Lunch with  Trevor who has always handled my second mortgage enquiries well, not to mention getting funding for people in the sub-prime category at reasonable rather than the more common eye-watering rates is interesting. If you need extra borrowing, sometimes it can be better to keep an existing loan and have a more expensive second mortgage – especially if you were smart enough to sign up for a juicy longish-term fixed or discounted one. This can avoid paying a penalty on an existing loan and then replacing it with a larger and more expensive first mortgage which may have a fresh set of Early Repayment Penalties.

But 28 years in business and Trevor and IFA business partner make their first loss and sub-prime lenders are very few and far between. Solution: close the office which sadly means letting staff go; work from home (Trevor has always been good at visiting clients to get the paperwork done) with spouses helping with office admin + do Buy-to-Let business which was turned away before. Result: business is now cash positive, profitable and lean enough to survive not to mention confirming confidence in a supplier. Interesting if the government took a similar approach to our enlarged public sector and its gold-plated pensions  http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jun/29/public-sector-pensions-reform – taxes could be reduced, we would all have more money to spend and green shoots of recovery might start showing themselves.

But some people prefer to make their own green shoots or at least help others to do this. Bill Morrow of Angels Den http://www.angelsden.co.uk/?vcn=googleadwords&vcad=angelsden&gclid=CLfy-8u8tJsCFc0B4wod0B3DOg entertains us at www.3Cscommunity.org on 30th June giving us as he puts it, some dirty little secrets about angel funding:

* Registration costs £500 – less than some other organisations charge, but still 100 people a week just send their stuff in i.e. without paying. Reminding us of his Scottish ancestry, he points out that these are not looked at! Angels register and answer a 14 point questionnaire about the type of deal they are interested in. If one meets their criteria, they get an e-mail but it is up to the investor to log in and examine it.

* Minimum investment £6,000, 156 deals done so far, 2,700 registered angels of which 300+ visit the site daily looking for reasons to invest, rather than the opposite. Average investment £227,000 and maximum investment so far, £1.2 million. One large deal was done without consulting the legal people – investor was experienced  and went thorugh proposal pointing out what he liked and did not. Amendments made, deal done.

* After Speed Dating and Speed Networking, Speed Funding seems to work too. Monthly events costing the entrepreneur £250 allow a three minute presentation to a table of three angels, then they move on to the  next one. The passion/skill of the presenter but particularly the strength of the management team seem to carry the day > the business plan and 3 or 4 deals are typically done at that these events.

* Plain English please! Digital/IT people are particularly prone to lapse into techie speak and I can see your lips moving but don’t understand a word of what you are saying, helps nobody.

* Other fees are 5 per cent of funding raised but they do not take any equity stake in the business, unlike many other angel organistations who want both.

* 56 per cent of investors lose all their investment which represents an average of 9 per cent of their investable wealth. Needless to say, these are unregulated investments with no protection under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme but most common mistake angels make is to invest only once. There is a learning curve here and a series of investments is likely to be wiser than a one-off.

* How long before you can exit? Business plans are often structured to a 3 or 5 year timetable where the exit might be: selling the business to someone else, selling some shares on the second-level stock market AIM, or maybe someone buying in to the business (MBI) but the answer here is nobody knows. Still tempted? See above website.

Information retrieval specialists http://www.oneis.co.uk/ are first main presenter while Bradford Backus of Audio 3 Ltd is back looking for top-up funding to finish tiny noise monitors that will track – Noise-induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) for which there is now an EC directive. Cellists are particularly vulnerable here and it seems we now have an inkling why Beethoven went deaf – the musicians did it. How much they will use this little toy remains to be seen but have no doubt he will get his money and Brad is that rare example of technie who speaks the same lingo we do which has helped him win several innovation awards including  http://www.ucl.ac.uk/advances/resources/UCL%20Bright%20Ideas%20Award%20guidelines%20for%20web.pdf Final speaker is aussie Giles Russell of Imaculum whose pocket gizmo allows doctors to do 5 main neurological tests, rather than carry around a set different tools for each one. His vision of the potential of current technology to medicine is worthy of a  blog on its own, but that will have to wait. Next 3Cs meeting in September.

Reverting to a musical theme, regular treats for me are three concerts a year with Barnet Symphony Orchestra where troisieme fille is in the horn section. Three pieces of music usually fill the programme on a Sunday evening with location back at St John’s Church in Friern Barnet. Walking in at rehearsals end at 5.30, it is strange to see them them all in open sandals, T-shirts and chinos but especially intriguing with a strong smell of incense still in the air. Two hours later in full bib & tucker see Grieg, Brahms & Tchaikovsky dealt with very well – led by two brother soloists aged 18 & 20 in the Brahms Double Concerto - there is a third equally talented one as well. With no shortgage of young talent coming through, one never leaves a concert without a feeling of optimism to counter current gloom, scandals and of course just now, all those Michael Jackson jokes. Previously mentioned vacancies for trumpet and trombonist  appear to have been filled http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/2009/03/through-the-ecliptic/ but still vacancies in the strings. Each concert means 11 rehearsals held on a Monday evening, with next concert Sunday 29th November 2009 www.barnetsymphony.org.uk meaning rehearals start again September.