Chairman’s blog Thursday 14th November 2024

Fabulous turn out, 25 in all including;  visitor Tracey Johnson, George standing in for Paul Corrigan and Roger Malyon providing support for Jane who was presenting her 10 minute slot this week.

The Performance League

After one week, Jane Malyon is third, Scott Griffiths is second way out front with 264 points is Matt Barry. Scott Griffiths set a record last month, at this rate Matt will be challenging that total. Watch this space……..

Education Presentation

The Mayor of Gants Hill Village was in fine form, giving top tips as to how successfully run your business with particular reference to pricing your goods. Various quotations from successful entrepreneurs were distilled to the basic premise that people are looking for quality and value ahead of cheapness but that £3.99 is always a better sales pitch than £4.

New Member Induction & Existing Member Renewal

Terry Maylin reported that there were several members up for renewal, which renewals were being given consideration by the membership committee.

The 60 Second Round

Toby Acton was our adjudicator for the Oscar and he gave us a slightly shorter version of his usual presentation emphasising that his job was to create clarity, direction and focus in guiding his business owner clients.

Matt Barry was in celebratory mood as one of his designers had won an award and was up for another.

Melissa Jackson once again emphasised that she was not all about winding up companies. She has recently helped a business transfer its viable areas to another company and shed those parts of the business that were not successful.

James Humphreys has recently been spending time in pubs and restaurants and was keen to promote the fact that you do things that you like doing well. He has some really good insurance products for the hospitality industry and we should be looking out for him for these.

Vincent Goode was definitely into lists today. His Ed Slot had a list of tips and his 60 seconds was just the same. This time it was a list of the printing products he can produce including Christmas cards, Menus, Thank You cards and Orders of Service to name but four.

It was nice to see Clara Downton back in action and she  was able to reassure us that even though she might not be around for the in the coming week or so it was very much business as usual.

This week we appear to have been mercifully short of Christmas promotions but Ben Golding was seasonally inclined to point out that to get people to join Utility Warehouse and thereby save  money was effectively a Christmas present and Blake Hammond, although he did not mention the C word In a festive way used it to describe ‘not feeling warm’ and suggesting the answer to this was to buy one of his hoodies. Nick Cooke also didn’t mention Christmas but was looking at one of Santa’s entrances and exits, namely a chimney for a lady who had blocked it off. He was going to see her in order to decide whether she needed a steel beam.

Joshua Ayettey had cause for celebration having just had confirmation that he can now call himself a ‘chartered’ architect.  It’s always great to achieve qualifications although some of us have to cast our minds a little too far back into the past to remember. Congratulations Joshua!!!!

Terry Maylin and I were both singing from a similar hymn sheet…. sort of. Terry, who will sue anyone for anything, was specifically looking to find commercial clients with commercial disputes whereas my theme was the changing face of employment law, both as to changes in workers’ rights and the likelihood of redundancies with businesses who are finding themselves with the potential of a higher National Insurance bill. If you could find commercial enterprises who have both litigation disputes with their customers and problems with their current contractual terms or redundancy issues  they will have a real problem but you can contact either of us.

Scott Griffiths can help businesses who are looking to set up e-mail services. Google and Microsoft can be expensive. He has a budget provider that can produce cover for no more than £2.50 per month.

Toby Acton finally awarded the Oscar to the good news story of the week, Joshua’s professional advancement.

This weeks statistics and points of note

This week there were 18 referrals and in excess of £8000  worth of business recorded

10-minute presentation by Jane Malyon (and Roger)

The Jane and Roger double act leapt into action. The hands on part of the business constructed an impressive Dagwood whilst Jane displayed crustless sandwich fingers which the bloke sitting next to me was getting quite excited about, and regaled us with tales of cream teas consumed in Cornwall, Devon and elsewhere around the world. We all got to sample brownies and as always, we were all left with a smile on our faces