Chairman’s Blog, Thursday 31st July 2014

20 members present plus Alex Pink, visiting us for the third time with a promise next week to make an application to join.  A good turnout given that the holiday season is upon us once again. As with our previous 2 weeks when we had even better turnout, there was a buzz to the meeting.
David Plumley’s Ed Slot was back to basics, in particular, tracking your referrals.  Both the ones that you give and the ones that you receive!!  The ones that you give, to not only ensure that they are followed up properly but to make sure those acknowledgements for the money are made.  On the other side of the coin, make sure that those that you receive are chased up and referred back to the referrer if nothing immediately comes of them and to make sure that they are, at the end of the piece of business, attributed and recorded.
Following such a studious theme I was hoping that the 60 second round would also reveal a theme, whether studious or otherwise. In that I was disappointed, although it was none the less entertaining.
With the Commonwealth Games going on, I seem to have been watching nothing but highlights on TV.  I will adopt the same principle and let you have some highlights from the 60 second round.
Marcelle was engaging, as she reminded us of what one side of her business did indeed supply, engagement rings.
Gary Waskett and Jennie Pritchard both declared themselves rushed off their feet.  Gary felt this arose from the economic recovery causing overtrading.  Clearly Jennie being busy means there is an increase in trading and it presumably means the banks are lending money!!
David Plumley talked about a Funeral Director in Hadleigh that represented good business whilst Kevin Radford explained that his business based in Hadleigh was not the Hadleigh in Suffolk  which apparently is a very pretty little town but the Hadleigh in Essex which is not.  Presumably because amongst other things it contains lots of Funeral Directors.
Richard Reed was advocating “cruising” and some special offers that lead into 2016.  When he named the Cruise Line and the extent of the deal he started speaking quietly so I couldn’t pick up the details.  Maybe it’s one of the travel industries best kept secrets.
Through the recent months we have not had our fair share of whimsy; Alan Shaw, its principal exponent however put that right and was at his whimsical best.  It perhaps had something to do with his having to turn up early to “man” the door.  He forgot to sign in the members register, until they were packing up at 7 am.
He then started his 60 seconds by telling us that he written a poem last week. This looked promising!  He then however declared that he couldn’t remember how it started and therefore…. told us of a recent visit to Kent where he had seen Ellen Terry’s house.  Unfortunately he had to explain that this was not a relative of this famous footballer but a well known film star of yore and thence a visit to a pub that had not changed since the Second World War. Not to the tune of threepence a pint but both buildings apparently (and here’s the architectural bit) exhibited fantastic spaces.
For the casual visitor or reader of this Blog Alan is in fact an Architect and provides architectural services…what else can I say!!

The final thing that I can report to you about the 60 second round is that I won the Oscar; largely because I pointed out that I worked from an office in Hockley which not only sounds like Hadleigh but is also a grotty town in Essex that also boasts a funeral director.
Vivienne Nwalema was the 10 minute presenter and it gave her an opportunity to introduce herself fully to the group and also show us a very slick video that promoted her business.  At the same time,
so slick was the video that it also promoted Alex Pink’s business as he had produced it……Her presentation resulted in a good response with many questions being thrown at her by the members.  Alan Shaw wasn’t letting us off the hook on whimsical stakes.  He asked a very pertinent question about whether she could transport cats to the Cayman Islands…yes that rights cats to the Cayman Islands, not caymans to the Isle of Dogs.  Apparently she can…. transport cats that is.  An excellent 10 minutes that allowed us all to understand her product and hopefully  enable members to spot referrals for her.
She even finished off her presentation with a little dance.  Part of the limbering up process for running in the referrals and testimonials round. A reasonable number of referrals and monies recorded produced a return for this month of £65,000.  If not the dizzy heights, it was a very solid performance this month, it will be difficult to replicate it in the month of August when holidays hit us but let’s see if we can beat it next month.

Until next week…