Hi Everybody

Well that's the way to do BNI… 61 referrals, 2 new members, 1 application handed in and between the insults and laughter a lot of serious business being passed.

Our 60 second swap day seemed to me to work well, it's one of those marmite things…  Experienced BNIers have strong opinions about whether its a good idea, or a waste of time and your membership fee! The usual main complaint is that it's confusing for visitors, I think our idea of pairing people up got round that, and spotting who had done their homework and who was just reading someone else's words was enlightening.

If there were a prize it would have to go to Tudor's unlikely pair of cross dressers… Chris Stock and Magda Dunne, who took the swap idea to the max by coming dressed as each other!  Anyway its at best an occasional exercise, and thanks to everyone for getting into the spirit of it, where else could you see an electrician talking dentures and a garage owner explaining SEO?

We agreed that we would not be meeting in the first week of January, so after Dec 20th you get 2 consecutive Tuesday lie ins! and back to BNI on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012.

We also agreed to take up David Wimblett's offer to run a workshop after a meeting, around the end of January, preferred topic would be Referral Skills, more on that when we can talk dates etc.

Before all that, we have the last week of the game next week, I haven't seen this week's scores yet, but sounds as though the Profumo Affair could still be beaten, but only just! The fact that we started with 5 teams of 5 and could have finished with 5 teams of 7 (if it wasn't a bit pointless bringing new members in at the last minute)  tells you all you need to know about how it went! We will talk prizes for the winners next week, my vote would be for a meal out, with the winning team not paying, maybe in the dark days of late January when Christmas is just a memory…

Nikki organised a draw for 'Secret Santas', gifts to be delivered on the 20th, max £10, NO alcohol please…  and needless to say if you will be subbed on that day, please make arrangements to get your gift to the meeting! We will also, as ordered by Tudor's Dress Code Tsarina … be attired in festive headgear on that day!

Notable Networker certificates this month went to Nikki for a truly outstanding performance in the Tudor Game, both personally and bringing her team with her. Also Rod Gilson for his, unseen by most but vital, help in getting everything set up for each meeting. The stats for last month show that 7 members gave 10 or more referrals, Victoria reliably top scoring again with 25, Stephen on 20 and Sandra on 15. Money thanked for was an impressive £58,000, which would make our current half million target an easy ask, and as Nikki told us the cards have not yet caught up with the 50 plus referral weeks we are now getting used to. Anybody still think that growing the chapter is a waste of energy

Training! next Monday morning at Kew,

http://www.bni.eu/trainingevents.php?region=6

you need to book and pay online, credit / debit card or paypal, and it's the last chance to gain 50 game points. The deadline for a visitor to put in an application that will count in the game is 9.00am on Tuesday 13th. And of course qualifying 1 to 1 meetings will need to be completed before that meeting! Hopefully we are all now seeing how valuable those are and will continue after the game.

Matt will be circulating some info about power teams in the coming week, and we will see how we can use those to our advantage in the New Year.

With kind regards