ago

Excellent meeting with a great 10 minutes from Scott – interesting to hear how things are developing. Great to hear that Catherine Foley is still, and always will be, relevant!

Mike Skinner
Mike Skinner
2 hours ago

Sorry to miss your presentation Scott, look forward to seeing you all again next week!

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