Date of next meeting: this is the closest weekday to the 11th (xi in roman numerals!) of every month.

Next month (10.30am on Wednesday 11th March) we will meeting at a familiar venue for us in Bishop's Stortford - Côte Brasserie, with their rather wonderful pain au raisin being the main reason. If you are hoping to come along, please let us know by clicking here

We believe that we need to try to take advantage of a tremendous opportunity to harness the energy, positivity and accumulated knowledge of people that have Experience.

Exidex - The Experienced Individuals Ideas Exchange is a new project where Experienced Individuals "Exies" can exchange ideas that can be either commercial or philanthropic in nature.

Exidex brings a unique resource and opportunity together – to help more experienced people make a real difference. This will not just improve their own lives, self-esteem and potentially even their financial situation but will also help businesses to reconnect with the changing demographics of the workforce and the population as a whole.

The beauty of the Exidex is that you never know what will happen, or what ideas will crop up. This is a group that uses existing relationships that Exies have built up over years, which are otherwise going to waste – it is not just a networking group because Exies already have tremendous networks of friends, colleagues and associates. The idea is to put those networks to use.

Ideas and proposals can be brought to the group and given airtime so that the Exies can use their knowledge and expertise to uncover new input, suggestions and possibly pitfalls that had not previously been noticed.

The ideas that the Exies bring do not necessarily have to be revenue generating business ideas – they could be in the charity sector or anything that the Exie feels will be interesting. The aim is to create the buzz that can be found in small groups when ideas are floated and refined, when the sum of the whole is greater than the constituent parts – to bring the zip back into the lives of talented and creative people.

Exidex ideas that have become actual businesses:

Go2Ex

Notretiring.com

English O'Clock

● motivated by being pro-active

● may have taken early retirement or a career break and are now looking for something stimulating and productive to do

● would like to gain employment by offering their skills and experience

● whose children may have flown the nest and are now looking for new opportunities

● in a job that is not making the best use of their relationships and capabilities