We mustered 17 members despite Ben Golding being currently confined to hospital (get well soon Ben), our birthday boy Terry Maylin being on holiday and the Hammond twins being in Barcelona.
The Performance League
October’s results are out and they revealed Paul Booth in third place with 183 points, Matt Barry in second place with 200 points and out front, Jane Malyon with 233 points
Education Presentation
Paul Booth was our presenter and his theme was visitors. As we approach Christmas there have been one or two visitors who have indicated that they wish to come back and see us. You also might have other potential visitors in the pipeline. Please note there is a current offer that if anyone joins before the New Year they will be credited with the weeks leading up to the first week in the New Year. He went on to remind us that we are looking in particular for the trades. Plumbers, Gas Safe engineers, plasterers and roofers to name but a few. Let’s see if we can have more visitors across the threshold between now and Christmas.
The 60 Second Round
In the absence of Terry Maylin, Scott Griffiths and I appointed ourselves Oscar adjudicators and the round got underway with Neil Bellham indicating that he currently has some downtime, was rewriting his menus and was ready for anything! We then continued the round with ‘last speaker’ nomination. Brian Painter was the next to be selected; he is at the beginning of a ‘journey’ with a 20 year old who has a new girlfriend and has been invited to Christmas lunch with her parents. Only problem is he can only eat potato mashed. Any other form of spud would make him throw up. Our Pilgrim chased it down to father trying to push a potato down his throat at the age of five. Brian is confident that he will successfully get his feet under the table at Christmas time. Who knows what might follow……!!
The Mayor of Gants Hill Village can also publish books of poetry or other literary efforts. Any potential Bard should see this as an opportunity!
Scott Griffiths was inter-reactive in his 60 seconds inquiring as to our knowledge of Google Analytics. Now that we know what it is we’d like some of it in relation to the EBF website and Scott has promised to oblige.
Toby Acton is working with former member Sarah Steel over presentations regarding starting up a new business. Any company or institution that wishes to be involved can be referred.
James Humphreys is looking to put on weight if possible. Potential clients such as pubs, restaurants and others in the hospitality sector would be good referrals. His most recent foray netted him a free Curry. He seems to have the stamina so let’s try and get him the referrals.
Clara Downton was able to give us a glimmer of hope on the mortgage front. The Bank of England holding interest rates for another month has mortgage providers reducing their interest rates which certainly should be a good reason to be cheerful.
As the nights close in the other way to keep your spirits up is to organise a holiday and Rosemary Driscoll is the ‘go to’ member in this regard.
Jane Malyon not only had a special offer on a tin of shortbread but her raffle for the air ambulance could have you winning a leaf blower. I hope hands went into pockets at the end of the meeting.
After much consideration however Scott and I took the view that the Oscar winner this week should be Mike Skinner who produced the word of the week, ‘de-blanding’ in relation to websites and how he can transform them with a neat bit of video content. Not only well presented but also well within the 60 seconds allowed. Congratulations Mike.
Meeting Secretaries Report
In the absence of anything particularly stunning by way of paperwork for this week, Scott gave examples of appropriate statistics to show how the website is working. Apart from the home page of the EBF website, Nick Cooke, Toby Acton and Paul Booth are the most visited and the Mayor of Gants Hill Village’s suggestion that the popularity of the Toby Inn in Acton might be slewing the figures Scott’s analysis was interesting and useful.
10-minute presentation by Stuart Smallcombe
It was Stuart Smallcombe ’s turn this week and his bio sheet indicated that ‘middle lane drivers and potholes’ were things that wound him up. There seems to be a synergy there somewhere!
We were then treated to the LG networks quiz. Acronyms abounded including VoIP. ISP. QoS. but despite this and without admitting to listening carefully to Stuart when he delivers his 60 seconds I turned out to be the winner. You will not be surprised to learn that I didn’t really understand the prize I chose but I look forward to receiving it next week so that I can make the ultimate discovery. Well-presented Stuart!
Referrals and Testimonials Round
We had the usual referrals and testimonials round to finish off the meeting which always seems to finish up as being a reaffirmation of the value of EBF to all of us.
Very enjoyable and well done to Stuart for his great 10 minute presentation/quiz. The prospect of running up a £36000 bill for watching a movie, was terrifying and entirely possible. Yikes!! Great stuff one and all x x x
Always love a quiz Stuart! Disappointed I can’t use voip for cheap international calls though!
Great Ed slot Paul.
Fairly certain I didn’t use de-blanding in my 60s, but that was none the less the theme of it! Cheers for the oscar!
You’re right – just watched the video and you say “bland” but not “de-blanding”. Perhaps this means the oscar should be revoked???
Nah! it was a good presentation – making your business look “the business”
I can only see the positivity with my performance in the quiz. I got 50% correct. So if there had been 5 questions, I would have won. I think…
Great quiz Stuart. A great way to find out how much we know about you. A terrifying warning that it is possible to run up a 36K bill just by watching a moving on your phone abroad – I’m taking the kids phones away when we next visit the Caribbean!!
Great ed-slot Paul and a good reminder to us all.
Well done to Mike for winning the Oscar this week, a great tag line.
I look forward to these weekly meetings.
I was fabulous wasn’t I? See you next week x
Absolutely Fabulous!
Good meeting, techy quiz but I still had 5 correct answers somehow, same as Vincent.
Great ed slot from Paul and great 10 minutes from Stuart doing quiz see you all next week.
Sorry to miss the meeting sounds like I missed a good one, looking forward to being back next week!
I love a quiz but I love doing better than I did – very entertaining Stuart. Thanks