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Published: March 8th 2008
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KAC
In here please Quarterly Meeting - Asia
Now that the end of the 1st phase of our travels are over, and as old habits are hard to let go, I have decided to hold a meeting to cover this period. Invites were sent to various consulates and high ranking delegates from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong, however no replies have been received to date. I can only therefore assume that they are either too busy to attend, or more likely going off past performance, the letters are still in the post?
Anyhow, the show must go on and in attendance at the Hard Up Café in Ping Pong Penh is my wife Karen, Scoo Be Doo (who is the waiter at the venue and seemed keen to join in and myself (Chairperson). As Scoob (as we now call him) came prepared with working pen and paper, he was quickly nominated to be note taker. Apologise now if parts of the meting are left out as his handwriting is appalling and my Vietnamese is non existent. Like any good meeting the first thing on the agenda is E H & S. Now this may go on a bit, but believe there are
Hang On
Room for onr more? numerous points that need to be discussed in great detail.
Environmental Health And Safety
Litter - Rubbish
On our travels it has become very apparent that in certain Countries, the whole aspect of placing litter in the bin is not given the priority it deserves. The disposing of general building/garden rubbish gives a whole new meaning to some people who think its OK to fill in any available hole which appears along the side of the road. With this in mind I have personally taken up the challenge by introducing a new campaign called - Keep Asia Clean (shortened to KAC) or to give it its full title, keep asia clean - in here please ( there will be a picture of bin at the end of the words ). It was proposed that numerous initiatives would be launched to help raise awareness of the damage to the environment this is causing. The first proposal is to distribute 100,000 leaflets in both Ping Pong Penh and Hanoing and hand these out on the 17th and 19th May 2008 respectively, leaving the 18th free for a good old booze up. Volunteers are being sought to help run this
important task, however candidates must comply to the following stringent conditions. Must be single, under 30, very physically fit and preferentially female. Please send applications along with recent photo to kacinhereplease@yahoo.co.uk Natalie, can you please get back to me with a price for the leaflets.?
As well as increasing awareness, it was also proposed that we shoot a video showing the correct and incorrect way of disposing rubbish. This will be distributed in DVD format to the schools across the countries of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. Letters have been sent to various famous actors to help create the video, to date only John Lesley has replied. Becky Morris can you use your influence within the industry so that we can make this a reality and get back to me?
Road Safety - Building Regulations
This is a far more serious and complicated subject which will need an avalanche of professional personnel to tackle. Again, volunteers are being sought however some basic knowledge of EH&S will be required, so if you have attended one of those fabulous courses Companies provide free to you, please send details of qualifications etc to the same e-mail address above, no need for
Pile On
Which way to England fella? photos, people who know about this stuff are normally not that aesthetically pleasing (going off previous experiences). Anyone wishing to dispute this please send pic if you like….
We identified 2 specific areas that need urgent attention.
1. Driving - its not OK to push other vehicles out of the way and onto the dirt track just because you have your hand on the horn and permanently indicating to overtake. Also, cramming 50 people onto the back of a Toyota pick up while looks very entertaining is not a very safe method of transport.
2. Scaffolding - The other identified risk is the use of bamboo sticks for scaffolding, I’m no expert but surly 20 ft poles held together with string is a recipe to disaster. We did have pictures of specific incidents, however as Karen has pointed out were lost due to my lack of computer knowledge.
There are numerous other aspects of EH&S that need looking into, however Rome was not built in a day so some are being left for another day.
Sales
This quarter has been particularity difficult and along with virtually everyone else I am blaming the US for this, no one is spending except Karen. Although sales have not gone that well, many palms have been lined with gold and I am confident these will bear fruit in Q2. On a more positive note, the cushion covers sold extremely well however refunds have had to be given as not one single order has been delivered, once again I can only assume they are with the invite letters I sent out while in Cambodia, someone will have kitted out their entire family with silk cushion covers at my expense, good onya cobber. I have a possible sale of 10,000 key holdings in Kazakhstan, my contact Boris Voempir has virtually guaranteed the sale and will be contacting me soon once he has negotiated the final dealings back home. I await his call as the number he gave me doesn’t seem to work.
Profit
Although not showing a profit in Q1, cost saving efficiencies have been implemented and Karen will return home early.
HR Issues
This is certainly an area where I have not been as busy as I would have back home, amazingly only 3 verbal warnings were given out over the 3 month period. One to the cheeky girl who thought it was OK to charge $40 for $20:20 worth of petrol. Normally this would have lead to automatic dismissal, however after consultation with Karen coupled with the fact who else would work a 12 hour shift for $5 decided a verbal warning would be enough on this occasion. The other 2 were a more severe verbal warning and almost instant dismissal for gross misconduct. This went to the 2 Guys who tried in vain to con us in Hanoing by insisting we had arrived at our Hotel which was currently encountering problems, so would we mind changing into one of their Hotels where we could be charged 4 times the going rate. Both received a rigorous dressing down witnessed by the 40 passer bys who thought they were witnessing someone with chronic hysteria. No further issues.
Any Other Business
It was at this moment in time Scoob was dragged across the room by his manager who wanted know what he thought he was doing joining the meeting when he should have been working. All ended well though as Scoob decided to leave the Hard Up Café after finding a job with a major competitor, McDoobies where his new found writing skills could be utilised in arranging the letters all very neatly for the popular kids meal, spaghetti alphabet on toast.
In summary, the first 3 months have gone extremely well and could not have asked for more. As you would have guessed we are currently in Australia and the first 3 weeks have been just brill.
It was here that we ended the meeting closed with a proposed next meeting on 5th May 2008 in Brisbane somewhere.
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Christine Middletonch
non-member comment
Funny or what?????
Thanks Brian - we laughed fit to bust! The usual blogs are funny but this was something else! (Am hoping that all this praise will exempt me from being the target of your acerbic wit when you write the blog on our joint holiday in California!!!)