Our speaker, Chantal Cornelius from Appletree, shared with us some tips on kick starting our marketing. If you missed it, or you’d like a reminder, there’s a summary of her talk on our LinkedIn group – just login to LinkedIn and search for the Wantage Business Breakfast Group.

Sponsors and Speakers

We’re busy booking newsletter sponsors and speakers for this year, so if you’d like to promote your business through the newsletter or by giving a talk at breakfast, please do get in touch.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Best wishes,

Dianne

Dianne@Appletreeuk.com

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed a well earned break! We’re looking forward to hearing all about it at our first meeting of this new year, on 18 January – read on to find out more about this meeting and how you can use it kick start your year.

A New Team

For some time now, Reg and Colin, who set up the Wantage Breakfast (and have been doing a great job of it!) have been wanting to pass the reins over to someone else. We’re in the process of forming a committee, so that they can both retire (from the Breakfast Club, at least) and as part of this, we have a new editor for the newsletter. At Appletree, I’ve been helping to publish the newsletter for a while and now I even get to do the writing! If you have anything you’d like to include – special offers for members, dates of events you’re running - please send them to me. We’ll publish on the first Wednesday of each month, so please send us your contributions by the last Wednesday of the month at the latest.

Newsletter Sponsors

We’re able to keep sending this newsletter due to the generous support of our sponsors. Read on for advice on starting up a business from Andrew Egan at Charles Lucas & Marshall.

If you’d like to sponsor an issue of the newsletter and write an article to help promote your business and share advice, the cost is just £50 +VAT. For this you also get your logo in the newsletter for 12 months and a link to your website. If you’d like support the newsletter, please get in touch by clicking here.

I look forward to seeing and hearing from you very soon.

Best wishes,

Dianne Beechey

Dianne@Appletreeuk.com

Last month we enjoyed our first breakfast meeting at La Fontana Restaurant in East Hanney and feedback from those attending was first class.

Our Breakfast Club has once again had a very successful year. We celebrated our 10th Anniversary in March when we held a very successful breakfast meeting at Williams Formula 1 Conference Centre when 102 members sat down to an excellent breakfast.

In the New Year a new administrative team will be formed when the Breakfast Club moves into its 12th Year. Please let us know if you wish to become part of that team, and meanwhile we wish to thank all members who have supported us, and have helped to make W&DBBC so successful.

Last month we held our first meeting at a new venue La Fontana, East Hanney, when 29 members sat down to an excellent breakfast. Feedback from those attending was first class.

We welcomed four new members:
Penny Curtis, Brilliant Basic Consultants,
Craig Gordon, Publishing Ltd/HR,
Ben Ralph, Jump Ahead, and
Sonia Roberts, Chapman Worth Accountants.

We hope they all enjoyed their first meeting, and we will see them at future meetings.

Our speaker was member, Major Hugh-Babington-Smith, Project Manager for Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust, who gave a very interesting talk on the Trust’s proposals to build a new state of the art museum in Woodstock. The finances are nearly in place, and they expect to start the project next year. They need an army of volunteers to progress its formation and then to keep the museum operating to a very high standard. Interested? – then please contact Hugh now.

Our Christmas meeting will take the form of a sit down lunch at La Fontana, East Hanney with the theme of an Italian menu, onWednesday 14th December from 12pm onwards. The cost of the meal will be £17.50 We hope you received the e-mailed booking form earlier but if you did not respond but wish to attend, please let Reg or Colin know by 5 p.m. today, Monday 12th December.

Reg and Colin would like to wish all members a very happy Christmas and prosperous and successful New Year

We look forward to seeing a number of you on Wednesday.

With kind regards

Reg and Colin

Last month we returned to Richmond, Letcombe Regis. 32 members sat down to a delightful breakfast and we were certainly privileged to be joined by six of the management team including Managing Director, Paddy Brice. We also welcomed 4 new members

• Nina Huckin, new Manager of HSBC, Wantage;
• Dan March, also from HSBC;
• Alex Sayers, Complete IT and
• Tom Walker who is not really new, but he is now with Henmans, Solicitors, Oxford.

We hope you all enjoyed the meeting, and we look forward to seeing you at our future meetings.

Comment on John Hill’s presentation at this meeting is shown below.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday 16^th November at a new venue, La Fontana,Oxford Road, East Hanney at 8am. (This is at the junction of Oxford Road/Steventon Road). Unfortunately our selected speaker is unable to join us at this late stage but another first class speaker has been approached. Details to follow by e-mail.

If you are attending please let Reg or Colin know by lunch on Monday 14^th November so we can advise La Fontana of our numbers. This of course can be done on line from this Newsletter.

We look forward to seeing many of you at this exciting event.

With kind regards

Reg and Colin

Last month we returned to The Lamb, Wantage, where the Wantage Breakfast Club had its inaugual meeting in February 2001, and this meeting was our 125^th.

We welcomed 3 new members:

Amanda Greenough, and Joshua Dear, both of Horsey Lightly, Solicitors who have recently moved to Wantage, and St John Dickson of CD Associates who is not really new, but has not joined us for many years.

We hope you all enjoyed the meeting, and hope to see you at our next meeting.

As you know Colin wishes to stand down in his role in the club, and take a back seat, but both he and Reg will carry on in the short term. Jeanette Howse had kindly prepared a paper entitled ‘The Way Forward’ and gave a short presentation on how the club should move forward. She outlined a proposal to put a small team together, and outlined the various duties.

