Brentwood Business Networking Meeting Review – 20th Feb

Chairman’s Business Networking Blog Thursday 20th February 2014.

A below par turnout, 16 members and 2 guests, Kevin Smith who is looking to join us when he next visits on the visitor’s day and Jay French who provides Concierge Services who was visiting for the second time and I believe also will be making an application to join, not all doom and gloom then.

The list of apologies for absence was substantial.

There then followed one of the more cheerful and enjoyable meetings that I can remember.

David Plumley himself delivered the Ed Slot. It touched on the basics of referral slips and activity slips, sort of back to basics. Nothing wrong with basics I might hear you say. No mention of Edward Deming the saviour of post war Japan, another plus I hear you say. It must be admitted however, that if the said Mr Deming had not performed his magic over the Nation of the Rising Sun we probably would not have all the electronic devices that beset modern society and David Plumley and Scott Griffiths, to mention but 2, would be out of a job.

We must content ourselves with thanking heaven for small mercies.

Low numbers enabled Mike Rogers to be generous in his bell ringing for the 60 second round, an unlikely state of affairs I also might hear you say. The old Curmudgeon also kicked off the 60 second round talking of a new range of products about to hit the market and complaining that the problem with the housing market was an absence of properties. He then referred us to Dean Caldon as the probable saviour of the economy if we were all just nice to him and make sure he has lots of business. It was mere coincidence that Dean was proudly displaying the Oscar on the table in front of him and considering the award of Oscar for this week. There then followed a rather nauseating and repetitious referral by various speakers to the virtues of the said Mr Caldon, rather blatantly aimed at courting his favour. Fortunately this was not picked up by Alan Moller our newest member who was seeking to convince us of the value of architectural lighting in our gardens.

Alan Shaw followed with a rather sweeping statement that he designed buildings. He apparently has a large scheme in the pipeline that might contain 60 units (what the older members of the group would have called a block of flats).

Next up was David Plumley who very successfully managed to list almost everything that both his domestic and commercial business did. He mentioned something about “with or without a hyphen” and berated slow and infected computers, but this substantial list, he wants you to understand, is the basis of his bread and butter.

Richard Reed then took David’s lead, produced an extensive list of various types of holiday in just about every part of the world. You need to be decisive when faced with the possibility of going to Panama, Cuba, New York, California, Dubai, Shri Lanka or New Zealand. At the moment I am trying to get away for a long weekend in Norfolk. Never mind…

Howard Bullock was sporting a rather debonair haircut and offered alternatives forms of investment, in these times of low interest rates, that could produce 4 ½ % guaranteed income. Apparently to qualify you have to be 65 or over and what was even more worrying, there were lots of people round the table looking interested.

Scott Griffiths talked Web Strategy, Kevin Radford satisfaction surveys; Nick Cooke referred us to beams, builders and building regulations. Tina threatened to cure people who were old and tense and again the heads popped up round the table.

We were also treated to the Redwood-Lee stare…or rather Kevin Radford was. I think he was silly enough to make a flippant comment during her 60 seconds. For those unfamiliar with the particular look, it conveys two messages at once, “Stupid Boy” and “I’ll see you later”. My only hope is, whilst trying to exist as a pillar of salt, he does not lose his enthusiasm for verse.

Brian Painter is about to depart on holiday, so he had to leave us with something to think about. What we got was the “flopping down in the chair 60 seconds” where we were forced to picture and smoker coming in after a hard day and lighting up. I never tire of hearing of all the chemicals that he would have inhaled with his first drag.

Of all the compliments paid to Dean, Kim was the most sycophantic telling him that she loved him. All to no avail and Dean went for the man who made best use of his 60 second, David Plumley.

The Business to Consumer Synergy Team had an excellent meeting on Monday and Richard Reed reported on this.

It was Tina Walker’s turn for the 10 minute slot in which she talked of how her business had developed to include meetings in car parks, brown envelopes and bunches of flowers. The challenge for you all is to arrange these into a well known phrase or saying and added to the comments of this Blog. Tina’s 10 minutes was well received.

After the meeting itself there was a committee meeting and because several of our members were not present but who will hopefully read this Blog please note the following:-

1. Next week is awards week for the previous year’s endeavours

2. As big a turnout as possible Please. The week following will be our visitors morning and we would like to spend some of the time at the next meeting agreeing everybody’s role’s at that meeting. This is very important and would be grateful if we could all make a special effort to turn up. A full house would be good.

On the subject of the visitors meeting, make sure you keep sending out the invitations.

I look forward to a good turnout next week.