No. 54: Would you like a drink? Tea, coffee or an ice cold beer?

These are the words with which every business meeting should start. Well, every meeting after 2pm at least.

Yesterday. I had the honour of joining the board meeting for East Gippsland Water. The journey had been long and hot, the sunshine intense, the azure-blue sky distracting (How is the weather back in Blighty, by the way?). My ice cold beer was truly welcome.

I should probably point out that it was 4pm, not mid morning.

I was attending the board meeting at the invitation of the MD for East Gippsland Water, Bruce Hammond, to share my experiences, good bad and indifferent, on growing a non-regulated water business. Comparing EG with Thames Water is interesting. EG covers a bigger territory, stretching over some 400km. Thames however serves a bigger population (around 14 million). In EG it is significantly less. Put it this way,  I suspect Bruce could send all his customers a hand-written Christmas card each year, if he so desired.

Readers of these Notes from Thames Water may remember Sarah Johnson. She did a three month placement in Reading a year or so ago, whilst heavily pregnant. Sarah is the company secretary for EG and it was marvellous to see her in action in her 'proper' role, governing the board meeting, keeping everything in check. I even got to meet her gloriously beautiful daughter, who I suspect found the strange man with the odd accent mildly bewildering.

In the evening there was a dinner to which all the other local water authorities and been invited, along with the environmental and governmental regulators. It was awe inspiring to hear how these local utilities are genuinely working together in a  respectful, collegiate and truly positive manner. I gave the after dinner speech, which I confess was little more than a shameless plug for my GWD/Blackstone role (although I did manage to squeeze in anecdotes about speed-dating, raw sewage and syphalis - all of which seemed to go down surprisingly well).

East Gippsland is a 5 hour drive east of Melbourne. I am told it is one of the most beautiful parts of Australia (which is saying something). Yesterday's meeting was not actually held in East Gippsland, but was located a hotel conference suite a mere 2 hours from Melbourne. This was to simplify the logistics for all the visitors to the evening dinner.

Next time I visit this region I am going get myself to East Gippsland. Not just to see the beautiful countryside, but to meet (again) the fantastic people who live there.