Daniel’s Birthday - Calmer approach on a milder day to the Comart Board Meeting with agreed £3-400K of capital expenditure very acceptable sales and profit Three Year Plan outcomes as the family celebrated Daniel’s Birthday and EEC Foreign Ministers blame lack of agreement on Thatcher’s intransigence and NUM regions call for National Ballot on strikes
On time to the office having calmed down and decided that the meeting would go ahead but without the pre-circulated written draft. Considering that we are working at a time of record activity and shipments and also that we are at the end of the holiday year when all staff have to take remaining leave – we have not done too badly in at least agreeing in principle what our three year plans should be. June was quiet and upset today and completed the mail in record time and copied my slides. A good Directors meeting this morning but David had made little progress on client questionnaires and sales enquiry processing and Ian was smouldering as usual in disagreement with my budget economies and product policy. The meeting considered record results for February with high sales, slimming stocks and even higher forecasts for the month of March as a whole.
After a buffet lunch during which we tussled with uneven sales projections for next year and the considerable overspending of Development in the current one, we called up the other two senior managers and went into an afternoon briefing on the three year plan. Interestingly we could meet my criteria for sales and profit and would seem to be able to finance our projected £300-400K of capital expenditure from allowed borrowings and to good effect on taxation relief. The meeting ended late and several of us off to the White Horse for a couple of drinks. Home at about 8.00pm to find the family only just arriving after a party to celebrate Daniels birthday at the Happy Eater. News today that the Foreign Secretaries meeting in Brussels failed to reach a compromise on the European budget to growing criticism on the intransigence of the British government. Also of a split in the National Miner’s Union with more than half of the regions calling for a national ballot. The river is well up on the recent and heavy rain but the weather more mild and normal for the time of year.