News 2009

SHEPPIE BOYS NETWORKING UP A STORM
Sheppie 83 hosted a successful networking seminar presented my well-renowned personal networking guru, Brenda Eckstein of Brenda Eckstein International. Held at the Port Shepstone Country Club on Friday 17 July, delegates were treated to 2 hours of training, followed by a lunch. The workshop was worth every cent, as delegates were not only inspired to develop their networking skills, but also received a complimentary copy of Brenda’s latest book, the “ABC’s of Effective Networking”, and Sally Heever’s famous beef lasagna. The event was well-supported by the Hibiscus Coast business community, and was marketed extensively by both local papers the South Coast Herald and Fever as well as the Hibiscus Chamber of Commerce and Hibiscus Tourism.

Brenda stressed the importance of building strong interpersonal relationships in business. She defined personal networking as an “active on-going process, making contacts all the time when we probably don’t need them, organizing and maintaining relevant information on our contacts, which will benefit some future business interaction, or to refer these contacts to someone who has a need for their services.” Very importantly, true networking is a mutually synergistic relationship, i.e. both parties benefit from the relationship.

Sheppie 83 would like to thank their sponsors – Sheppie Build-it, the South Coast Fever and Brenda herself, who sponsored her time.

This project was the first of its kind for the Shepstone Boys, but once again further reinforced the service we offer to our community, as well as turning out to be a nice little fund raiser.

On to networking of a different kind - Sheppie has three of its members reaching the grand old “retirement age” , and being axed in January 2010 and has been working on swelling its numbers. We are proud to report, that we now officially have four Pipeliners, who are already pulling their weight - William Power, who recently has moved down to the South Coast, and owns two Build-it stores, and Jaco Buitendag a partner in Windovert South Coast. The other two budding future Tablers are Paul Comins, who owns a signage and branding company, Corporate Signage, and Leon Garbadie, Managing Director of Lifeguards Africa. These are all quality Pipeliners, who are already getting into the swing of helping organize our upcoming musical “Diamonds and Dust is a must.” Incidentally when the boys from Sheppie see you all at October Area, we will be heading into our last night of the Show.

We would just like to share an example of what Tabling and having Table Mates is all about. A few weeks back, our resident Table Doc (oh tall one!), moved his practice after being in the same building for years. Brian Henning, our Chairman sent out an e-mail the day before asking if anyone
would be able to assist. The next day (a public holiday) the Table was there with a 10 ton truck organized by one of our chaps. Moved his whole
practice in a couple of hours, and enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing with all our families enjoying a lamb spit, lovingly cared for by the Spit-Master
Brian, and a good couple of ales sponsored by the Doc. He was open for business the next morning. Now guys - that is what Tabling is all a about.