We would be delighted to hear from members if they are interested in becoming a Committee member for 2012 – please see the pro-forma later in this newsletter. Please return this to Jeanette or Reg. Colin will stay on until the end of December, and hopefully a new team will be found by then, and start the New year with new blood. The future of Wantage & District Business Breakfast Club is in the hands of our members

Our next meeting is on Wednesday 19^th October at Richmond Village, Letcombe Regis at 8am. Our speaker for this meeting will be member, John Hill who runs Hands On Therapies. His presentation will be one of particular interest to everyone in business and entitled “Sharp practice and its role in your success!”

If you are attending please let Reg or Colin know by lunch on Monday 17^th October so we can advise Richmond Village caterers of numbers. This of course can be done on line from this Newsletter.

We look forward to seeing many of you at this exciting event.

With kind regards

Reg and Colin

We welcomed four people joining us for the first time -

• Peter Billyard of Charles Lucas & Marshall Solicitors
• Christina Nawrocki of Wellers Accoutants
• Gillie Barlow of Sophia Investments and
• Dianne Beechey of Appletree, who is the lady who organises our monthly Newsletter.

We hope they all enjoyed their first visit.

Our speaker was David Elliot who gave us a presentation entitled ‘The Red Carpet’. Further details are recorded below. An interesting statistic David told us was that after the publishers and others had taken their cost, the author only receives 21p per book. Thank you David for your very interesting and enjoyable presentation.

For our next meeting, our 125th, we are back at The Lamb Inn, Mill Street, Wantage where the breakfast club all began more than 10 years ago. This time our meeting will take the form of a discussion entitled ‘The Way Forward’.

As you all know Colin wishes to stand down with the administration of the club, and take a well-earned back seat! Jeanette Howse has kindly prepared a short paper outlining her thoughts on the future, a copy of which will be handed out at next week’s breakfast for discussion. Your ideas and thoughts will be most welcome and hopefully members will be interested in joining a new team.

We shall be delighted to see as many of you as possible at this important meeting – after all, the club is for your benefit, and hopefully many of you will have acquired new business from the many members you have met.

Please book your attendance promptly for Wednesday, 21st September commencing at the usual time of 8.00 a.m.

We welcomed the following who joined us for the first time and trust they will all become regular members -

• Rob Baker from Age Content
• Terry Demain, Wellers Accountants – now signed up as a full member
• Alison Hesketh, Time Finder Retirement Downsizing
• William O’Keefe, Gazebo Payroll Ltd
• James Smith, Countryside Contractors
• Karen Smith, Newbury Building Society

Our speaker was member John Harris, Managing Director of SMI (UK) Ltd, who gave us an excellent presentation entitled ‘Ambitious Plans for Your Business’ – please see below for details.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday, 17th August and a new venue for the majority no doubt – The Kingswell Hotel & Restaurant, Reading Road, Harwell (half a mile or so outside Harwell on the A417 to Pangbourne).

We shall be having a presentation with a difference this time from member, David Elliott, who will be telling us about ‘The Red Cap Project’ – please see below for further details.

We look forward to welcoming a really good number for this event at The Kingswell, which has a large car park.

This meeting will be at the usual start and finishing times of 8am and 9.30am and cost £10.00 as always.

Reg and Colin

Paul explained this was how the Wallingford Festival was created – from a simple idea, followed by telephone discussions with the event being held on Saturday, 14th May this year. The Festival was a huge success with 1,500 people attending.

The total expenditure was only £2,000, with many participating stall holders making a profit for their cause. A survey was carried out and 50% of the stall holders said they would return next year should there be another Festival.

Well done Paul. Our Breakfast Club clearly played a small part as Gerald Dickens, great, great grandson of Charles Dickens, was Patron of the event! Paul thought of the idea after hearing him at our 10th Anniversary at Williams F1 Conference Centre in March.

Finally, we look forward to seeing so many of you at next week’s 123rd breakfast meeting at The Lamb Inn, Mill Street, Wantage on Wednesday, 20^th July commencing at 8.00 a.m. Please contact us if YOU would like to give a presentation.

With kind regards

Reg and Colin

On this occasion quite a number of our members gave a short presentation and update on their businesses. A very interesting meeting enjoyed by all.

We also welcomed Marietta Maidman, a friend of Jeanette Howse, who is employed with Tourism South East in Southampton covering the Hampshire area (and yes, left home at 6.15 am and travelled all the way up from Soton to be with us!), and three new members Michelle Martin and her husband Charles of Chartas Accounting Services Ltd, and Catharine Arakelian of Oxfordshire Rural Community Council. We hope they enjoyed the meeting, and will join the Breakfast Club in the future.

As most of you know we can no longer have Lains Barn for our breakfast meetings. We are delighted to announce we shall be meeting at Richmond Village, Letcombe Regis on a quarterly basis but are looking for an alternative venue besides the Lamb – any ideas would be appreciated.

Finally, we look forward to seeing so many of you at next week’s 121st breakfast meeting at The Lamb Inn on Wednesday, 15^th June commencing at 8.00 a.m. Please contact us if YOU would like to give a presentation in the near future.

With kind regards

Reg and Colin

Our guest speaker, Oliver O’Dell from About The Place in Longcot gave a first class presentation on “Will place-shapers like us inherit the earth due to the BIG Society idea?” and the star of his talk was his large rhino called ‘Fleur’. A copy of the summary of this presentation and other details will be forwarded to members by separate e-mail.

Unfortunately as announced at our last meeting, we are unable to have our meetings at Lains Barn in the future – we are looking for other venues so do please let us have your thoughts … and of course at attractive prices too!

Finally, we look forward to seeing so many of you at next week’s 121st breakfast meeting at The Lamb Inn on Wednesday, 18^th May commencing at 8.00 a.m. Please contact us if YOU would like to give a presentation.

With kind regards

Colin and Reg