They say there is no such thing as a free lunch, but there is in Scotland, if you belong to Retra.

Thanks to investments made years ago, the Scottish Centre, is able to provide a free lunch for members and thanks to the organisational skills of Ian McDonald, more than 70 members attended what was really a mini-conference ahead of the main event in Portugal in April.

Retra president Peter Mann and chief executive Bryan Lovewell, were pleased with the large attendance and both spoke about the latest developments in our trade.

Peter was keen to promote the annual conference and both he and Bryan answered many questions from the floor.

 Before the lunch, representatives from Bank of Scotland, Barclays Partner Finance, Calculus Computer Systems, Coleman Insurance and Retra Warranties had all been exhibiting their wares.

The special “Retra reduced credit card rates” and “preferential banking facilities” provoked a great deal of interest.

One member told me he had saved “thousands” by changing banks. Barry Pattison used the Scottish meeting to launch Retra’s new EasyPay scheme. This is a low-cost monthly warranty that lets dealers profit from offering warranties that are considerably cheaper than that charged by the multiples.

After a sumptuous lunch, George Morton of Top Level Solutions proved he was a good salesman by demonstrating many of the training skills offered by his company. Suffice to say that by the end of the meeting dealers had booked 60 members of staff onto George’s Retra sales training evenings.

As secretary of the Scottish Association, I was especially pleased to welcome three representatives from a new member – the Scottish Hydro Board. Long ago, we used to have Clydesdale and Rumbelows, but sadly they are now part of history. Having Scottish Hydro as a member strengthens the association.

Retra will repeat this format when Peter Mann takes a similar company to Antrim in Northern Ireland for a Retra supper and business meeting on Tuesday, March 18. All the firms who exhibited in Scotland will be there from 4pm onwards, so check your credit card service charges now.

I like visiting Ireland, so I will be there, too, and will conduct a forum after the meal where dealers will get the opportunity to raise any issue.

It is always fun to be in Ireland and I look forward to meeting ERT Weekly and ERT Ireland readers at this event.

A few years ago at a CES in Las Vegas, I met Panasonic’s Masayuki Kozuka, who is in charge of the company's storage device strategy.

At the time, he was ensconced in a small office on the back lot at Universal Studios in Hollywood.

Back then, there was a great deal of discussion about choosing the best compression method and security system for the forthcoming high-definition successor to DVD.

Mr Kozuka was surprised that I knew he held more than 100 patents and we laughed about keeping this quiet, as he was mainly trying to liaise with the movie industry and report their thoughts back to Japan.

Mr Kozuka is a great engineer who is modest about his achievements, so I was surprised to see him quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying HD-DVD died because “Toshiba committed suicide by reducing the price in the US to £50”.

Mr Kozuka was right, as this daft price ensured that even the Chinese couldn’t manufacture HD-DVD and make a profit.

Not so much “suicide”, more a “mercy killing”.