John talks a lot of sense!

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

What d'ya reckon Christian Vision?

Social Helium - Hot air or just pure "bulls**t"? Part 2

We heard this week that Michelle Stott-Leavesley (i.e. James Leavesley's wife) had an accident around Christmas and that it was "allegedly" the fault of this blog!

Apparently, she'd had sleepless nights worrying about all this information being in the public domain and the fatigue and stress caused the accident.  We were very sorry to hear this until we learned that the accident in question was actually whilst away skiing for Christmas(!!).

Now, I don't know about you, but sleepless nights aren't the most common cause of accidents whilst skiing.  They are usually caused by a conspiracy between gravity and slippery stuff under-foot.  Michelle is no virgin when it comes to skiing accidents, as their blog demonstrates.

We're glad you're OK, Michelle, and had such a great time skiing!  Perhaps you'll have returned in a frame of mind to authorise payment of the Birmingham County Sports Partnership invoice that is apparently hugely overdue.  You remember the one?  We previously highlighted it in the Conflict of Interest post a while back.

Now, when it comes to hot air, spin, waffle and downright bulls**t (to quote Calum Brannan) then this has to be a prime example.  Let's face it, when you're hurtling down a frozen mountain on two planks of wood, a bad night's sleep doesn't have much impact on your concentration.

If you're worried about embarrassing information being in the public domain, Michelle, then it's usually best not to do things you don't want people to know about, or to associate yourself with people who are likely to impact your reputation in a bad way!

Sleep well.

Calum Brannan's appalling investor track record

With three failures in about 6 months, Calum Brannan seems to have an amazing record of using other people's money but delivering very little in return......

Looking at the funding for Youmeo.com, he seems to have persuaded a large number of bright people to part with many £tens of thousands and yet achieved little, which begs the question as to how his new concept, "Social Helium" will fare.

Listed as shareholders for Youmeo, we have the following (amongst others!):

Norman Younger - 1 share - Investment £1.00

Calum Brannan - 89 shares - Investment £8900

Votivation Ltd - 5 shares - Investment £17150

Calum Brannan - 90000 shares - Investment £zero

Votivation Ltd - 5000 shares - Investment £zero

James Leavesley - 13970 shares - Investment £10,001

Paul Tuson - 4576 shares - Investment £9356.91

Lisa Meadows - 4576 shares - Investment £9356.91

Orchard Growth - 629 shares - Investment 1286.17

Richard Boot - 9779 shares - Investment £19999.91

Michelle Stott - 6985 shares - Investment £20000.01

James Leavesley - 5588 shares - Investment £9999.84

Richard Boot - 5588 shares - Investment £9999.84

Ronald Blease - 2235 shares - Investment £3999.58

3 others 1397 shares each  - Investment £1000 each

(Note to self - Must investigate Votivation Ltd)

So, in summary, Calum Brannan managed to get more shares than anyone else (in fact, everyone else put together!!) without ever significantly putting his hand in his pocket, whilst everyone else funded his gravy-train to the tune of about £111,150 - I bet they were annoyed when it went down!!

Imagine how James Leavesley and Michelle Stott-Leavesley, a young married couple, must have felt pissing such a huge amount of money down the drain and yet James seems to stick with him - hard to understand unless he expects to see his money back sometime!!  What other reason could there be for them starting CBJL Ltd and promoting their new concept of "Social Helium".

As anyone who's ever been to a fair knows, you should never trust a kid with helium - they either have a concentration lapse and let go of the balloon, so it floats away, or they breathe it thinking that it sounds cool to have a voice like Mickey Mouse!

I'm finding it hard to imagine why anyone would want to invest into, or even get involved with Social Helium or any business in which Calum is actively involved (!) when he's taken down, or attempted to take down, three companies in the same space within less than a year - does that seem like a safe bet to you? 

I wonder if the DTI know he's had such an appalling track record?

On another note, we hear that there's been some very interesting movement with respect to the whole Bob Edmiston / Christian Vision / Boost TV saga and there should be more here very soon - If you like some scandal, generously laced with hypocrisy and dirty dealing, then you're gonna LOVE this!


We just want to ensure we've checked our facts before we publish.

 

James Leavesley - Conflicts of interest?

James Leavesley was apparently discussing the possibility of creating a Social Media solution for Birmingham County Sport Partnership "CSP" .  His contact at Birmingham CSP is/was a consultant called Michelle Stott.

This is a commercial solution designed to meet the needs of the CSP and James seemed to "win" the deal without too much trouble, which is always interesting when dealing with Government departments and the civil servant types, don't you agree?

The fact of the matter is that Michelle Stott's full name is Michelle Clare Stott-Leavesley  and she is (apparently) married to James Leavesley - check out their blog!..... Hmmmm.  Now, I wonder how James was apparently awarded the deal so easily.

Then we get to the fun bit - apart from the potential for a huge conflict of interest when a wife, acting on behalf of her client, can influence the awarding of a contract to her husband's company, as a supplier!!  

The other interesting angle is that James did this whilst acting for Inormas, but seems to have transferred the deal across to his new company CBJL Ltd Registered 07055592 at MILTON PLACE 30 TENBY STREET, BIRMINGHAM, B1 3EE, which is (coincidentally?) the same address that Michelle's company is registered at - I wonder if that's their home address!

So, James was going to get paid for bringing in the Social Media solution and Michelle was being paid, as a consultant, to select his company as the supplier - surely there's a conflict of interest there......?  What do you think?  In this period, he was presumably claiming salary from Inormas for the business generation activities and expenses for going to see his wife and he did so with (apparently) no intention of allowing Inormas to benefit financially from a deal they funded.  That sounds like it's verging on fraud.

Michelle is a Director of Sportoptima and here she is on the IOD Website and she also sits on the Board of IOD Young Directors Forum with her husband, James.  She also runs a company called NXO Strategic Marketing, although she doesn't seem to be a key member of the senior team.