The week that was the 24th August

Week 35 was the last week of the summer holidays and definitely didn’t contain the scorchio weather that we appear to be getting here in the UK this week !

There were many of you away and therefore the £23 million that you wrote across some 74 deals was down on Week 34 but still very respectable , especially with almost half of the business still being Purchases.

In the world of sports , County Mayo put those cheeky Dubs in their place and the ever-arrogant Mikel Arteta retains the full support of the Arsenal board.

Notwithstanding , one very bright ray of sunshine put the Gaffer in a state of complete teenage excitement with the news that Agnetha, Frida, Benny and Bjorn have finally reunited for a soon to be released new album and a revolutionary series of concerts featuring digital versions of themselves set to take place at the former Olympic Park now christened the Abba Arena! - The Gaffer may also soon be calling this his second home depending on how many show’s he can get tickets for!!

Finally on a more sombre note there were further headlines in the world of music this weekend as the tragic death of Sarah Harding was announced and former bandmates and fellow celebs paid tribute in their droves to this brightest of stars who always lived life to its fullest prior to her diagmosis last year.

Moving back to the business side of things and we rarely focus too much on COMPLETIONS ( as the credit gets given when the case is screened ) but occasionally on Commercial cases < as with Sarj’s recent monster case > the drawdown comes suddenly and this was the case last week with a case of Mark Nathan’s up in Liverpool which banked him circa £20k .

Mark has confirmed that the drinks are on him at the upcoming London broker meeting ( see below )

On to this week’s charts and Ron Walton was back on top with a more than noteworthy £5,969,109 of lending across 11 cases, followed by Paul Oglesby with £2,364,293 across 10 cases and Nick Harris with £2,050,372 across 3 cases.

This week’s “Big Time Bjorn” Award goes to Nick Harris for his £1,400,000 deal with LV and then hitting the high notes (along with Agnetha) in terms of case value and volume were Mike Atkinson, Spencer Havers and Zak Abdul Karim.

On the lender side you completed the greatest number of cases this week with NatWest totalling 16 for £4,891,132 of lending.

Protection – Week 35

Another good week on the Protection side of the business with 31 deals completed of which Kevin Gronow completed 12, with runner up Nicholas Price on 8.

Sophie Evans secured the highest policy amount of £300,000 with Scottish Widows and on the provider side you also completed the highest number of cases overall this week with Scottish Widows totalling 6.

Birthday’s and other Parish Notices

Many Happy returns to Michelle Barraclough who celebrates her Birthday today, Martin Keene for the 9th and Chris Taylor for the 13th.

Welcome also to Becky Hadley who will be spending her first day in the Derby Office today.

MANAGEMENT NOTES ;

1. The most important notice this week pertains to the re-commencement of Zoom calls with lenders . I am mindful that whilst these were a very welcome new phenomenon 18 months ago , they did eventually cause some fatigue . Lenders over-used them and the slots were too long ….

We are constantly cajoling lenders back to work and some are finally starting to listen ( !! ) . But others will be continuing to ‘’ observe the government’s advice ‘’ ad finitum and we have no other option but to comply with some of their requirements …. The point being that when we are admitted to a lender’s panel we have to provide them with commitments around access and visitation etc .

To that end , Silv will be slotting some Zoom calls between now and December 1st ( but not in to December if we can help it ).

To stress , these calls are NOT OPTIONAL ; But we do ‘ get it ‘ regarding length and content , so we have told the lenders to now keep them to 20 mins max , and for them only to occur on a Tuesday and Thursday morning. Silvia will be keeping a log in terms of CPD accreditations which I’m afraid we are well behind on due to Covid etc .

2. Marbella ; Kerry will issue the final rooming arrangements next week ; please double check your listings etc

3. Recruitment ; The snowball keeps rumbling on …we signed up & even started 3 more newbies last week , all experienced practitioners . We can’ t showcase these folks yet for reasons of possible conflict , but our thanks to Adriana Rocha and Ian Broadrick for helping to move these situations to a conclusion .

On this matter ; Some of you have asked whether we will be capping our numbers at 100 or so , and the answer to that remains Yes .

That doesn’t necessarily mean that we will be letting lesser-achieving folk leave once we soon get to 100. But what we will have to do is construct a transparent Compliance Scorecard and Risk League Table wherein we will not prohibit the company from recruiting new superstars at the expense of any existing brokers who are not maintaining satisfactory compliance scores . That would not be fair on the bulk of our brokers who rarely cause any kind of angst for Chris and lender-relations at large.

That’s all for now folks ; The Regional get-togethers start again tomorrow in earnest so do please let Kerry and Silvia know which ones you will be attending .