Has Benny Hill made a come back?

A night at the museum with all the creepy crawlies and dinosaurs. No, not another Network conference but the Financial Services Awards at the Natural History Museum as a guest of Financial Adviser. Recognition for excellent customer service which is going to be so crucial in our post RDR world. We were entertained by the diminutive comedian Dominic Holland who was very funny from where we were sitting at the front. Not sure that the people in the cheap seats at the back could see him!

He managed to get a topical joke in about the Virgin takeover of Northern Rock. He told us that the new organisation was going to be called Northern Virgin which would make it a very rare thing. Lol.

I was lucky enough to be sitting between Elizabeth Holt (Liz is how she likes to be known at FA) from Holt PR and Adam Samuel the illustrious barrister/compliance expert/long standing member of IFP Ethics Committee. As a result, I am all spammed up on matters regulatory and Financial Planning Week which is a good job bearing in mind that it is Financial Planning Week next week.

One of my observations this week on language is that “embargoed” now has a different meaning to journalists than one that was originally intended. Naively my thought was that this meant “please don’t use this information until the date shown”. Now, it seems that two papers see it as meaning “exclusive get it out now!” Thankfully no damage done in either case but just shows how important our communication skills are these days!

Dipping back into last night briefly, I was talking to a lady at one of the toilet breaks. She like me was just looking at the attendee list to see who else was at the dinner that we might like to see. In idle conversation she observed that she was not enjoying her seating position particularly. On the one side there was a colleague and on the other a guest who felt it was appropriate to touch her boobs and thigh during dinner. It would appear that somebody else had got carried away by being in the company of dinosaurs!

Last weekend my wife Jo had a 30 year school reunion at Redmaids in Bristol and I was the chauffeur. Having met her (not gone out with her initially) at school I too knew many of the ladies and it was great to see what they all looked like after all this time. I think I picked well to be honest but it was also great to see how having spent so many of your formative years with people, you can just pick up with them despite not having seen them for so long. It is also interesting to find out the issues that some of them had whilst at school that nobody was ever aware of.

The Scottish conference earlier this week was a great success but as with everything good, I would love more people to be able to take advantage of the value that is in these events. Daniel Priestley of Key People of Influence fame challenges people to consider what might be possible which is such a great mind set. To be successful over the next few years given the economic backdrop this would be a great lesson to us all. I love going to the event because there are so many good people and businesses up in Scotland and a great environment to chat amongst friends.  It was also interesting to reflect on more female experiences of middle aged men with paunches apparently becoming irresistible on the dance floor at the ends of evenings. Good fun and excellent sessions with much for us all to think on.

After Financial Planning Week which is gathering more and more momentum we will be looking forward to the South West Conference in Bristol on the 1^stDecember. Another top line up of speakers linked to a best practice day on the Friday for those who just want to dig deeper into a Planning area. As important as the speaker list is the delegate list and there are some great people already registered so if you can get along for some or all, it would be great to see you.

For those doubters of the benefits of using social media (appreciate that the number is now dwindling) we have seen a tremendous upside to the support of Financial Planning Week as a result of Facebook and Twitter in particular. Hopefully this will continue to escalate during next week and beyond which will make the 4^thFinancial Planning Week by far and away the most successful yet. Not too late for anybody to get involved and make some form of contribution to raising awareness. Have a look at the website and see how you can contribute.

Weekend to look forward to and catching up with friends and getting back out onto the tennis court after a few weeks off. Important month as I have met my goal for the year in getting into Box 2 and just need to stay there this month. Hope that you all have a great weekend.