Gants Hill’s favourite son wowed us

A bright sunny morning played host to a bright sunny meeting with 29 Members and two Visitors present.  A new record for this venue of 31.  We squeezed everyone in.

Existing Member Renewal

This week we were delighted to report that David Plumley has had his membership renewal approved by our committee, and now begins his 14th year as a member of our group! (I think?!)

The Performance League

It is the first Thursday of May.  The previous month showed Saj Sreedharan as the winner ahead of Scott Griffiths by just a point, well done Saj.

Education Presentation

The Mayor of Gants Hill, Vince Good, produced a well-illustrated exposition upon the value of business cards.  A shameless celebration of items that he produces.  However there is no reason why a member should not bring their own professional experience to bear in producing an Ed Slot. It was excellently prepared and pointed out exactly what you could do with business cards….. He referred to them as a key marketing tool, suggested a photograph might be useful and that if they were cheap they gave an impression that you were cheap.  He also emphasised how being a Mayor influences his expectations as to how he the litter he creates is dealt with…by fellow counsellors of course.

The 60 Second Round

Kevin Radford, as holder of the Oscar, went first and talked risk management.

Marcelle Saad gave us insight to the extent of the services that she offers by confirming that repairs that she dealt with to jewellery she previously had produced for a client,  a ring that had been bent during a move, was repaired to its former glory and without further charge.

Dan Wright gave an interesting cultural exposé. Apparently, a million Euros are thrown into the Trevi Fountain.  It wasn’t quite clear on the timescale but this can be the sort of money that you might lose if you did not get the Euro exchange rate right.

Anna Marie had her assistant Holly with her as a guest and her 60-seconds was a double act.  She always gives the impression of loving what she is doing.  Toby Action followed her and emphasised that his workshops and peer monitoring were all aimed at getting people to do what they love doing, consigning everything else either to the bin or to somebody else.

The success story of the week was Matt Barry, in conjunction with Jill Willis, winning a contract with Brentwood Council against stiff and much bigger opposition.  A round of applause was given to both and well deserved.

Tagline of the week was Tina Walker indicating her willingness to “….get in the car and just drive.”

Mike (Retro) Rogers has been chewing the cud with his “compliance man”. He has been brokering mortgages since April 1989.  The process has been speeded up considerably by technology.  What previously took weeks now takes days.  He appeared disappointed that he could not berate technology for making it more difficult rather than less.

The prize for gobbledegook of the week had to be shared between  IT and Web design members.  David Plumley talked about there being a lot of “XP” out there and something about  “Wanadu” or was it “Xanadu”.  Scott Griffiths talked about “word press 5.2” and health check features. Both of them are looking to attract punters by making them realise that they are out of their depth unless they are consulted.

I am going to mention Richard Reed a I know he gets upset if |I fail to do so.  For good reason in fact.  The downturn in the travel trade with Brexit etc means there are lots of good deals going around.  A Mauritius deal that was 30% cheaper than last year was an example that he gave.

John Freeman came, went and came back.  A customer had a leak.  It was clearly the customer because he was out for far too long for it to be him.  Dean Caldon arrived late but as always, better late than never.

If Scott Griffiths and David Plumley confused to attract clients, Nick Cooke, with his structural reports, likes to try and give his clients peace of mind.  Somebody else who wants to give peace of mind is Brian Painter.  He was looking this week for people who have a fear of flying in order to remove this fear and give them peace of mind from this particular phobia.

So who won the Oscar.  Vincent Goode had excelled himself in preparation for today’s meeting and preparation means prizes!!! Following on from his Ed Slot, he produced a poem for his 60 seconds and it was a deserved winner.,  Although a single poem does not qualify him for Bardship, it is a step along the way.

This weeks statistics and points of note

• 29 members present

• 2 visitors

• 119 Referrals last month

• £111,000 of business recorded last month

• 31 Referrals today

• £16,000 worth of business recorded

• Vincent Goode won the Oscar

10-minute presentation by Howard Bullock

His use of the screen was magical. Every item displayed, when removed from the screen, seemed to be an “event horizon” reminiscent of Star Gate. The rebel leader of the Naughty Corner performed well and brought financial planning onto a new plane of understanding for all of us.

Referrals and Testimonials

As our numbers increase at the meetings, so do the numbers of referrals and the amount of business recorded.

This apparently self-evident statement should always be borne in mind; good turnouts like today and an increasing membership will provide value to all of us.

Sockathon

It is open season for gaudy socks.  David Plumley had multicoloured stripes but subtle.  Nick Cooke wore red and white stripes erring on the side of gaudy.  Vince Goode was a glorious explosion of multi-colour, Howard Bullock’s were white and grey.  Toby Acton’s were almost indescribable….no completely.  John Hammond was probably just the winner this week because he managed to have socks with individual toes or so it appeared.  If ordinary socks are the equivalent of mittens but for the feet his were gloves.

Skin coloured “socks” were sported by Saj and Mason.  Jill Willis was also the same but somehow, on a purely sexist basis, skin colour seems to be ok with women or at least, more so than men.