BLUE MONKEY BREAKFAST TALK
Well here’s a first! On Tuesday I gave a breakfast talk to the Eastbourne and District Chamber of Commerce. This was quite challenging in some ways. For one thing it was day 4 of a very sore throat for me and for another, the event started at 7am. Now this is not a time at which I normally expect to be on top form, however a quick dose of Paracetamol temporarily sorted the throat, and an appropriate sense of professionalism kicked in and, I think, managed to make me rise to the occasion.
Actually, it was a really interesting morning. The 20 or so members of the local business community who arrived looking extremely sprightly and threw themselves into vigorous networking at 7am, settled down to tuck into a splendid breakfast at one of Eastbourne’s most comfortable hotels. By 8 oclock everyone had given a really punchy little one minute presentation or update on their business and it was my turn to introduce myself and Blue Monkey Studio and Network in a 10 minute talk. It was great to be able to give a quick potted history of some of the things we’ve done at Blue Monkey Studio over the past 10 years with an emphasis on the events and exhibitions we’ve organised. The final part of my talk focused on the breadth and diversity of the Network’s membership and I showed a selection of images from some of our artists with work ranging across traditional arts media and stretching to other disciplines including music, performance and poetry. I also talked about our aims for the future including finding ways of making new opportunities for members to show their work and trying to provide more support for our artists to develop and try out new ideas in a supported environment.
I really enjoyed meeting these people who were friendly, interested and welcoming. There seemed a genuine interest in building links between the arts and business communities in the area and this is something I am most certainly keen to encourage and support. Not only that, but I had a jolly good breakfast and was home, changed and ready to go to the studio by 9.30am for a full day’s work.
Thanks EDCC. It was nice to meet you.
