MEETING REPORT

Fabulous venue!

Our March Club Evening was at yet another new venue (we go to all the best places in Surrey!) - and a real blockbuster it turned out to be too. It was the historic Hand & Spear pub/restaurant adjacent to Weybridge Station, recently refurbished by Youngs Brewery, to the tune of a cool £1.2m.


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Lovely grub!

The early evening networking session was of the informal ‘get-to-know-you’ variety (after all, we were in a pub…) At around 7pm, the food started appearing – and it seemed it would never going to stop. We were presented with huge platters of spicy hot chicken portions, pizzas, salads, sandwiches and pastries enough to feed an army, which meant that several attendees went home with well-stocked doggie bags. Thanks are due to Youngs for so generously sponsoring our meeting.

The Pub Landlord…

Our first presenter was the venue’s Manager, Andy Cockram, who gave us a whistle-stop tour of the delights of the Hand & Spear. Andy invited us all to join their Privilege Club there and then, which many of us did, to receive special offers and notification of future events. If you haven’t discovered this upmarket venue yet, you really should. The food is fantastic, and the atmosphere is buzzing – it wouldn’t be at all out of place on the King’s Road! Find out more, and see some great photos (including Andy’s cheery grin!) on their website - www.handandspear.co.uk

Heather’s Update

Next up, we had a short presentation from SBC Member Heather Godfrey to bring us up to date with developments in her budget priced Contact Management software suite. Members will remember Heather’s fantastic Labeller software - offered free to SBC Members at a previous meeting. Since then Heather has refined and expanded the functionality of all the elements of ContactMaker, and the price is still incredibly low (with discounts for Members) – check it all out here at www.godfreydata.co.uk

Uklick – and we do the rest!

Our main speaker for the evening was another SBC Member with a fnatastic software success story – Gerry Brierley of Uklick. Gerry is an award-winning businesswoman, a qualified and experienced micro-light pilot, and the brains behind a suite of innovative online products for small businesses. Her range now includes products for Marketing, Fire Safety, Employment Law, Health & Safety and Data Protection – for the full story, visit www.uklick.co.uk

Last-minute technical gremlins with her laptop meant that Gerry had to abandon her PowerPoint presentation, and instead she gave us a very informal and entertaining account of her rise to fame, and the perils and pitfalls of setting up an online business – especially if you’re not particularly technology-oriented.

She told hair-raising tales of women inventors and their products (some of which cannot be mentioned on this website – use your imagination!) and of wrestling with software developers, negotiating with major banks and Microsoft, and a host of other adventures she went through to bring her products to market. You have to admire Gerry’s dedication – and her achievements – and we thank her for sharing it all with us.

So, yet another great Club evening drew to an end - and the Beverage Circle had all of ten yards to adjourn to the sofas in front of the fire for their nightcap. Cheers!