London Luton Airport Breakfast Network

Getting up in darkness when you have only had about three and a half hours sleep, is not to be recommended, but meeting people on as many occasions as is possible is an absolute essential for a Sole Trader, so get up I did, and I very nearly even had a full breakfast, but I reminded myself this was a Breakfast briefing!

I surprised myself by managing to make it leaving on time and thus arriving at Putteridge Bury about a quarter of an hour early. It was not long before the room began to fill, and I was meeting and chatting to a trophy manufacturer who was helping to set up a new database for the company he had newly joined. Then I got into conversation with someone offering Energy management and conservation services, followed by a security expert who was ex-Metropolitan Police, a Corporate Liability consultant, a Finance Officer and Marketing Manager for the Airport. Across the table was a representative of the local hospice Charity Fund Raiser – altogether a very varied collection of local business people there to listen to the speakers and link up with potentially useful partners in the future.

The talks themselves were largely to discuss how to look at ways to reduce one’s environmental impact, avoid waste and consider the finite nature of our resources and nurture them illustrated by the savings that could be made by monitoring our activities and our energy and material consumption. There was a large and receptive audience but with the entirely normal reluctance to enter into a dialogue with the speaker.

Once the speeches were over there was a further opportunity to move around and continue conversation, and I took this opportunity to grab some of the more intimate groups of people engaged in animated discussions either standing or still at the tables. A measure of my efforts in networking was that I ran out of business cards, now, whether anything comes out of this will be the true measure of any success.