Christmas 2023

Well another year has come to an end and once again I am very grateful to Helen for producing our annual Christmas letter below. We give thanks to God that our year has generally been uneventful with some very happy memories made with the family. Unfortunately, my University contract came to an end this year and also the company I founded with another work colleague all the way back in 2007 finally ceased trading due to bad management. This was very disappointing because the business model of the company was completely sound and its failure had nothing to do with either me (I left in 2017) or the other founding member. Anyway, a small group of us (me, the other original founder, and another long term friend who has also held CEO positions in several companies) are currently trying to raise new funds to pick up where Imagen left off. We thought we had some strong traction with a particular VC fund but sadly we learned a few weeks ago that they had reached a decision not to fund us. Therefore as we go into the New Year, we shall continue to chip away at funding opportunities because we are confident that the final Imagen service model is still very viable under a new company vehicle. Whether we are ultimately successful at raising investment is in God’s hands but, as the saying goes, the chance of success is definitely zero if you don’t try in the first place! Having said all that, I do feel a little too tired for all this now especially given my body seems to be complaining more and more at me in relation to aching muscles and a general malaise feeling that I can never work out is just generally getting old or more psychosomatic (probably a bit of both I suspect). Additionally, I am not sure the current world situation helps many of us stay positive – it feels there are just too many bad people, with way too much power to cause humanity immense harm, in positions of leadership at the moment. Let’s hope and pray our worse fears of a Trump Presidency are not realised in 2024 especially for the sake of the Ukrainian people.