Chairman’s blog Thursday 8th August 2024

The second meeting of August and despite holiday absences we mustered 19 and the sun shone on us.

The Performance League

After one week Paul Corrigan is in the lead, Paul Booth is in 3rd place and in between Scott Griffiths.

Education Presentation

Ben Golding highlighted an important aspect of our meeting for all members. There is a 60 second opportunity to present your business to the members, every few months you have an opportunity to present a deeper dive into your business with a 10 minute presentation and at the end of the meeting there is a referrals and testimonials round which confirms the business actually done and the referrals newly available. However you inter-react and maintain ongoing business by building your relationships with fellow members both before and immediately after the meeting itself. It can only be beneficial to the effective use of your membership by turning up for 6:30 am so that you have half an hour’s networking as well as breakfast before the 7:10 am formal start. You are not making best use of your membership if you do not turn up in good time.

The 60 Second Round

Ben Golding was adjudicating and kicked off with a reminder that Utility Warehouse offers the best rates at the moment. And with a likely hike in energy prices coming soon get something fixed with them.

A good news story came from Brian Painter whose 74 year old client was a smoker of long standing, a widower for 13 years and had met a lady of 62 who hated smoking. Brian is successfully helping him get his love life on the rails. In addition to giving up smoking he should be introduced to Chris de la Prida in relation to a £239 deal of attending an ABBA event Including ticket and overnight hotel stay with dinner thrown in.

Andy O’Neil reminded us that good clients for him were in the entertainment and hospitality industry. Pubs restaurants and bars should be in need of his services.

Jane Malyon warned of the approach of National Afternoon Tea Week and the ongoing debate about scon or scone.

Max Barry is currently preparing for his annual IBC conference in Amsterdam. Best of luck Matt!

Mike Skinner told of a job that went wrong that he expertly tidied up. Malfunctioning microphone was rescued by a backup one. Being the professional that he is, he had a contingency plan in place this ensured he did not lose a day of filming.

Although Tina Walker was not with us physically, she was in our minds as Neal Bellham sang her praises as to how she effectively put her hands to the pump in an event a recent event he was involved with the Blenheim Palace. He was particularly impressed by her ‘start to finish’ attitude

It is worth reporting that Toby Acton was not really here. Although technically on holiday he slipped out to escape the grandchildren for a short period of time. It had the added benefit of not exposing us to his usual metaphorical genius.

There followed a series of presentations that helped illustrate the professionalism of our members and why we can make referrals confident in the quality that we provide to clients. John Hammond rectified cables that a competitor placed in front of in front of a window. When he installs there are no cables on show. Vincent Goode produced a framed presentation of Howard Bullock’s trading jacket from his trading floor days and very impressive it looked! Blake Hammond  is back in restricted action following his gradually healing back injury. Scout groups and schools should look to his website for all of the camping equipment that they could want. He’s going on holiday, but not camping. Howard Bullock did not receive any panicky calls from clients when markets tumbled because he had already properly explained to his pension investors how individual fluctuations in the market should not make any real difference to their investment. Finally Terry Maylin successfully helped a client recover money by not only obtaining a judgement for him but also pursuing it through a third party debt order which freezes bank accounts.

The winner of the Oscar this week however was the alliterative Paul Corrigan who treated us to what might be the first of several ‘Tall Paul’s Top Tips’. Even though it’s summer and you might not need it, every now and then turn your central heating on albeit for a short period of time. This will save a call out in the autumn when you start using it proper.

10-minute presentation by Paul Corrigan

Carrying on from where he left off with the Oscar, Paul chose to give us a practical demonstration of his skills as a plumber of 25 years standing. He knows how to bend a pipe and also knows how to solder  Jane Malyon was first guinea pig and she demonstrated the possibility of a change of career in pipe bending. Ben Golding  was the the second contestant who successfully negotiated the art of soldering. Paul showed the foresight to have brought a fire extinguisher with him and the courage not to hold it whilst Ben was carrying out is allotted task. It’s nice to get something different in the 10 minute presentation.