I'm The Chairman Of The Board

Wood you believe it?

Any self-respecting business has a marketing department to concoct and portray its image out to the wider world. And a financial control department to keep tabs on where all the money is going. A sales team to drum up more business, plus a legal division for dealing with contractual matters and disputes. A “human resources” group who know how to hire and fire people. Somebody at the top to take the credit and/or blame. Oh and a division of people doing whatever it is that actually makes the business money. We mustn't forget them.

My business, New Leaf, naturally has all of these departments, being a very self-respecting business. Perhaps not HR, actually. But all the other groups are fully staffed and operational using a groundbreaking new employment model which seeks to maximise the potential of all employees (well, employee) whilst making efficiency gains through focusing on eliminating the need for meetings and leveraging the abilities of the staff to multitask, such as fleshing out the five-year corporate strategic plan whilst also watering the broccoli.

Pheasants have started to appear and strut around like they own the place

That's not to say that the business couldn't benefit from a larger employee headcount - detailed forecasts which assume the doubling or even tripling of staff show that output would increase and profits rise almost proportionally. That is of course with the premise that none of the additional staff were to receive any salary. Factoring in salaries, even at minimum wage levels, immediately makes any hiring out of the question given expected revenues from the business' vegetables this year. Until the cost of a cabbage rises above the £20 mark at today's prices, this will sadly remain unfeasible. Fortunately the business has been able to recruit occasional temporary staff at no cost other than three meals a day and a tent to sleep in, and this trend is expected to continue on an ad hoc basis.

The mange tout pods are huge...

..and the plants are trying to reach the polytunnel ceiling

Recently there has been a renewed push by sales and marketing to grow the “Door-to-door” customer base. This nascent but important element of the business seeks to bring fresh produce right to the door of the customers on a weekly basis within a two-mile radius of where it was grown. Bags of salad leaves have been chosen as the primary product for this particular play, being seen as a value item and widely consumed during the summer months, and having a visual aesthetic. Comparable products from supermarkets can be easily shown to be inferior due to the use of chemicals in an attempt to keep the leaves fresh for days (weeks?) prior to purchase.

Filling up the caravan's water barrel from the stream via a long pipe

So on Monday, and the previous Monday, our CEO/founder/salesperson/broccoli-waterer could be found visiting all the nearby residences in Mallwyd and Minlynn and, should there be someone in, making a pitch and presenting them with an A6 colour leaflet which neatly summarises the product and how to contact New Leaf to make an order. Empty homes were left with a leaflet through the letterbox. The second sales trip immediately generated three additional customers to add to the existing seven, some of whom have more than one bag on their order (and a few have asked for kale as well!). One of the new customers is a local hotel under new management keen to buy local seasonal produce for its restaurant. The sales drive also rather unexpectedly resulted in an invitation and free ticket to a Leyline-Finders Moot Day in a fortnight hence with the possibility of more sales to the prospective Leyline Discoverers.

An outdoor mange tout plant has more attractive flowers, it's a Blauwschokker variety

Although Door-to-Door does not currently bring in much revenue, the CEO is keeping a close eye on it and rumour has it that he thinks it has potential one day to match, possibly even exceed, the income generated by the main sales outlet for New Leaf, the Veg Bag Scheme! These rumours generate a healthy rivalry between the two project teams, or at least it would do if they were staffed by different people. You know how much I get paid to write this blog? Zilch. It ain't right. I'm going to take it to the boss in the morning.

These borage flowers go into the salad bags - they're edible and taste slightly sweet