Early Birds, June 1, 2023

Gentlemen,

Dwayne Vinck – Briefly discussed Early Birds Financial Statements. COVID and post COVID expenses put the club through a bit of a wringer, but the overall state of finances is good. The current fee structure should keep us even. 

Once again, Dwayne made clear the club has room for more members.

Brett Bain – discussed the CDAP – Canada Digital Adoption Program. It’s a grant provided by the federal government to “Get a grant and access to expert advice to increase online sales, reduce costs, better manage inventory and more. “. OSI has been approved and will be going forward with some interesting plans after getting expert advice. Paul Boucher followed suit with his. Waiting on the application. Learn more and apply starting here: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/canada-digital-adoption-program/en.

Jim Bladon – sensed nervousness around rates announcement on the 7th. At the time of last week’s meeting, he felt there was a 35-40% chance of a bump. Make that 100. 

Rotary – has terrific business after hours events. Last Wednesday night in agriculture. President Canadian Castle association, and another speaker, talked genetics and bleeding-edge tech in Ag.

Discussed topics: Ag challenges are the same as other businesses including labour costs. Foreign workers are the best option, but robotics is also an alternative in some operations. It’s a very expensive up front investment.

Paul Boucher – celebrated 26 years in business with his narration services company, Right Voice Communications in May.

Garry Friedrichsen – Went and enjoyed South Block thanks to Jim’s recommendation. Garry also enjoyed a local band called Double Suede at Vertigo Theatre. 50-90s country rock and rockabilly. There’s a great profile on them here: https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/lifestyles/calgarys-doublesuede-breathes-new-life-into-old-school-country-rock-and-rockabilly-100829483/#. 

Garry also spoke about how amazed he was with some of the knowledge in a book recommended by Joel Shapiro: Let There Be Water Book. The book details how a small land locked country like Israel has become likely the world’s biggest innovator in water-related technologies, including desalination. The Israelis are consulting for governments around the world on irrigation including California.

Andy Lockhart - recovery continues from back surgery. His quote: “I haven’t done anything stupid yet.” 

Andy also contributed to our colloquialisms library describing the issue with his and Sue’s central air conditioning unit: Again, I quote: “…plugged tighter than a bull’s ass at fly time.”

Local golf trivia – the head pro at Inglewood Sam Kirkness, and Priddis’s pro Eric Lock, both qualified to play in the qualifier for the Canadian Open.

Political prediction: Election with a thin majority buys Danielle 6 months before the knives come out.

One insider Andy spoke with said that Danielle MUST fire her chief of staff or she won’t make it to Stampede week.

Phone call with Arthur Pawlowski should have been cause for her entire staff to be fired.

Joel Shapiro – Fresh off working with Chartered Professional Accountants in New Brunswick and BC. Dealing with goals and metrics with the CPAs.

He’s been working with Paramount executives this week.

Joel also shared a one Delegation hand out that was a brilliant summation of WHY delegate – and how to convince recalcitrant executives to just DO it. You can download it by clicking the link below the minutes.

Steve Price – noted that two large insurance companies were pulling out of California because the risks versus the value too high because of wildfires.

California is about to legislate that insurance companies can’t leave.

Steve also joined Andy in enriching our colloquialisms library with “…something here that gravels my ass…”. That something is the whole unscientific, virtue signaling madness that a zero-carbon world is chasing hydrogen boom. 

Hydrogen conversion is horribly inefficient compared to firing natural gas into a turbine. There was a terrific article in the Financial Times where you can find some of the information Steve discussed: https://www.ft.com/content/6e22930b-a007-4729-951f-78d6685a7514.

Tony Fisher – reflected back to living on a farm a long time. He noted how there are many family farm issues especially with succession and with passing down the farm from generation to generation.

Tony also talked about a foreign worker SML hired, a Jamaican man with an electrical background. He talked about the difficulty of getting simple information between countries, in this case a driver’s abstract to justify the category of license this driver should have for insurance purposes. Getting the information from Jamaica was one thing, but then SML’s insurance company insisted on classifying him as a class 7, rather than class 5 because they couldn’t get the information the way THEy wanted it. That information snafu is costing SML an extra $9,000 a year in insurance for one employee.

Ross Mikkelsen - busy at Barbecues Galore for another month to five weeks before things start to slow down. Ross told a great story about an employee in their Burlington store with Down syndrome wh may be the biggest Brett Hart fan in the universe. Brett happened to come into the store and Ross got a photo taken an autographed (if I’m remembering this correctly) to send to the employee.

Dave Hicks - working in Jasper and Banff. Finding it hard to get good labor for Hixie Electric.

Interestingly, the Calgary Construction Association is saying this isn’t a cyclical problem. It’s a systemic issue. There are simply not enough people replacing trades.

Arpi’s recently did a great job on two furnaces and air conditioning and heat pump for Dave. Two days in and out and super clean. He *was* however, surprised that as the customer, HE was responsible for inspections.

Dwayne Vinck chimed back in after that to say they had central air installed yesterday from Costco. A1 Chestney did the job because they were available more readily than Arpi’s. 

Mike Boyles - interesting piece - client had a lease to buy option on the building they were operating. Developer had given him a nice incentive of 100k.

However that aggregate debt could end up then costing them interest and taxes. One lesson taught and learned was that keeping operations and assets separate helps protect assets. 

It also helps to keep the business’s exit cleaner.

Mike had a couple of other quick tips: The series of Candlelight Concerts taking place around town. Many are truly spectacular. Se which shows might interest you here: https://feverup.com/en/calgary/candlelight?utm_source=landing&utm_medium=landing_candlelight_yyc&utm_campaign=candlelight_yyc&cp_landing_term=city_selector&cp_landing=city_selector. 

Mike’s daughter also introduced Mike to the site Flight Radar where you can literally see every plane aloft in the world in real time. Including in Mike’s time on the site, a US Grumman military plane at 58,000 feet over Ukraine. See more here: https://www.flightradar24.com/51.06,-114.11/6. 

Second Round:

Jim Bladon recommended a movie called The Covenant directed by Guy Ritchie. Base don a true story. This looks tense and terrific: https://youtu.be/02PPMPArNEQ. It will be streaming eventually on Amazon Prime.

Another watching recommendation: Diplomats on Netflix.