Another week whizzes by and still the relentless sun, wind and lack of precipitation continues, for us down in here anyway. The wind is blowing through the leaves of the poplar windbreak again and I mourn the waste of energy (and cost savings) that another days electric generation is lost, but things are looking up.

It already seems an age ago that we dipped out of the World Cup and the fact that the Germans, who knocked us out, go marching on, makes it easier to justify such a poor effort. We've crammed a lot in since then orders, potting, watering and tunnel clearing so it all seems like a distant memory.

I attended two PLATO Sustain meetings, one local and one regional, both on subjects that were to me a bit scary. One was on current best practice/tactics on sales rep employment and use, and the other on marketing in a recession and social media marketing. Having been a bit sceptical about what would be relevant to us, I was blown away by the how much valuable info I gathered. Although at my age I do suffer from the problem that as extra bits of info go in one ear other bits fall out of the other, so I come away thinking wow what a lot of great stuff and when Caroline asks me what it was all about I can only remember that lunch was great!
It reminds me how good it is to occasionally step away from the day to day stuff and get a fresh view of life, the universe and everything. The social media bit was daunting with so many communication channels available for everyone, especially the techno savvy young. It was generally a room full of old fogies or businessmen, of which a few had dabbled in the area but were all astonished at the scale and potential of the various medias. We had a whistle stop tour of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linked-in, search engine stuff and a load of more that fell out of the other ear! The amount of time spent on all this by the users and the amount of available info left floating about by individuals and businesses, which we can use, is astonishing. In the very near future it could become a very efficient way for us all to keep our ‘followers’ up to date with all our news and offers if you get the approach right. Mind you it may take a while for our more mature end of the market to catch up but do bear in mind, we do have a younger customer base appearing. The days of the upfront hard sell appear to be over. Oh yes another gem I picked up was, don’t forget that the main aim of marketing should not be to sell more but to increase your product value and sell at a higher profit. Then you can invest in doing it all even better next year (it’s always jam tomorrow!)

Eco news

A very pleasant surprise this week with a letter from the chief planner who says that the turbine application will go to planning committee to discuss, as expected, but that he would be recommending approval, hoped for but not expected, subject to a bat survey being carried out along the hedge where they are to be positioned.
The survey will delay things another couple of months we think, but the recognition of the relatively small scale of the project and the need for change was very reassuring. We have heard that those in Crawley village opposed to the idea are currently trying to drum up support for a petition against it, but hopefully it won’t get too noisy. There were certainly not many who were moved enough to comment on the application in a negative way during the planning application commenting period. So well done and thanks to all those who managed a supportive comment, you did your bit and it helped.

Nature notes

House Martins have hatched in several nests, there are young finches all over the place and the Sparrowhawk looks to be busy. I know some of our ladies here don’t like the number of kills seen at this time of year, but you need to see the bigger picture and hope it is showing a healthy local environment where the food chain is complete and working. The long tailed tit population seems to have exploded after getting a bit thin on numbers after the cold winter, I can hear them tweeting (even they have mobiles now) all over the place.

Still a few tadpoles appear occasionally in the main pond but most have left home I think, we have certainly seen a few tiny frogs in the adjacent tunnels. It must be a tricky time being so small, I did hear someone say that a big one may eat the tiddlers in hard times which may or may not be true, but it does illustrate that it can be a ‘frog eat frog’ world out there. Take care!