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Hi Martin, I manage the team who look after our existing clients and their renewals. I won't go into all the details of the new scheme here, but I can assure you the new offering will provide additional exclusive benefits that your current insurer doesn't currently provide, especially as an IMDA member. If you have any issues or queries or would like me to keep an eye on your renewal then please get in touch with me, either on here or using the below: John.cook@astonlark.com 01732 386786 The whole team are working from home but are fully operational during this period.

The bat references are idiotic. Several things (I do have a little edge on you lot here, hehe)... 1. Don't believe anything at all coming out of China, the Tractor Committee Production Quota Figures are always manipulated and lies. Journos seem to believe this stuff. For example, who believes only 3,000 people died of the Death Virus in (the whole of) China? Absolute joke figures but widely reported by the UK press, every day by the BBC. Who believes no-one (in China) died of the virus last Wednesday? It's pure fantasy propaganda, but again, it hardly gets questioned. So don't believe stuff just because it's from Reuters or someone reputable. 2. A lot (ALL in Wuhan city, 11 million, twice the size of London or Scotland) of people have been trapped in their flats 100% 24/7 for 3-months. And many other Tier 1, New tier 1 tier 2, and tier 3 cities have been locked down worse than the UK. Some of these high-tier cities have populations that exceed that of many countries and are world-class in every way. My own parents and sister have been stuck inside in Chengdu (also new tier 1 city like Wuhan) for 2 1/2 months. Inside means inside. Not this crap that goes on here, dog walking. No. Each residential building has a political cadre controlling it. You can't get out. You are spending nothing. You have a "family book" that controls ONE PERSON to leave once a week, for food. That's it. You break the rules, your family is collectively sanctioned. You really REALLY don't want to be sanctioned; loss of jobs, privileges, health cover, even lose your house. So you comply. Due to the nature of the communist party, a hell of a lot of jobs (majority) are in the Government public sector which has been receiving full Government pay (to avoid insurrection and buy population compliance). So, many people have built up large nest-eggs, which they may feel they need to spend on cars for various reasons: They don't want to use public transport (that's not strong enough, they fkng sh1t themselves to fkuc - sorry James - about using public transport which is CROWDED. It's a death sentence). Or taxis. Bicycles are banned in many modern Chinese cities for more than very local journeys. Walking is very crowded. Cars are deemed safe spaces in comparison. In large Chinese cities car registrations are restricted (to prevent road overcrowding/smog etc) and many people will want to get a car now, before the allocation of registrations runs out. Often they have to join a lottery scheme to register a car. It can take years sometimes, unless you can bribe. So, take advantage of the availability, suddenly. It may be a race to buy physical cars, as the production lines have been disrupted big style (as will happen here in the EU/UK) and cars may be slow to come through... so grab what you can, while you can... like toilet rolls. In most of China, there is a 1 or 2 property rule, and you are stopped from transferring money out of the country... so if you can't put your money into houses (and you only ever own a 60-year lease, never the freehold which is all Govt owned), and foreign holidays (a recent thing) are still impossible, and people have been restricted to one child (now 2) what the hell do you buy/spend your money on? How many handbags can you own? A car is the answer. It's more of a status symbol in China than the UK. Because people in China (middle class) are cash-rich, and the car finance sector is mostly immature in China, most car purchases will be (effectively) in cash. Buying a car is also an easy way to launder large amounts of money if you have accumulated dodgy money. Therefore the market won't be slowed by credit availability and proper credit scoring from nervous finance companies, which may be the case in the UK. Because the used car market is immature in China (and people in China value *NEW* things.over used things) people prefer new cars over used cars. You've just dodged a bullet (the virus), so you think "fcuk it" and bladder some cash. Treat yourself. So, not all of that stuff applies to the UK. So, I'd caution making too many parallels. Especially the credit situation. That will be a bigger squeeze in the UK than in China, I think. Hope this helps - Ling

