John Bloomfield

This morning my Facebook stream contained something really quite shocking and frankly I am not an easily shocked person at all. One of my friends had commented on a video of a an adult giving a toddler and extreme beating the likes of which I have never seen nor do I ever wish to see again. I assume the adult is the child's father and the woman filming is the mother. The video runs for over 8 minutes but I didn't get past the first 90 seconds before I had to turn it off. At first I thought it must be fake or a joke but after 90 seconds I became certain that it was not. From the Profile https://www.facebook.com/Hr.Bay The poster is NOT  a friend of mine. I understand the poster will probably say he is trying to get the guy caught but surely passing it to the relevant authorities would be more useful than asking for facebook likes?!? What is perhaps even more shocking is that I decided to report the video to Facebook - when presented with the options on my...

Back in the good ol' days well before I was in financial services, in fact most likely before I even left school! Financial services product providers all had teams of 'Road Warrior' business development managers running all over the place meeting financial advisers and their staff to brief them on the latest changes in their products and treating the decision makers to three hour lunches. We've come down a long road since those days and the vast majority of providers don't even have face to face business development managers any more. Many older advisers have often complained to me about this situation and the providers who do still offer face to face support shout it from the rooftops as if it is something to be proud of. Contrary to what seems to be the common feeling I have never been keen on face to face support and I will explain why. My time is valuable, the vast majority of face to face business development managers have no interest in enriching my ti...

Its something people say regularly from all walks of life in person and through the media and I have to take issue with it. Community spirit is not the responsibility of others to provide. If you want to feel a cohesive community spirit in your city, town, village or hamlet then take some personal responsibility for providing it. I guarantee you 100% that you will get more out than you put in. I don't speak here from on a pedestal but from personal experience. I now live in a town I didn't grow up in, I moved here as it is half way is between my wife's family and my own. I lived here for three years before I became part of the community and it happened for no other reason than I made it so. For the first three years of living here I made a point of speaking to my neighbour etc. but that was pretty much as far as my social contact went. During that period I started working with a guy based in another town about 15 miles down the motorway who told me all about how ...