May I presumably be one of the last to say Happy New Year to you all today!

It's great to be back with you this afternoon, bringing you all the latest news and developments from the industry to your inbox each and every Friday lunchtime. Again this year I'll try to be as close to midday each week as humanly possible. I do hope if I ever fall down a hole or something and the Weekly Update doesn't appear, someone will think to send out a search party...

Anyway, you may have noticed already that we're continuing a first-edition-after-the-Christmas-break tradition today, by looking back at what were the Top Ten most read stories throughout the year just gone. It's always a fascinating activity for me, putting the list together and once again the most popular news items are a mixed bag of stories which clearly stood out to readers for a variety of reasons. As ever the stories tend to be extremes - either good, bad or surprising. Do have a read through and see if you can guess what the number one is.

There is another sense of deja-vu with today's edition as I do recall that the first issue of 2019 also sadly reported on a break-in to a dealership which had occurred over the festive period. The story today of Culverwells in Kent being targeted is bad enough, but is made even more shocking when you watch the CCTV footage on Kent Online and see just how brazen and casual the thieves are - filling up their vehicle with chainsaws and strimmers. It's a horrible sight to behold.

We're aware that dealers across the country are all too often suffering from burglaries and it seems that most security methods employed can be circumnavigated by determined criminals. I know we've asked before, but if anyone has any advice they'd like to pass on to other dealer readers, regarding security procedures which they are particularly in favour of, please let us know in the comments below.

Getting back to the new year, January is the month for new beginnings and we have a couple of major trade shows coming up which could potentially act as inspiration for some new products to grace the floor-space of your dealerships.

Kicking the industry's year off, next week the LAMMA show takes place at the NEC for the second time, following last year's inaugural indoor event. Running on Tuesday and Wednesday, the huge undertaking which takes up 11 sold-out halls in Birmingham will be full of kit of interest to our agricultural machinery dealer readers.

This will be followed up in a couple of weeks time with the BTME show in Harrogate, organised by BIGGA. Taking place from Tuesday 21st to Thursday 23rd, the event is always of interest to dealers of professional turfcare machinery looking to see what's new.

Both of these events could be described as sophomore efforts, following on from a major change to both of their formats in 2019 - LAMMA with the change of venue and BTME with the complete change of layout within the International Centre. It will be interesting to see how the organisers build on what they started last year and continue to engage with and attempt to satisfy both visitors and exhibitors alike. Service Dealer will of course, report from both.

Throughout 2020, we continue to want to hear from our readers - it is your journal after all. Please always feel free to comment below articles on this Weekly Update and get in touch if there's anything you feel we should know about. Ours is a policy of wanting to reflect as many dealer and industry voices as possible.