On Friday 2 October, ECA London Region’s Grand Dinner and Ball was held at the London Lancaster Hotel. Thanks to ECA Regional Manager, Malcolm Conby and the efforts of ECA friends, this longstanding social event raised much needed funds for EEIBA. I am not sure how much we will be receiving but I know Malcolm will be in touch shortly with some good news.

The following Monday saw President, Ian Humphreys, at EEIBA’s Scottish Forum of Branches in Edinburgh. Ian had been to the SELECT Annual Awards in Glasgow and then went to the long established Yorkshire Ridings Branch annual PowerBall in Harrogate.

He joined me and colleagues Pat Sheldrake, Claire Paton and Tracey Mackay with EEIBA Branch supporters in Scotland. We talked about our new governance structures following Council’s decision to re-organise its sub-committees which arose from some really helpful feedback we received from an earlier Branch Forum about our decision making processes.

We went through the new staff structure in relation to the welfare caseworkers and then studied a detailed finance report while looking at some of our fund-raising tools. One of the agenda items was about Scottish identity. The general consensus of the meeting was EEIBA’s awareness is poor throughout Scotland and it was felt that a lack of feedback from functions to participating companies does not help our cause. Some of the suggestions put forward including use of posters to be made available at trade counters and staff canteens, using some of the trade magazines, particularly CABLEtalk and emailing news and information to supporters.

It was also pointed out how helpful it would be to have more Scottish beneficiaries included in the case histories part of our website. I was also really pleased that a couple of the Branch supporters are happy for their name to be put forward for our new contract visitors to undertake some welfare visits in Scotland and I will follow that up in the next few weeks to make sure they are involved.

The next day I had a chance to call into the Falkirk office and to introduce myself less formally to Tracey Mackay and to pick up on several projects and issues with Claire Paton. And then onto the Electrical Distributors’ Association’s annual Scottish Function.

The EDA Scottish Function is an unusual, albeit regular, event in the industry calendar. More than fifty years ago, when the industrial manufacturing base was centred around the Midlands, Scottish wholesalers devised a very simple formula to invite manufacturing colleagues to Scotland for informal discussions and contact.

Until then, with communications as they were, they had few opportunities to meet manufacturing colleagues in the supply chain. Even though communications have improved immeasurably, it is still a very popular event for people in electrical manufacturing and wholesaling to meet up informally over a period of a few days to catch up, update, have a whinge and moan, resolve issues, make new friends and just to spend some time out of the usual hurly burly of commercial life, getting to know each other.

I have been invited to this event for more than ten years now and every time I have been, it has proved its worth in time, trouble and effort to attend. This year, with sponsorship for the forthcoming powerBall my main priority, I had a golden opportunity to undertake some discreet “begging” at some of the sessions. I brought home with me more than £2,000 in cash from fund-raising during the Function, together with a valuable voucher for a holiday package at Gleneagles Hotel which we will use at powerBall. I was able to tie up some sponsorship deals for powerBall and recruit three potential runners in the London Marathon. I need to also follow through with contacting some new faces in the industry to leverage more support for the charity.

Happily I was also joined for part of the Scottish Function by Ian Humphreys. It was helpful for him to meet and greet so many people, especially as we will meet up with many of them at powerBall in the next few weeks.

It seems our industry colleagues will support their charity even though they are facing very tough economic conditions. They share our view about keeping as much as we can in the calendar. They were very pleased to learn there will be more than 1,100 people sitting down to powerBall this year and that our Branch events continue to provide welcome income streams and regional focus.