Chairman’s Blog – Meeting Thursday 29th November 2012
A good turn out – 26 members and 1 guest, Peter Hood for the second time. I understand that he is threatening to make an application to join.
The Education Slot had David Plumley talking about incentives which leads me to suggest that in addition to any blog you might wish to make on the website if you have any incentives currently available that members can offer when trying to obtain referrals for you perhaps you could let us all have details in a comment to this blog.
It is always good when the 60 second round is kicked off by Alan Shaw, it sort of sets the tone. This week was no exception and he did not disappoint. He apparently has in recent weeks spent 15 hours at the BBC which strictlyspeaking was in the BBC bar or was it that he was watching “Strictly”, but also went to the bar. Apparently it was very good and that he was actually there. He now wants to design a house for Tess daily…..talk about infatuation! Come on Alan…… to design a house is one thing, but to do it daily for one person seems a bit excessive.
So Alan raised our expectations for the rest of the round and whimsy was everywhere. David Plumley treated us to a semaphore of hand signs (do you think semaphore can be used as a collective noun?). He was illustrating support, service and supply. The sex industry also uses hand signs for those services David.
Nick Morgan revealed that he and his staff regularly use tape measures and Geoff Todd declared that he was looking for anything that sticks out of the ground. He failed to elaborate as to what he would do with it when he found it. Graham Wright told us of the long lost son who wasn’t really a son and Mike Rogers boasted a new diary with no entries in it. When I introduce the 60 second round to the meeting I use the following opening words:-
“….an extremely valuable time in the meeting where everyone is given 60 seconds to further our knowledge of their business.”
The fundamental requisite of saying what you did was singularly absent from the aforementioned contributors, apart from Mike Rogers who declared he was the best insurance broker at the meeting. Everybody that followed jumped on the bandwagon, but the whimsy persisted.
Howard Bullock was seen preening his moustache with a fork. We do not know, but he will probably enlighten us with a comment to this blog; was it a clean fork, the fork that he had used for his breakfast or the fork that one of his near neighbours had used for their breakfast? I can report to all those who were not there, however, that he was roundly rebuked from the Chair and to be fair to him, he did put the fork down immediately. It was only after the meeting, when I recalled the scrambled egg (it was exceedingly hard and crumbly) that it dawned on me that he was probably clearing crumbs of scrambled egg from his well developed moustache. I must admit to running my fingers through my own facial growth to check myself over for errant scrambled egg. Whilst I was at it, I checked for mushrooms, baked beans and even small pieces of bacon.
I am pleased to report that none were found and I am hoping with the publication of this blog there will also be published on our website the photographs of all those members and their moustaches and you can check it out for yourselves.
Back to the reality of the 60 second round – Brian Painter cheered us all up with a stocking filler suggestion – his business card for every smoker. He added Christmas cheer by warning of the dire effects of smoking in order to emphasise how good a Christmas stocking filler the Pilgrims card would make. Adrian Crosdale seemed unimpressed, but then he was able to educate us all further about lights. Apparently there are two types, bright lights and cool lights. Choose the right light and your street cred will go sky high which was also true of Kevin Radford who this week managed to delight us all with poetry of the highest quality in praise of – yes you’ve guessed – the moustache, coupled of course with RMK. The Bard of Rayleigh was justly rewarded with the Oscar.
So David Plumley produced the Education Slot, he gave us a rather bizarre 60 seconds, he regaled us with the Power Group Report (Business to Business) and then, in case we might have forgotten about him for a few seconds, he produced a 10 minute slot of the highest quality. Several of us including Brian Painter were forced to acknowledge that we had understood virtually everything he told us. You see, it was all about clouds, dongles and machines being able to access one another….simples!!
Despite everything that had gone before, however bizarre, however whimsical, the referrals round brought us down to earth in an uplifting sort of way – in excess of 25 referrals and recorded business of £18,300.00. Although Scott Griffiths will produce the precise figure the business passed for the month was in excess of £90,000.00 and consistent with our recent good monthly performances. It is these statistics that justify our existence, support our eccentricities and probably make us one of the best referral based networking groups there is.
Please let your comments flow whether in relation to moustaches, scrambled egg, anything that you could think a fork could be usefully used for over and above the transportation of food from plate to mouth or just how much you enjoyed the meeting.
I look forward to the first meeting in December. May all your Thursdays be ………….
Another successful meeting and I can support the claim that EBF is the best networking group around.
Sent by the best Travel Consultant around – me.
(P.S. – note, there are no “probablies” in my statement).
This type of meeting makes me realise why I get up early each Thursday . it was at times a little surreal , no more so when Brian played an imaginary game of tennis during his sixty seconds and the fact that he was splendidly dressed in the colours of wimbledon and then went on to display his acting skills as he sobbed into his handkerchief added so much to the occassion that I thought I was staring at Andy Murray .
It was an oscar winning performance in its own right and probably would have won had it not been for the fact that the person awarding the Oscar is a smoker and probably didnt really appreciate being told that he was going to die a horrible painful choking death . A good Tip is to remember who won the Oscar when preparing your 60 second presentation. (Next week you can include things like devilishly handsome -i will be listening)
One other small point Aidan in what otherwise was an excellent recollection of the meeting is the fact that I am the best Insurance Broker in the room and Mike is the best at doing something else.
Finally I would like to congratulate all the splendid Mo’s in the room (yes including Jason) , I have made my donation I hope you will all support them. Well done
In Response to Davids suggestion of offering incentives i am offering a quality bottle of wine to anyone who introduces a new client to me that i take on- no matter what the type of work- i only have to actually take on the client (rather than a quick discussion that leads to nothing) for you to qualify and there is no limit .
so if you want to stock up your wine cellar for christmas on me get me some clients that i take on and the booty is yours!
Hi Terry
Just so we get this straight are you referring to the wine bottle size that David had on display -if so I will need to get Neil to build me a smaller wine cabinet.
Thanks Kevin,
You- insurance broker
Mike Rogers-mortgage broker
Me- apologies for speaking with forked tongue
I have to protest. I did clearly state what we do, we use tapes measures. Ok not the most stunning revelation but apparently something that is not the case with one of our competitors.
Can I just add that were it not for the tache’s and that we were doing it for Movember, anyone might think what a strange picture.
Well done though everyone. Great meeting and lots of business passed.
A splendid meeting and well refereed as usual.Tina was the only lady in attendance
Where were all of you? Out buying presents for us lucky lads?
It was a great meeting indeed. Alan certainly didn’t disappoint.
I always look forward to EBF meetings.
J
Great photo and I was the only lady there with all these men – how lucky was I …..