Christmas Celebration at John's house

It was great Christmas celebration at John's house!

Almost all group could make it and get together in John Horchik home in Surrey. Friendly talks and fantastic Thai food delivered by Scott and Fanta created good holiday environment. To observe John's way of making coffee was especially exciting - scientific almost alchemy process with vessels more suitable for chemical experimentation rather than drink preparation.

Thank you John and Emma for opening your house for BBN members. Thank you Scott and Fanta for delicious food. Thank you all for participating.

Merry Christmas!

Passwords and laptops

It was interesting discussion initiated by Ray about password protection and computer safety. Thank you Ray for bringing it up and for the informative printouts.
Just want to get you a link to that data on most common passwords used for ATMs and online banking. Sorry Don I misinformed you about the "mustang" - it is not fifth but tenth, which I believe is still remarkable enough. 
See it here: The ten most common
Also regarding laptop and their safety. Here is an interesting article on software that can mitigate the risk in unpleasant event when laptop is stolen: Retrieving stolen digital devices
Hope none of BNNers would face laptop loss and if you see your password in that list make sure you change it to something less predictable.

BBN Guest: Captured Assets Inventory Services Inc.

Thursday morning was wet and gloomy but our BBN meeting was as usually sunny and bright. Magic touch of Sun Life expert Bob Fletcher some might say and it is hard to imagine anyone who would disagree.
We had guest that morning, Lynn Rimmer of Captured Assets Inventory Services Inc. Lynn has highly specialized business in the niche many of us never heard of - Lynn helps businesses and individuals with detailed cataloging of material assets. It was very interesting to hear Lynn about her business and how it can help people to organize stuff so everything would be taken into consideration. It makes sense since many of us hardly keep track of all our belongings. Lynn just started to build up networking for her business and we really hope she would consider joining BBN as a member.
Matt the Mortgage Man shared with us a very interesting nuance regarding renewal of mortgage.  Too bad banks do not always disclose that clause. Thank you Matt for keeping us up to date.

BBN guest - educational consultant Ira Alexandra

It was a great meeting last Thursday at our new temporary meeting location Classic Bagel Cafe. Lots of people attended and many interesting ideas were expressed and duscussed. Three key events took place.

We had a guest speaker an educational consultant Ira Alexandra, owner of Loadstar Consulting. Ira provided us with detailed description of her business and how she helps enterpreners to detect hidden opportunities and realize business potential. We thank Ira for visiting us and hope to see her again in future. We also were pleased by the fact that Ira found our group via Google search, which means that SEO optimization of our Fraser Valley Business Building Network website kicks in.

Our BBN member Parinya Loptson, owner of Langley Thai Cuisine Restaurant, had a feature presentation of how to make famous Thai rolls. Every BBNer had a chance to prepare that roll. It was easy and delicious. We thank our host Classic Bagel Cafe for assistance in preparation and running of that small cooking class.

Finally our member Chuck Vanderbyl brought up an idea of expansion of BBN operations to international level. Many members might benefit from such expansion for their businesses are scalable in that regard. Idea received warm reception and debate followed of how to implement it. We are currently in the process of development of that idea so more discussion will follow.

HST Vote

There are plenty of opinions out there about HST introduction and its potential usefulness for BC economy. Some say it is good for small business, other say it is very bad for small business (restaurant industry is particularly vocal in that regard). Some opinions are strong and somewhat emotional. Here we publish opinion of Leo Vandebyl, brother of our fellow BBNer Chuck Vanderbyl. With upcoming vote for HST debate about that tax is getting overshadowed by only Vancouver Canucks puzzling performance in Boston. Anyways, you may or may not be agreeing with Leo but make sure you vote when HST voting day comes.
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Now that Premier Christie Clark has offered a rate reduction, I see a softening in the populace and that maybe they might change their vote. Voters are getting tired and wearing down and a promised reduction IN THE FUTURE will help the Federal and Provincial governments keep this tax. Not many of our taxpayers understand that the power to assess this tax was given exclusively to the citizens of the provinces and specifically negated from the Federal government by the BNA act. BC can tax its own citizens for services provided by their own elected government. The federal Government was not allowed to interfere with that direct taxation process.

Governments are spending money like drunken sailors. They are borrowing every dollar. BC is spending money that none of the taxpayers can ever pay back. What the hell, let's blow a billion on ferries, or a half billion on BC Place Stadium. The citizens of BC can never pay this back. If we halted the gluttony and stopped the out flow of money and fired all the high priced public servants, we would discover that we no longer had the power to collect taxes from our own citizens to rebuild our province. The control was passed to the Federal Government. It wasn't just passed, it was bribed by a greedy federal cabal intent on removing all provincial ability to resist their agenda. If we no longer can collect a portion of our production to rebuild our society then we are in trouble. We dance to the Cabal's tune. And we GAVE it away! 

Look at Iceland! Look at Greece! Two countries swallowed by the never ending credit spending and all their citizens are now enslaved by the people issuing FIAT currency. The bankers OWN them. Do we want that fate???

There are positive efficiencies in the HST taxation process. We should simply adopt them in the BC sales tax. We should never allow any group to control our resources and lands other than our own citizens. 

It was a $1.6 Billion dollar bribe by the Federal Government that swayed Gordon Campbell to sell our taxation rights. Make no mistake! These were not Canadian Taxpayer dollars. These were provided by the same bankers who are taking over Iceland and Greece. We never had that much surplus to give away. 

Think before you vote! Consider your fellow citizens! Protect your rights and do not sell our precious resources to the magic money machine. 

Leo Vanderbyl 

Pricing art for small business

It can be very unclear and even difficult how to set up prices for your products or services. Many agree that prices setting is more art then otherwise, especially when it comes to fairly unique business. This article describes some of the pricing challenges of real businesses and how they dealt with it. One thing is clear though - the correlation between price and sales is not direct and sometimes completely counter-intuitive.


Real-Life Lessons in the Delicate Art of Setting Prices


I understand that pricing policy in certain industries (like Real Estate or Insurance) is not as controllable. But nevertheless for many of us the article provides some real food for creative thinking in terms of pricing.

Fundraising Dinner for MS @ Ban Chok Dee Thai Cuisine

Date:  Sunday, May 15^th, 2011 at 5:00 PM

Price:  $20 per person ($10 of each ticket goes directly to MS)

Location:  Suite 102, 5499 - 203 Street, Langley, BC  V3A 1W1

Tel:  778.278.3088

www.banchokdee.com

Dinner Menu:

(all items with your choice of mild, medium or hot spiciness)

Spring Rolls and Chicken Coconut Soup;

Pad Thai Noodles (choice of chicken or prawn);

Panang Curry with Rice (beef or chicken); and

Tapioca with Coconut Milk – or – Deep Fried Banana with Ice Cream.

(This fundraiser is supporting the Tour de Vinters Eh Team for the MS Bike Tour held June 4 & 5 , 2011)

Online donations can be made at: http://mssociety.ca/en/events/biketour/default.htm