Chairman’s blog Thursday 1st July 2021 – International Joke day

It is international joke day, the sun is shining and by 7:22 we had 28 members in attendance plus one guest, Brad Scott.

The Performance League

With June now over the winners for the month were announced. Excellent contributions and points recorded for 3 members who topped 200+ points. Terry Maylin in 3rd place on 205 points, Alison Bean with 214 points, but the clear winner was Matt Barry on 276. All reset now for July.

Education Presentation

It was Paul Dulieu presenting this week and his subject matter was PowerPoint presentations and the pitfalls.

We were treated to a series of illustrations that showed various instances of bad presentation. Watch the colours, be consistent with font size, make bullet point messages simple, avoid large blocks of text, use charts sparingly and avoid crazy transitions and inappropriate sound effects. Very entertaining and as always with Paul, well presented.

Membership Matters

It was announced by Terry Maylin that Vincent Goode has added to his responsibility of Mayor of Gants Hill and taken temporary charge of the membership committee in Richard Reed’s absence.  And he has already exercised his authority in approving Sarah Steel’s renewal. Well done both.

The 60 Second Round

Paul Dulieu was awarding the Oscar this week and he was followed by Stuart Smallcombe whose company has been busy in Birmingham doing something for Renault, Colin O’Connor has taken on job in Northampton and Nathan Howson had to respond to an emergency near Hyde Park…..we do get about don’t we.

Howard Bullock has been involved in advising on cryptocurrencies this week; beware they are a gamble rather than an investment.  Maybe he thought he was advising on the Euros but who would have predicted that England would beat Germany.  A great result even though some of us thought it would have been more satisfying to have won on penalties.

Toby Acton spent his brief holiday eating chips on Brighton promenade in the rain……  More like snorkelling than deep diving.

Tina Walker claims she has an extra pair of hands but a rerun of the video makes it clear that she considers herself to be an extra pair of hands.

In the spirit of cooperation with our “European friends”, as Boris Johnson would say, the Mayor of Gants Hill has been doing his bit by producing a poster at very short notice for a German client that was  to be used on match day.

Simon Essex’s strange request of the week was a plant not only to be a design feature but also one that a child could eat safely.  Cabbage or spinach comes to mind.  Talking about vegetables, Jane Malyon assured us that she does produce a vegan hamper but I thought she spent more time on promoting her Cote de Boeuf hamper.

Ben Golding, never known to miss an opportunity to promote UW, managed to sign up a nurse following his stay in hospital  No wonder he looked well!

So who of the aforementioned worthies won the Oscar?  Paul plumped for Mr Bullock and his willingness to dive into the murky world of the internet.

Matt Barry’s Beautiful Game Bash

Although Matt was not with us following an adverse effect from his second jab, Sarah Bell announced that she and her fellow Sarah had nominated  Farleigh Hospice as the charity to receive the designated proceeds from the sweepstake… and by the way, England won 2-0 !!!

10-minute presentation by Terry Maylin

This time Terry treated us to clarification of the eviction process in relation to residential premises with the sort of detail that should make every landlord think twice before trying to do this sort of thing himself.

Terry is there for you and will get it right.

After Terry’s confident display we had a referrals and testimonials round which seemed to contain a few more referrals than usual, let’s make this a bumper July.

Hiding Hare

4 members found the hidden bronze hare statue at this weeks meeting. Well done Ben, Toby, Jane and Tina. Obvious once you’ve seen it really…