Business Thursday's Partner Organisations:

Cotswold Internet Marketing

Institute of Directors

Gloucestershire Enterprise Network

Business Thursday's Past Speakers

Previous speakers to have addressed Business Thursday's events:

Sara Shailer from Accompli focuss on providing expertise and resource at times of change. http://www.accompli.co.uk/. Sara proposed a sub title of 'Managing the pain' exploring how we can reduce anxiety and increase our effectiveness. She guided us through lessons she had been learning in pain management, applying these to the day-to-day running of our businesses.

Attendees took part in a brief exercise, marking on a flip chart where they exist in their businesses and what the issues are. Everyone reported living somewhere between the present and the future. The issues that needed energy to address included time management, new business generation, and cash flow.

Sara suggested that we need to learn to live in the present. The past may be a good place to visit, but not to live in; the future will always be unknown, and an overt focus will result in 'the anxiety gap'. Appropriate to Cheltenham race week and living in the moment, the present,
Sara handed out cans of Guinness - some moments shouldn't be hurried but enjoyed!

Mike Warburton from Grant Thornton has been described as 'the nation's unpaid tax adviser' and is credited with making tax interesting, with his regular appearances on BBC Radio Gloucestershire, Sky TV, BBC 5 Live and his column in The Citizen.’

Mike opened by asking whether credit was good- and if so what level of credit could be described as good. Looking at the 2008 budget he noted that personal taxes had doubled and had grown by 30% in real terms since 1997 yet the labour government's annual spending next year is forecast to be £46,000,000,000.

Reviewing the corporate finance sector Mike highlighted the published accounts of Manchester United Football Club and Northern Rock as object lessons in financial opaqueness. Looking to the future he highlighted the growing dominance of Sovereign Wealth Funds and the unfunded off balance sheet public sector pension liabilities of £700,000,000,000- which are the equivent of seven Northern Rocks.

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