Of course, not all things go to plan. They were a bit disorganised, and it took us about 2 hours to leave the city. They hadn't thought out the travel times properly, and so had allocated half an hour to go from the Domain to Ourimbah (on the F3). It takes about 1hr 45. We finally arrived about 2 hours late, and were rushed through the wine tasting. Bess and I quite liked one of the Rosé's on offer (a new wine for us) and the Fortified Merlot. Lunch was delightful, as was dessert.

We had a good chat with one of the Sales guys from  AMD Australia and as we discussed our business discovered that he lived in the same suburb as us, but also was a Christian. It's amazing - wherever I go, I keep meeting more Christians in IT. We had a good chat about their products, and even talked about the possibility of some future joint marketing efforts. God has placed so many committed believers right throughout the world - in every area and walk of life. It's amazing.

Our supplier (who ran the event) probably could have done a better job of using it as a Customer Relationship exercise. I think the headaches of the morning resulted in them being more stressed about the even than they would have otherwise been, but they were quite insular, and not very friendly all around. But with that said, we have a very good relationship with several people in the company (including their warehouse manager and our account manager) which is far more important than anything from today.

The ride up was quite nice - we enjoyed the comfort of a Mercedes S Class Limo (a first time for me) - Play Station and Champagne inside (I don't like Champagne, and restricted myself to the Coke), interior leather - luxury in the extreme. By the time we were heading home though we had come to the conclusion that it was actually more comfortable to be riding in a normal car. We had the opportunity to back seat in a Honda, and we took it - and beat the Limo and 10 sports cars back to Sydney by a good 30 minutes. (A bit of local knowledge helped here too).

It was a good day all around, and we might make some promotional shots over the next few weeks. It was great to meet some of the competition, and see how their business work and survive. Lots of success stories of people who have used our model, without the customer service. We just hope and pray that our passion for our products, our service and people will allow us to do even better over the coming years, and that God will continue to enable us to serve Him as we do it. It can be quite easy in business to get caught up and walk away from our more important Christian beliefs. Both Bess and I pray that God will keep us close to him, and help us to stand firm as we serve the Christian community in Sydney, but also act as witnesses to our colleagues in the industry.