Mark Barton // I am a utility consultant. I am a research consultant that helps businesses. Combine these and we save individuals and businesses money.
One of the things that I do is connect people together. This is such fun as who knows where it will lead :-)
Check out my about.me profile!
Networking Your Way – Feedback from the event
Over 80 people attended the Networking Your Way to New Business event on the 21st March 2012. There were also 13 networking organisations who had stands at the event, plus the charity Norwich Door to Door. Thank you to all those of you who responded to the feedback survey. Here are the results and some of the comments.
Hi there
We hope that you are having a good month and a good summer.
As it is getting towards the end of the month it is time for NR3 networking. For those of you who are not on holiday do come to the Lord Rosebery on Friday the 26th for a drink and a chat.
Last month we had the lastest from #AAB11 HQ [or All About Business 2011 if you prefer]. What will this month bring us?
Last month the Lord Rosebery provided bread, cheese & cold meats, not just for us, but they did say it was going to be a regular thing on a Friday.
We look forward to seeing you
Mark & Jenny
Last night I had a test drive in an all electric car. It was the Peugeot Ion which is being aimed at the business market as it is really only financially viable as a lease. It is a city or local use car as the range is 80 / 90 miles before a charge is needed.
What was it like to drive? Forget milk floats this is like a real car. It was nippy away from the lights. There is a power steering system which makes it easy to manoeuvre. Lifting your foot off the accelerator for longer before putting on the brakes does put a little charge back in the system. OK I am not used to a small city car or an automatic so that made it a bit different. Overall it was pleasant to drive as long as you don’t try to stop by pressing the clutch pedal, did I mention it was an automatic – oops !
It is quite a narrow car, so although there was plenty of room in the back seat, the two of us were quite close together so it is a 4 seater not 5 seater. Again this is a benefit making it easy to fit in crowded streets. If you were to use it to pop down to the shops the boot space is very restricted so not a car to use for the family shop unless you put the back seat down.
According to the information I was given, 30 minutes using a dedicated top up point gives you an 80% charge. For safety reasons you have to have a dedicated plug or a separate circuit at home where it would take 7 hours to recharge.
The big downside of this car is that the range is 80 miles or so. Yes 90% of our journeys with a bit of planning are under that, it is just those that are bigger – substantially bigger sometimes that would be the issue. The lease is relatively expensive so perhaps a way around this would be to include in the lease access to a differently powered car for those journeys that are longer than the battery range.
Is it our next car? Although we would really like to live the green life, this car does not do all the things that we need a car for, which for us includes transporting a boot full of stuff sometimes and going on long journeys at least once a month. We look forward to seeing the ideas for dealing with these challenges.
Here are some more photos of the snow in Norwich & it is only November !!!
If you live and or work in the NR3 are of Norwich, do come along and join us. It would be good to see you.
