On Saturday, Thoughtful had two big AGMs to attend. One was for the TRIODOS BANK, and the other was for INNOCENT DRINKS. Unluckily, they were each at the same time and 120 miles apart, so it meant we had to split up. James took the Triodos AGM in Bristol, and Chris and Stu went to innocent’s AGM in London.

Triodos Bank AGM

The Triodos Bank Annual Meeting was this year based around food, and how we meet the challenges of producing enough without damaging the planet we depend on. We also got a chance to discover more about how Triodos has become the UK’s organic bank.

Triodos Bank’s UK Managing Director Charles Middleton and CEO Peter Blom looked back at 2007, and shared their plans for the future. We also got a chance to hear from some of the people who benefit from Triodos Bank finance, including Brigit Strawbridge from BBC 2’s ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ who spoke with such enthusiasm and passion. She has bought a yellow bus (which she is getting sprayed green) and taking it around the country to people who want to know more about living green but don’t know really what to do.

Charles ran the day well for the audience of 400 plus, and said something that I felt was so refreshing coming from a bank, he referred to them as members rather than customers which gives them a sense of belonging. In his opening he also asked the members to let others know of Triodos Bank so we thought we’d put it on our blog.

After a quick chat during one of the breaks I told Charles Thoughtful were going to do their bit and he was only to glad to give us a shot.

innocent AGM

There has been much discussion about innocent over the years, and in particular their tone of voice. Questions have been asked along the lines of ‘How can a company expect us to believe that they’re as nice and friendly as they make out?’, and ‘Surely it’s all a clever disguise to sell more drinks?’. Well, it’d be easy to think those things. No-one can be that nice, right? We’re talking about a company that turns over hundreds of millions of pound a year and plans to put their drinks in every country. Well, we’re glad to report that it’s all true (them being nice, that is). We’ve never met as many friendly, smiley people as the innocent staff on Saturday. One of them walked the whole length of the car park just to say hello and welcome us (thanks Kelly). And we thought she was just going to tell us to move the car somewhere else, the cynics that we are.

The way we were treated makes us understand why innocent are such a success. Apart from having a great product, it’s the small details people remember, and to innocent, they are as important as the big ideas.

When we entered Fruit Towers, we were again met by lots of nice, smiley people and were given a name badge with a fruit on. I was a banana, Stu was an orange, and we got given a quick guided tour by Jo Jo, seen below.

Fruit Towers is a brilliant working space. For anyone who runs a business from a David Brent-style office, and wonders why the staff have a low morale, try and get down to innocent sometime. A good working environment can do wonders. We felt like two 8 year olds in a Wacky Warehouse.

So then the AGM started, and we listened to the three founders, Jon, Richard and Adam tell us how innocent began, and where they plan to go. We then recreated the famous ‘Yes No bins‘ story as we were asked to try out two brand new recipes, and vote for our favorite. The one with the highest votes will be on supermarket shelves soon.

The next part of the day was to split up into smaller groups to let innocent know what we thought of them, what they do well, and what they could do better. Here’s Ceri calling for all bananas.

In the banana group, Ceri and Rowena talked to us in detail about innocent’s labels and tone of voice, which was great for me. They were very receptive to our thoughts and ideas, and sent us away with some homework which was to try and write a label for them. Stu got the inside track on marketing innocent by Charlotte’s orange group, which again, couldn’t have worked out better.

Then we ate cake and chatted to more people, before the final part of the day which was a Q&A session, introduced by Rowena, who was natural stand up comic. You can see the videos of the Q&A session HERE, or you can read the written replies HERE.

The day ended with everyone being given an innocent goody bag with an ANNUAL REPORT, a mug, some tea and an amazing personalised innocent bottle. The excitement must have gone to my head as I picked up the wrong bag and got someone else’s bottle, which wasn’t very clever of me (Sorry Lydia, I’m sending yours back today). Here’s Stu’s very own innocent bottle.

Our thanks go to all the team at innocent who made us feel very welcome (and a bit special), and for pulling off a great first AGM. And to Hannah for doing the running around regarding getting us to the AGM.

Special thanks go to Dan for inviting us down to the event.

You can read and see lots more about the AGM HERE.