BRUCE HERRING TAKES ‘CENTRE STAGE’ IN NEW NALI COUNCIL LINE-UP
If our electorate believes that the claimed guitar-playing prowess of Prime Minister Tony Blair is a positive personal skill contributing to his running of the country, then NALI surely has a great year ahead of it! Named chairman of the Association’s Council of Management at this year’s annual general meeting in succession to Mr ‘Tony’ Duckworth, on completion of his third year in office, Mr Bruce Herring brings to his appointment such show-biz links as a one-time, would-be theatre impresario, manager of mobile discotheques (as a side line) and a rock band promoter.
Today a launderette owner and engaged in a commercial laundry marketing sector through appointments with Automations International and Warner Howard, before joining James Armstrong & Co. Ltd., Bruce Herring, 56, began his business life in theatre control with Moss Empires. Of his time learning how to run a theatre from behind the scenes, he recalls that lurking back stage at the Palladium, then one of 14 theatres in London controlled by Moss Empires, was “something of an eye-opener for one so young!”
Since becoming involved with the commercial laundry industry in the late 1980s, following a 17 year stint in the world of office machine sales, Bruce Herring reckons to have encountered almost every imaginable laundry sales situation “from quoting for over-sized, over-specified laundries in palaces, to measuring up a launderette in a power-less shop by candlelight!”
Why did he buy his own launderette? Mr Herring gives two reasons. Firstly financial; it provides a second source of income. Secondly and equally relevant, for ‘hands on’ experience, which he says lends an important dimension to guiding completely new customers attempting to open their first shop. Other peoples’ knowledge, whilst relevant, is no substitute for personal experience!
A volunteer warden for the National Trust, NALI’s new chairman has just one major dislike …. Any game in which 22 men kick (or hit) one ball around a field; logic would dictate that a ball each would enhance the enjoyment of the ‘game’ enormously, he says!
