The week that was the 14th of September

Busy week on the roads! Or not!! As we have seen parts of the M25 brought to a standstill by Insulate Britain (it’s leader however admitting to not insulating his own home and storming off live tv but that’s another story!) and then the fuel crisis well and truly ignited as panic buyers stripped the supplies UK wide! The latest victim of national shortages is apparently ice cream so Mr Whippy will now be getting his knickers in a twist! That’s if he can locate some fuel to fill his van!

Meanwhile over in the French Alps there was no shortage of either fuel or food and our trois muskateers there are cleary benefitting from such angst-free existences!

For Dom, Laura and Colette managed to nail 3 cases each for a combined £3m worth of lending. Mon Dieu!

Meanwhile it was a mixed week for the Gaffer here in Darbados .His second team (the Rams) went into administration but thankfully DCFC are too big a Club to die and a new owner will emerge shortly.

Thankfully it also appears that Arteta down at Arsenal may actually have a “project” worthy of the name after all.

But there shall be no gloating here at the expense of our 12 spursie members. For Sport can be a fickle mistress as Anthony Joshua also discovered.

Back to business and over on the mortgage side you still had your feet firmly on the gas this week, completing £35,649,394 of lending across 102 cases.

Motoring ahead was Simon Holdsworth in first place with £6,352,995 of lending across 4 cases. Nick Harris was runner up with £4,972,303 of lending across 4 cases and Nick also won the “Big Time Barry” Award for Week 38 with his £3,896,250 deal with Royal Bank of Canada.

The eternally nice Mike Atkinson was then in third place this week with £2,036,856 of lending across 4 cases.

Then keeping on trucking in terms of high case volume and value were Chris Taylor, Sarah Newton, Sarju Rach, Phil Lyle, Dominic Willett, Ricki Wenn, Zak Abul Karim, James Newton, Ajay Sharma, Michelle Barraclough, Rhys Forrest, Bob Tiley, Colette Hall and Laura Sayers.

On the lender side you completed the greatest number of deals this week with Santander totalling 14 for £5,216,083 of lending.

Protection – Week 38

Nice work once more on the Protection side of the business with 52 deals completed of which Nick Price secured 16, and Kevin Gronow, 11.

Raff Federico secured the highest policy amount of £975,000 with Legal and General and on the provider side you once more completed the highest number of policies with AIG totalling 10.

Birthday’s and other Parish Notices

Many Happy Returns to Lee Power who will be celebrating his Birthday on the 30th, Shakil Ahmed on the 30th and Eva Alonso on the 2nd October.

Management Notices

Thank you to all those who attended last week’s regional meetings.

As the Head of HSBC remarked only last month, the perception which he & indeed other lenders have of our motley group is that Mortgage Force is pretty much a Private Members Club in its ethos and culture. (And this certainly drew some quaint and amusing metaphors last week at the London meeting where both Brodders & The Godfather were quick to voice the immortal Groucho Marx quip…. “I’d never want to be a member of a club that would have me…..”

The amusing parallels aside, as we race towards our 100 broker capacity at a brisk rate, it is worth just reminding all “Members” I guess of our Constitution’s 5 key tenets:

1 All of us must exercise a collective responsibility to each other in our dealings with lenders. A single ill-considered case-placement can affect all.

2 Our Club must be one that’s far easier to be black-balled from than to join ie The Management pursues a “No Dickheads” policy !

3 All members are treated fairly, regardless of their annual club usage and volumes etc.

4 Ergo, good table manners & etiquette towards the staff (Compliance hygiene & politeness!) is measured & recorded.

5 There is a right of appeal upon an ejection, except in cases of clear and fragrant rule breaking.

Outwith all that, the management really do enjoy operating the club.

That is entirely to your collective credit folks.

And it’s such to the extent that they are not really sure what they’d do with their time if they weren’t doing this!

Q.E.D we all expect to still be here, clearing cigarette butts from urinals and playing back our CCTV tapes in 5 years’ time!

Well done to all Members on a super Week 38.