Farmer's Markets - who owns them?

Posted by Ian Brown on December 1, 2007 9:43 AM

I'm Ian Brown a third generation tenant farmer from one 'limb' of the Brown family which goes back to Elsdon, Northumberland in the reiving 1600's but I am the first generation to see myself as a businessman and land manager.

Of course surviving in Rennington - or indeed anywhere else where the concept of public transport is just that a concept and where 'log on' tends to refer to a roaring open fire rather than wifi enabled laptop - is not easy but I am going to let you see the truth behind the green curtain. Although my feet are now rarely in wellington boots I am still 'hefted' to rurality - see my website for more understanding of the complexity Lee Moor Farm.

My first blog is all about my yesterday - the last Friday of the month is of course Alnwick farmers market and I have indeed some thoughts that I want your comment on

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Meet the manager

Posted by Andrew Mernin on December 7, 2007 9:15 AM

When was the last time you met your bank manager? For me I think it was back in the day as a student when I had to beg him for a bigger overdraft to get more magical beer tokens and..err...books.

But according to a Lloyds TSB study, over half of us (55%) haven't talked about a money situation with a bank manager for over ten years.

The fear of financial jargon was the most popular reason given by people who avoid having a chat with their bank's manager, while people also said they thought their financial aspirations wouldn't be taken seriously, or that they wouldn't benefit from a financial review.

It used to be the case that the bank manager was the pillar of society and had a responsibility to keep their customers on the straight and narrow in financial security and in the black.

And people used to say bank managers would only give loans to people who didn't really need them.

Today things have changed dramatically. Not only does it seem a lot easier to get into debt these days, the personal touch also seems to have gone and we're more likely to spend hours talking to a call centre in India or checking our account online than get within ten yards of our bank manager.

However, perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the Lloyds TSB survey was that those questioned said they would be much more likely to pay a visit to their bank manager if he was celebrity X Factor judge Simon Cowell, or This Morning's Phil and Fern, who came a close second.

My personal choice of celebrity bank manager would be boxer Floyd Mayweather who seems to throw money at anyone who goes near him.

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Just one of the team

Posted by Ian Wilkin on December 7, 2007 2:41 PM

One of the biggest challenges facing me on starting work with the hospital was integrating myself within the various teams that I was going to be working with and hoping to develop.

The luxury of a settling in period is not something I have.

I am only here for 4 weeks and there is an awful lot to be done in that time, much of which can only be achieved if I hit the ground running and have the support of various people from day one.

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The father, son and the Holy Geordie

Posted by Ian Wilkin on December 7, 2007 2:44 PM

Having spent my professional career to date working for Ernst & Young (one of the big four accountancy firms for those of you who may not know us, not to be confused with the jeweller Ernest Jones) in the North East of England it is quite a departure to working for a Christian mission led NGO Hospital in Africa and as such I am finding myself exposed to a whole new set of challenges and experiences.

One of the most obvious differences is the composition of senior staff as whilst typically I find myself interacting with Finance Directors and Controllers, CEO’s, owner/managers of small businesses etc here the composition of the senior team is quite different.

I was invited to attend the weekly management meeting early in the week where I was joined by the Executive Director of the hospital, the Matron, the Medical Director, the physiotherapist and the Spiritual Director, a Malawian pastor.

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Climate change on my doorstep

Posted by Ian Brown on December 9, 2007 9:19 AM

If 80% of the population are primarily motivated by fear or greed how come only half of them believe climate change is real?

I am passionate about statistics, but when I say that I love them that is only true about 92.4% of all statistics! However, when it comes to getting a clear message about climate change across in my back yard I think we need to be working at a level that does not have the words over-arching/strategic or mission critical in it!

At a conference this week organised by Northumberland Strategic Partnership at Linden Hall Hotel we focused our minds on what it means for my four children - and thier friends - as they grow up in the north east and Northumberland in particular

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Networking - African style

Posted by Ian Wilkin on December 10, 2007 10:16 AM

On the day I arrived into Malawi I was expecting to attend a black tie fundraiser for the hospital, an excellent opportunity to meet and greet the movers and shakers in the Malawian business community.

Unfortunately, there are few such people and when they move and shake they do so in a more relaxed unhurried style, and consequently just days before the event was due to be held it was postponed until Easter as a result of slow ticket sales. That’s not to say that the demand for such events isn’t there, however people tend to get round to doing things a little later than normal here.

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Women in IT

Posted by Judith on December 11, 2007 9:14 AM

Waterstons' Consultant Vanessa Karnebogen talks about Women in IT, or rather the lack of...

