November’s Meeting on Thursday 6th at the new Ramada Plaza Hotel is a record as 135 people booked to go but sadly the hotel could only accommodate 120 seated.

The sponsors were Phil and Beverley Bunting of the SADLIGHT Hire Company, (www.sad-shop.co.uk) who gave a really interesting presentation on an evolving market which has seen them grow their business exponentially since 1996.  This includes on-line worldwide web sales also.

Much member networking went on well in excess of an hour past the close of the meeting.

Steve Heneghan of Business Link gave an overview presentation on the expanded Business Link services and their new hot desk arrangement with Sefton Chamber’s office.

The Focal Point interview was with Wesley Kinsella of Kindec Decorators, and he talked about the growing family business based out of Bootle and focused on their commercial contracts and some of their clients.  The CEO thanked Wesley and gave support to his family business which has grown substantially and is bucking the trend of recent economic predictions.

More bookings were taken at the event for the Prestige Ball on 6th February 2009 and Steve Dickson confirmed the simplicity of the awards entry process by highlighting on screen the five question submission document by using one of the awards as an example.  eg. New Technology.

Hugh Baird College, Bootle and their Workforce Development Programme is the newest sponsor of one of the awards. 

Bootle Town Centre Manager, Chris White was introduced to the room by the CEO as there were many new members and guests attending and he covered some of the programme achievements in the last two months and the unveiling of “Brand Bootle” which is planned for later this month and will be shown at the next meeting at Aintree.

Sandra Gee, Membership Executive also welcomed the guests to the meeting and confirmed that 131 new members have joined in 2008 so far, and thanked the many existing members for their introductions and referrals to new members.

The significant song to finish the meeting was “Hotel California” by the Eagles to celebrate the launch of the Ramada Plaza (albeit its west coast Northern England, and not Los Angeles!!!!)  Steve Dickson confirmed that he would ideally like to adopt one of the lyric lines from the song for the Chamber of Commerce, “You can check out any time you like…..  but you can never leave”

December’s Christmas lunch Thursday 4th, was encouraged to be booked and paid as soon as possible to avoid disappointment and that the Chamber of Commerce will list confirmed bookings on the website once payment has been received.

Christmas Lunch now Fully Booked (Update as at Wednesday 3rd December)