Jamie Baguette asked me to re-write this web-bit, that was deleted as collateral damage the other day: === Here are some marketing ideas... (I have no idea about cars, but I'm OK at marketing, it's fun) Hmm, I don't spend a penny on marketing or adverts, apart from the odd £25 on a FB post that goes viral. £zilch. I rely on referrals to my website and word of mouth. I don't buy any Google adwords or take part on any websites like Autotrader or What car or Contracthireandleasing. They are all like vampires, sucking cash. You can get hooked on them like heroin. So, I was getting a bit panicky last week, as it seemed impossible to break through the wall of news on Covid19. The top 10 BBC items were all Covid. My Web traffic was dropping. No one was listening to posts about Citroen C3s and BMW Gran Coupes. WAH! In a bid to stir up some web traffic and car orders, I thought: ...let's use the bloody virus, then. So I wrote my 80% furlough letter to staff in a slightly bonkers way. (it's below) It started on the Sunderland footy forum where it seems every fan will have a car from me. that went to 9 pages. Link is here: https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/lings-cars-letter-to-staff.1512081/ One of the Mackems sent it to the Sun. ... then BOOM. So far, it's got Daily Mirror, The Sun, Newcastle Chronicle and some foreign newspapers too. To buy this much advertising would cost £thousands. Loads of positive comments and shares on the UK newspaper sites, hundreds. Loads of backlinks. It went mental on Twitter too when the newspapers went live, so many kind comments. My web traffic went through the roof and loads of proposals on Monday, the first finance acceptance (BMW finance still working) and order (for a MIni) today. more to come I hope. loads in the pot, it's getting the fin cos to process them that's hard. Dealer fleet people mainly doing these from home. GDPR is out of the window. All this stuff is great Google juice, the newspaper links are worth a fortune in SEO. Then, due to the American Spanish paper (biggest Spanish paper in the US), I got an invite to join in a Uni course in Florida State University, which is great for weblinks/google juice. If only I were as nice to my staff as people think I am... all i was doing was giving my (few) staff a tickle in the dark days; here are some pics of the stuff (below) boyz, for those of you who struggle to read I'm not trying to get "well done"s, just suggesting marketing opportunities still exist, even now. - Ling My staff furlough letter (above) Sunderland Footy forum (and me proving to the Mackems it we REALLY me) The Sun The Mirror The Chronicle A local internet paper La Opinion, LA Spanish newspaper (biggest in USA) Some Greet shit paper My Uni course booking

That’s fine. It’s just the forum isn’t supposed to be used to sell to dealers by suppliers. That’s what Car Dealer Magazine and advertising is for. We have to pay for this forum some how and if we let everyone advertise for free - not only would it annoy most users - but we wouldn’t have a business to be able to offer this forum. Hope that makes sense

@John Cook - Aston Lark This is dangerously close to the non promotion rule. I’ll let this one slide but please adhere to the forum rules for suppliers. Thanks

If you log in with an account its give you reg number.

who needs money you can’t spend it on anything

They've been fine, had very little call to speak them with in between renewals though, luckily no claims to deal with. They were quick to chase when one of the drivers license had lapsed, he was also moving house and had a HGV license (meaning a paper renewal only apparently) but they were decent about repeatedly extending the deadline by a week until it came so can't fault them really.

A 2nd vote for Ashley at UK Global, however Aston Lark came up trumps for me this year with AXA, and I was also on the NIG deal last year.

Interesting as always Great that your guests are willing to give helpful free advice Thank you

Well I suppose the one I have to say was years ago when I first started trading and it was more of a part time hobby, I bought a an ultra blue Corsa C SXI, was a nice low mileage thing had only done 50k Miles, it got delivered off the transporter and then a couple of minutes later a guy comes in asking if it’s for sale as he was looking for a car for his daughter. He wanted a deal and was happy to take it as was so done literally nothing to it and his daughter came in to collect the car. And had it not been for covid 19 I would be getting married next month and the man would be my father in law