I recently read an article about a Gartner study on women in IT. It stated that only 25% of employees in the IT sector are female with a decreasing trend. So why is that? Is this industry still very much a male domain? Or are the majority of women simply not interested in IT and technology as soon as it goes beyond mobile phones and the Internet?

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While shepherds watched their flocks...

Posted by Ian Brown on December 16, 2007 2:45 PM

Is tradition a good thing? By definition it is something tested by time and the views of many -against an ever changing background. Two nativity plays at school and church have set this theme running in my mind. As regional chair of LEAF I also understand about a mix of traditional actions - such as rotations - being interlinked with the techno' solutions, such as GPS mapping of nutrient levels.

Christmas and New year is - while accepting the cultural mix elewhere in the UK - a time to think carefully about what course we should take in the next twelve months - farming circles have even more reason to be taking stock.

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Dragons' Den

Posted by Andrew Mernin on December 18, 2007 10:40 AM

I'm going to have to find something else to fill the void on a Monday night. Last night saw the end of BBC Two's brilliant Dragons' Den series.

Over the past nine weeks the sublime and ridiculous business ideas have been pitched to Britain's most no-nonsense venture capitalists.

My favourite moment was when one chap desperately tried to pass off little more than a sewn-up sheet as a potentially profitable device for carrying Christmas trees without dropping needles on your carpet.

The only problem with the Tidy Tree Sack was that it cost just as much as the average tree. And isn't hoovering up needles all part of the festive season - a sign that Christmas is coming to an end for another year?

Anyway, last night's episode also saw a first for Bannatyne and his well-heeled mates. Two young inventors pitched their unique two-in-one water carrier and purifier aimed at people in disaster-hit and poverty stricken areas. The pair needed £50,000 of investment. And guess what? All five dragons had a whip-round and put in £10,000 each. And so, for the first time, all five luminaries will be involved together on a business venture.

Now a cynical hack like me would say that this is great PR for the five entrepreneurs to be involved in such a humanitarian project. But it's also great to see that our universities continue to harness the country's top talent to produce solutions for the world's poorest areas.

And it's also heartening to know that this is something that's happening on our doorstep. I recently had the pleasure of meeting one of the North-East creators of a device to allow women with diseases such as Aids to breast-feed their children safely. The young entrepreneurs' creation looks set to make a real difference in disease-ridden areas all over the world in the future. Hopefully the new year will see other life-saving devices making the transition from our university laboratories into the market place.

Meanwhile ahead of the next Dragons' Den series I'm currently drawing up plans for my own money-spinning invention. Any ideas on a postcard please.

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The Final Frontier.....

Posted by Ian Brown on December 19, 2007 5:09 PM

I have been on nearly 40 business visits to Europe - and neighbouring countries - in last 20 years and each time come back full of determination to utilise the opportunities described.

I have spent the last 36 hours in Brussels helping to determine a new Erasmus scheme to host entrepreneurs across the 27 states of the EU.

As an entrepreneur I welcome this programme as I have learnt just as much off my fellow business colleagues over the years than from agencies. As David - a like minded Hungarian said to me - I learn most during the coffee breaks!

So why don't we in the north east think of european business opportunities more easily?

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Home and away

Posted by Ross Smith on December 20, 2007 3:51 PM

I've just got back to the office after accompanying a group of North East Chamber of Commerce members with international trade interests to a meeting with the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband.

We met at Ford Manufacturing Components in Mr Miliband's South Shields constituency - one of a growing number of successful exporters in the region.

What was most striking was the enormous level of optimism shown by those present.

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Managing your emotions… and managing with emotion

Posted by Ian Wilkin on December 21, 2007 10:18 AM

One of the biggest challenges I have faced during my time in Africa has been managing my own and others emotional responses to the situations that have presented themselves.

To give you an idea of just one of the many challenges let me tell you about an incident that happen yesterday but first you’ll need a little background. Due to the unpredictable nature of life here, coupled with the low incomes, staff are forever seeking loans and advances to meet unexpected expenses, typically medical bills and funeral expenses. In my time here I have learnt that staff advances are at an all time high, which imposes an increased burden on both the cash resources and the administration team, particularly as repayment will often be delayed and the loan balance topped up.

There was an easy answer to this, at least so it appeared, and I have suggested to others within the hospital that we should offer fewer loans, introduce stricter criteria and insist upon more timely repayment through automatic salary deduction. All well and good until yesterday when, with the executive director out of the hospital on business, a young man who works for the security team came to see me to ask if I could approve a loan.

With one loan already outstanding and this month’s payroll just two days away the answer was a fairly obvious “no”. Until you learn that the reason the loan was required is that the gentleman’s daughter has been admitted to hospital, some considerable distance from this hospital, with malaria. The chances of her surviving are slim and the money is to be used to allow the father to travel to be with his daughter and buy a few small luxuries to make her more comfortable.

