Difficult domestic school arrangements before Chairman’s tour of Comart and paperwork, and then lunchtime Byte Shop manager job offer telephone calls before off to London for Datafit press conference (meeting industry and government contacts to secure our products continued use)and late wet evening meal with my three company MD’s to plan things.
A morning’s rush over breakfast as Diana struggles to get Daniel ready for school, Debbie ready for “rising 5’s” and packs my own suitcase for a night away this evening. Debbie now attends these classes four mornings a week and the idea is to provide the interim activity between Playschool and Primary School. There is a more structured environment with the introduction of the first ‘classes’ of physical education, stories, drawing and being taught to write.
To the office and the first hour visiting and talking to personnel in each Comart department. There is a stomach ‘bug’ going the rounds at the moment, now that the weather has turned chillier and the kids are back to school to spread these things back to their families. Poor Carlton Lowe is suffering from either it or something else and had to retire back to his Hotel during the day. He had a good day yesterday, however, interviewing key personnel and starting to build up a picture of how things are and ought to be from a manufacturing viewpoint.
Then to a morning’s work of paperwork and a closer look at the mail and resolution of aspects it revealed about the present way we are conducting our business. At lunchtime, my sandwiches and a long phone call with our new Manchester Manager, Robin Pimlott, declining several requests for variations from our normal personnel procedures but nevertheless agreeing Job Offers for certain new staff. We have above 20 vacancies at the moment on top of our total group establishment of over 160 positions.
I manage to trace David Fear at an Export I.T. Council meeting for directions to a Datafit Press Conference where NCC Director David Fairbairn spoke in support of this new product. The Davids tell me in confidence afterwards that Export IT had been saved from extinction by some behind-the-scenes work with the D of I. CSA Director Derek Eyions had nearly finished it off as being competitive with the CSA’s activities but David had intervened just in time with Alistair Macdonald. The Datafit Conference with invited dignitaries and press was a necessary opportunity for Comart to underscore their confidence in choosing to present their product on the Comart Communicator Micro. To be seen to be supporting the event was necessary in David Fear’s case and desirable in mine to counter the common plea Datafit people receive of ‘Why not provide it on the IBM?’ The modularity of the Communicator suits their super expendable database software and we succeed in getting them to stick to their guns.
To the car in the Portman Square car park, not far from the Selfridge Hotel, and on to Southampton, arriving at 8.45pm at the Dolphin Hotel in the city/dock area. As I park the car I meet Geoff Lynch and John Lamb and rendezvousing with Peter King in the bar we go for a meal together in a local restaurant. We eat tornedos steak which is enjoyed but the service was so slow our enjoyment was spoilt and we were after midnight to bed. A wet evening.