Happy New Year, readers of Service Dealer Update!
Welcome to the first weekly newsletter of 2016. I hope you all had an enjoyable and peaceful festive period - and I do hope that our none of our friends and colleagues from across the north of the country were too badly affected by the awful scenes of flooding we all saw on our screens.
As you can see Chris has held firm on his threat to retire! Once again I'd like to thank him for all his help, advice, education and mentoring over all the years we've worked together. I'm sure he'll still pop up here occasionally if he has something to say (when doesn't he?!). And you can of course find his wise words at the back of each issue of Service Dealer magazine.
Even though my hairy face has appeared at the top here several times in the past when Chris has been away, it still does feel strange that this will be the norm from now on. Hopefully we can make the transition together as painless as possible! To which end, if any readers ever want to contribute to the debate and the stories of the day please always feel free to leave comments at the foot of any article.
And indeed please email me if you have any stories you feel the community should know about. If you are moving premises, holding an open day, taking on a new franchise, employing more staff or have found yourself in the midst of a natural disaster - please drop me a line, including some pictures, and we'll be delighted to include here on a Friday lunchtime.
It doesn't take long for the industry to get back into the swing of things following the Christmas break, does it? Straight away this week we have some significant news about the concerning levels of agricultural tractor registrations in 2015. At least we do also have some positive news about new training initiatives, several new key appointments and new technological developments for some balance. If this is an indication of the year to come, we're in for a fascinating 12 months.
And it's of course less than two weeks now until the first shows of the season kick off. Our new Features Editor, Martin Rickatson, will be attending the LAMMA exhibition in Peterborough, checking out the new agricultural machinery. Whereas I will be heading north to spend 3 days in Harrogate for BTME, seeing what's new on the professional scene. If you're attending either show and bump into either Martin or myself, please say hi!
I hope you enjoyed the first copy of Service Dealer of the year which should have dropped onto your mat last week - we're already hard at work on the next issue and have plenty of interesting and informative things planned for the rest of the year. Not least of which of course will be the second annual Serivce Dealer Conference & Awards.