All of a sudden my initial response appears wrong, the correct decision appears to be a fairly obvious “yes”. Of course I should approve the loan, however this is not an unusual situation here. The hard reality that faces us is that over the course of a normal year many, if not all, of the hospital staff will have a family member or close friend impacted by malaria, HIV/Aids, TB or any one of a multitude of other ailments or deaths.

Making the ‘right’ decision isn’t always easy, indeed there often isn’t a right decision as much as there is a ‘least wrong’ decision and more often than not there is an emotional wrestling match before and after deciding on a course of action.

However, these emotions can be a powerful tool that can be used to great advantage if channelled constructively. Last week I had the privilege of visiting a former patient of the hospital, Zioni, a quadriplegic lady who was overcome incredible hardship and disadvantage to the point where she now runs a school for 240 children. The school is basic consisting of little more than 2 classrooms where the children sit on the floor and work using whatever limited resources Zioni can somehow lay her hands on. Zioni receives no official support from any government or organisation and relies on handouts to provide a basic but much needed education to Malawi’s poorest children.

Meeting Zioni was very moving; she is more courageous, determined and warm-hearted than almost anyone you could hope to meet. I left the school feeling inspired, amazed at what she has overcome in spite of the challenges she has faced. I also felt angry. Angry at the lack of support she receives, angry with myself for not doing more to help and angry at everyone who seeks obstacles as to why they can’t do something rather than looking for how they something can be achieved.

After leaving Zioni I went for a meeting with a debtor of the hospital, an insurance company who has been causing us no end of problems, although it is worth noting that the problems are not all of their making. The purpose of the meeting was to resolve historic problems and agree a way of working together going forward to avoid any reoccurrence. The meeting did not start off well, with the insurance company unwilling to do many of the things we were asking for, citing the difficulties involved and presenting problems rather than solutions.

Now normally, I would consider myself to be a fairly laid back guy. I rarely get emotional about situations, typically looking at the practical reality and it’s pretty hard to annoy me to the point where I will show it. However, this time was different. The negative attitude in the meeting and the focus on what couldn’t be done rather than what could, coming immediately after meeting Zioni, annoyed me. Actually more than that, quite frankly, it pissed me off!

This led to a very full and frank, although never rude and always professional, exchange of views which ultimately led to the financial controller of the insurance company agreeing to provide us with the information that we needed. I don’t know how he got the information together but I do know that he had it ready for us within 3 days (this problem has been rumbling on for over a year) and when I spoke with him later (we played football together the following weekend) he told me that it was the fact that it was clearly important to us personally that made it important to him to deliver the information.

Using emotion is this way is new for me here as at first I tried to detach from some of the emotional elements figuring they would prevent me from doing my job as well as I intended. Now, I’m trying to be much more open with my feelings, exposing myself to the vulnerabilities that the team can see when I am upset with them or when I am struggling with the way things are here. In return I am finding that people are much more inclined to provide assistance and to go out of their way to help. It could be that, much like the case of the incredible hulk, they don’t like me when I’m angry however I am much more inclined to think that because they can see that I care they are prepared to care a little more too.

Ps. If you are wondering if I gave the security guard the loan, of course I did, I’m a big softie when it comes down to it!

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Trust: the essential element of a successful organisation?

Posted by Judith on December 21, 2007 12:15 PM

Waterstons Managing Director, Mike Waterston talks about the role trust plays in the evolution of a successful organisation...

I guess the precursor to providing an answer to the question posed above is the definition of success as far as a commercial enterprise is concerned. In my view success has to encompass more than simply making money; it should also include satisfying the needs of all of the stakeholders including customers, employees and the surrounding community. In fact trust underpins all productive human interaction; without trust a mutually acceptable negotiated settlement, a delighted customer and a committed employee are but pipe dreams. In the limit a lack of trust will lead to disenchanted employees and customers who will frustrate the aim of ongoing financial sustainability by inhibiting a company’s natural ability to adapt to changing market demands and emerging technologies.

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Holiday for most?

Posted by Ian Brown on December 30, 2007 4:43 PM

The festive prelude to the festive break saw press releases going out about the number of workers turning in to do a shift on Christmas Day - the number was 140,000, double that of the previous year. Now coming from a group of 160,000 full time farmers and 190,000 part timers I wonder where these figures come from since I know most land managers will have some duties to carry out, accepting that arable farmers are on standby during most of the winter break.

I had a good family Cristmas and even got caught up with that pile of papers (to be read when I get 5 minutes) lurking near my armchair, but for many like me who have downsized their farming what do Christmas futures look like??

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