In mid-September 1998 a dozen or so rather confused people met at 7am at the Dome French restaurant just off Albert Square (now Livebait). They had been invited to try to form Manchester’s first breakfast networking organisation, and the writer was one of those people.
 
In an unusual flash of insight, I immediately recognised that this networking model would work, and signed up on the spot. 6 weeks later, when the number attending the breakfast dwindled to 3, the majority of whom were called Simpson, such confidence appeared misplaced. Still, a quorum of 7 people was assembled over the next few weeks, and in early December 1998 the organisation was born.
 
In its first incarnation the group was part of a national franchised networking organisation. However, the combination of American-inspired dogma and inflexible rules, administered by a franchisee whose relationship with the group was always problematic, with the sheer bloody-mindedness of a lively combination of Mancunian business people was always likely to prove combustible. In September 2000 the organisation expelled us, narrowly pre-empting a mass resignation.
 

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