There were 20 members and 2 visitors present this morning. Due to some absences ,we had a few changes in roles today with Jane Malyon bringing her charm to the chair; Sarah Smith sitting in for our Education Secretary; Paul Corrigan in charge of the time; and me taking minutes and penning the blog (with absolutely no help from AI!)
Performance League
Three members have already reached the monthly points target: Terry Maylin, Stuart Smallcombe and, leading the way, Joshua Ayettey. With only one more Thursday in the month, the rest of us need to up our games!
Education Slot
Toby Acton, ever the master of the metaphor, did not disappoint today with two extended metaphors running through his education slot. He warned us that, as business owners, we have three hats that we regularly wear: the technician’s, the manager’s and the entrepreneur’s. Most of us end up wearing the first two more often than not. He seamlessly slipped into his favourite Formula One metaphor and explained how the most successful drivers regularly take a pit stop to ensure their car is in tiptop condition and that, as business owners, we should be doing the same – change our tyres/wear Hat No 3! He set us all the goal of taking 20 minutes to ask ourselves which hat we are wearing; which hat our business needs; and what we would do differently if we donned hat 3.
60-Second Presentation Round
Last week’s Oscar winner, Paul Booth started off the round with a plea to find him starter businesses who need help with setting up business accounts and bookkeeping systems. Jane Malyon prepared us for International Tea Day tomorrow by reading us a poem by Thomas Hardy called At Tea – she can make all our tea drinking experiences more of a treat than Hardy’s rather tragic picture! Dave Roberts wants us to call him for electrical testing rather than doing a bodge job like one of his recent clients and Terry Maylin has been turning away work from clients whose requests seem more spoof than spot on.
Blake Hammond is excited by new developments in AI, mentioning AI glasses (if he had seen that particular episode of Black Mirror, he may be less excited by that idea!) and his new app called Boxbox. John Hammond wants us to look for medium sized businesses needing access control systems and Silvia Nedeva is looking for businesses with communal areas in need of cleaning.
Toby Acton wowed us with his third extended metaphor of the morning, saying he can support baby businesses right through to those wanting end of life care! Stuart Smallcombe can help with all our licensing, broadband, business mobile and IT needs and Stephen Chiltern would like clients who are currently having difficulties with their existing insurance broker.
Mike Skinner can help businesses show their personalities through video content in order to attract the right people to their teams and Sarah Smith can help to show people’s best side by wearing Toby’s Hat No 3 for them. Sally Waters is already thinking ahead to Christmas and is looking for a new, trendy venue in which to hold her candle making master-classes – maybe Joshua Ayettey could design one for her as he is finding the market quiet at the moment and is keen to talk to people interested in changing the use of their properties.
Paul Corrigan told us about an issue with a shower manufacturer which illustrates how Solitaire never shy away from their responsibilities and so always have very happy customers. Matt Barry wants companies with a lack of good ideas to leave it to the experts at Blue Serif; Leann Reason had a similar message to those whose houses need to be amazing rather than just okay. Catherine Foley gave a very specific wish list for her ideal client who would need help with tutoring, Personal Statements and proofreading. Scott Griffiths spoke about the importance of case studies on his websites and Clara Downton finished off the member contributions by explaining how she likes to ensure clients know all the risks of their decisions.
Second time visitor, Patrick, on Day 10 of trading, wants to help people with no management experience and new face Stephan can help with all loft jobs except conversions.
Judge Paul B couldn’t decide between Mike Skinner and Paul Corrigan so introduced a new tie-breaker in the form of an arm-wrestling competition. Well done to Tall Paul for winning the competition and this week’s Oscar.
10-Minute Presentation by Terry Maylin
Possibly inspired by former member Nick Cook’s seaside chat about his business, Terry Maylin used the interview format to be grilled by Paul Booth about how he can help with a variety of litigious situations. Entitling his presentation Conversation Street, he outlined the ways he can help people recover debts with little financial risk and demonstrated that he is the man you would want on your side in any employment dispute. We will eagerly await Terry and Paul’s imminent appearance on the cobbles of the real soap…
Amazing meeting and great 10 min Terry 🙂
Superb meeting, thank you team EBF!
Not sure about the Oscar decider lol but happy to have it for the week, has been a while!
Hope you all have a great weekend
Another fantastic Thursday morning!
Great wrap-up of today’s meeting on the blog. It was brilliant to see such a strong turnout this morning, and a massive welcome again to all the new visitors who joined us. The energy in the room was top-notch, and the education slot gave us some excellent, practical takeaways to implement in our businesses this week.
Looking forward to passing some quality referrals and catching up with everyone for 1-to-1s before next Thursday!
Fantastic 10 minutes from Paul, ably supported by Terry! And well done to Paul on winning the Oscar – I think we should do a thumb war next time!
I’m way better at thumb wars for the record!
Great meeting today, guests and high numbers!
Worthy oscar winner Paul, with or without the extra competition!
A great 10 minutes from Terry and his assistant Paul.
Apologies for c*cking up the video today, I actually wanted to watch a few bits back (like Tobys ed slot) but I was clearly fat fingered somewhere on the buttons!
Great blog notes by Catherine and a really enjoyable meeting all round! I loved the Ed Slot by Toby and was beautifully edutained by Terry’s presentation with Paul B. Thanks to Paul C for being timer and Sarah for standing in for Ben. Visitors were the icing on the cake. Perfect!
Excellent meeting and lovely to hear the positive comments from one of our visitors confirming what we all know – that this is a really great group to be part of!
Well done everyone on an enjoyable and lively meeting- we must be doing something right judging by the comments of our visitor!