Summing up a year and lucky encounters

It’s very nearly that time of year. The time of year we all start trying to sum-up the year which has gone, trying to make sense of all that went on and by doing so put our minds in a place to tackle the next 12 months. How do you sum-up a year? Look back on your year, what stands out for you? Was it a good year, or a bad one - hard isn’t it?

I'm going to cheat a little here. My 2012 is so tied up in 2011 that I have to start there. During 2011 I had the fortune of meeting a great bloke. I didn’t know it at the time but the meeting was going to be a life-changing meeting. I’d been made redundant that year and so had time on my hands. This great bloke needed some IT help. I can do IT so this seemed a perfect arrangement. It so happened that this great bloke had been made redundant a few months before me – sign of the times I guess! This great bloke had decided to put his future in his own hands and start his own business; did I say he wasn’t so hot on the IT side of things? I helped him out – IT is my subject.

Many visits, a new website and some social media later – this great bloke’s new business was starting to make its own way, it started to crawl, and soon it would walk. I popped over, helped out where I could, I liked this great bloke a lot, we got on well, we had a laugh! By the beginning of 2012 it was really ticking along. This great bloke and I had started to work together a little more, in a new venture, promoting the practical application of social media for SME’s. We made a great team, this great bloke and I. He was even getting better with the IT, the Blackberry had gone and he’d worked out the new laptop! He was a very good student!  

One day early in 2012 this great bloke asked if I might come out for lunch and discuss a business invite he been given, and the request was to sort of talk him out of it. Free lunch? I’d be there! It transpired, this business offer would set this great bloke up, so much so; that he’d be able to consider taking on staff! He’d need a good IT/Marketing man – I couldn’t really think of anyone but said that I needed a job!

By this time I had found myself work locally, which I had started the previous October, I was pleased to have a job, but even more pleased to be asked to come and work with this great bloke. I started in August. Over the previous 18 months, this great bloke and I had really got on, we sort of worked the same way, we sort of complimented each other and anyway, this great bloke had a great product which was going places. 2012 looked good.

2012 has made me a proud man. I am working for a great bloke at a great company, and using my IT skills to the full. August was a mad whirlwind of catching up, putting a bomb under the website, turning four pages into 34, putting in place systems to work by,  prompting ourselves, roll-up banners, A5 flyers, business cards and more! The irony of all ironies came in September when Maggie Stacey came on board as a director of the company to bring a cool, stable business head to proceedings, keeping this great bloke and I in check and on budget. Maggie, a friend of mine for many years had been the person who had invited me to the breakfast meeting in early 2011, the one at which I met the great bloke.

It’s now late 2012 and we three are going round as a team, we look the part, we are the part. Under Maggie’s guidance we’ve got uniforms and we look fab!  People have begun to notice us. We are now in the middle of negotiating some great contracts. 2012 has seen old partnerships re-kindled and new ones made. We have a signed contract with Bicton College to partner them in an exciting new venture called The Driver & Logistics’ Training Centres. Outside Adventure Consultants Ltd, Transplant Mastertrain and Bicton College can now offer you the entire driver training you’ll ever need and we are very proud to be a part of it.

OAC Ltd has struck a partnership with the Escot Estate and will be basing most of their 4x4 training there as well as offering safaris around the estate.  2012 has seen us talking to the Jockey Club and Exeter Racecourse. We are negotiating with them to offer 4x4 driving on their little-used land in the middle of their race course.

There is more, so much more in the pipe-line including being part of offering top quality upper-managerial training on an estate in Scotland. Watch this space!

How do you sum up a year? How do you pick the stand-out things from along the way? How would I sum up my year in just a few words? What about “Life changing, happy, very happy, so - so positive, full of hope and opportunity, exciting, dynamic, inspiring, driven, mind-blowing (am I boring you yet?), thrilling, …(I’ll stop now).

Outside Adventure Consultants Ltd, Nick Agg-Manning (that great bloke), Maggie Stacey, Andy (Fluffy) Thompson, make memorable events, but most of all, are memorable people!

2012? The beginning!