A lot of good things have happened this last month, including this new sized Boating Business.

After some 20 years of having the same conversation every year over the size of Boating Business - and always deciding to leave it as it was - the post office (or whatever it’s called now) finally beat us with its new rates.

And you can’t stand still: things have to change and develop and I think BB looks rather nice at this size as a mini-tabloid. We may develop it a little further as we get used to the way the stories run around the advertisements. But get used to it: it’s the way ahead for BB.

Some bad news comes with the closing down of Luhrs in Portland. I spoke to Stephen Cutsforth just before writing this and he’s pretty cut up about the way things have happened for the company and the team at Osprey Quay.

But – some good news here - he reckons they’ve been able to place just about everybody into new jobs: apparently Sunseeker took most of them.

Legends will still be sold in the UK, but they’ll all be built in the USofA. Cutsforth reckons they can build them Over There land them Over Here for the same price it took to build them here…

More good news comes with the Save Our Waterways protest over the weekend of November 25/26. What a result, eh? All that national coverage will help enormously.

The BMF’s Howard Pridding told me DEFRA is beginning to feel the squeeze and the political campaign is getting tremendous support in the House of Commons.

Then, just before I closed the issue, NBS signed a title sponsor for the London Boat Show. OK, we now call it the Collins Stewart London Boat show.

It would be nice to think NBS got a reasonable amount of money for the deal, but James Gower wouldn’t tell me the figure.

Regardless of that, it’s got to be far easier to sell the deal in future if there’s a sponsor in place. And it adds a nice finishing touch to the new-look London Boat Show.

The next issue of BB will have the final situation with all the features and things. My feeling is NBS is keeping the balls in the air rather nicely right now. Tim Pyne came up with some intriguing ideas and next month I’ll tell you how they’re all going to work.

A huge amount of work has been done this year in revitalising the show and I think NBS and the non-execs have done a tremendous job in a very short space of time.

I have A Good Feeling about the 2007 Collins Stewart London Boat Show.