HAPPY New Year.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve not had that negative feeling that often accompanies the return to “normality” after the festive celebrations.
Even the prospect of having to complete my VAT return this week didn’t dampen the positivity.
Or having to undergo a prostate check at the doctors.
Or the heavy snow and ice that have hampered activities all week.
Perhaps it was the fact that celebrations have been extended into the New Year thanks to an invitation to Sir Gary Verity’s 81st birthday party.
Well, not exactly his 81st, but a joint birthday party with his daughter Lily, who was 21 years old last year while her father hit 60.
Guests gathered at the super Yorebridge House Hotel high in the snowy Yorkshire Dales for drinks and dinner and a very entertaining speech by Gary.
“Are you going to put this in your blog?” said Lily.
Chortling, her father said to me: “She seems to think your blog is a bit like that column Nigel Dempster used to write in the Daily Mail, charting all the people he’d had breakfast, lunch and dinner with!”
“To be honest, she’s not far wrong is she?” I replied.
Any pretensions I had for this blog to be a weighty and erudite commentary on the big political and social issues of the day went out the window years ago – or should that be down the drain?
So I was very happy to pose for a photo with Lily, a very lively and bright law student currently studying in Leeds, and give her a firm commitment that it would appear in my weekly blog.
At least it will provide her with some good conversation with regular reader Michael Michaelson the next time she bumps into him in his ‘Michelin Man’ coat at a Leeds United match.
Well, they don’t want to spend the entire time talking about their team being top of the table do they?
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THE party was a nice opportunity to catch up again with Baron Sentamu of Lindisfarne in the County of Northumberland and of Masooli in the Republic of Uganda – better known as the former Archbishop of York, John Sentamu – and his wife Margaret.
I first met him years ago when he was one of the guests of honour at a Variety Club Yorkshire Business Awards lunch at the Queens Hotel in Leeds and we sat beside each other on the top table.
If my memory serves me right, I either had Miss World or one half of the TV cooks the Two Fat Ladies on the other side of me.
Neither of them would give me their phone number.
I reminded Margaret Sentamu that I met her when I interviewed her for a business profile in the Yorkshire Post.
She had joined the headhunting firm Odgers, responsible for recruitment in the ‘third sector’.
Margaret wasn’t there for very long and has since been ordained as a priest in the Church of England.
She and her husband moved to Berwick-upon-Tweed following his retirement as Archbishop of York.
Despite his popularity and their many friends in Yorkshire there was a requirement that he didn’t live within the area where his successor operates.
Margaret and John were great company and we chatted about a whole range of subjects, from the challenges facing the Church of England, regional devolution – and the beauty but biting wind of Northumberland.
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ONE event I attended before Christmas that I didn’t get the chance to write about was the UK Israel Business Breakfast.
This is a regular event in Leeds that brings together a really diverse group of people to hear from fascinating speakers.
The two speakers at the December event were Mark Harris and Karen Harris – who are not related.
Mark is the former leader of Leeds City Council who now runs a very successful environmental business called Andel, based in Barnsley.
When asked about what he was most proud of during his years as leader of one of the biggest councils in the UK, Mark thought for a moment and then told the audience that it was helping to try and bring the city together in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, which were carried out by four suicide bombers, three of which were from Leeds.
Karen Harris is a Yorkshire-born serial entrepreneur who built her success in PR and marketing in London.
After building and selling several ventures, her latest is called StoriBoard.
Interviewed by telecoms entrepreneur Marshall Frieze at the event, she explained StoriBoard is helping people across the UK meet people with similar hobbies and interests in an informal and relaxed atmosphere.
It is an app and has a website and participants take a quiz which matches them for dinner with others, currently in London or Bristol.
An opportunity for people to meet like minded individuals and have a bite to eat at the same time.
As Marshall summarised: “Not only does it help its members, it also helps restaurants out on what is normally one of the quietest evenings of the week.”
It is an interesting venture which addresses one of the increasing challenges of modern society: loneliness and wanting to connect directly with people rather than through social media.
The venture is looking for further investment for its next phase of growth so it can expand further across the country.
Karen told a really interesting story about her experience running one of her businesses.
A website manager she employed admitted to a huge mistake which had damaged the company.
He submitted his resignation letter to Karen as a way of saying sorry and taking responsibility for his mistake.
Impressed with both his honesty and humility she asked him to take the letter back and join the board.
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IT is a slightly truncated version of the blog this week as I’m attending a funeral in Harrogate later this morning.
Tony Armitage, a highly respected insolvency practitioner, died before Christmas.
Always cheery and full of fascinating stories, Tony was a regular reader of this blog and used to post some interesting and witty comments about it on Linkedin.
I can imagine plenty of people will be there to celebrate a good man who had a life well lived but cut too short.
Have a great weekend.