"We got it, " he said simply. He's a man of few words: Australian, you know.

"Fantastic, " I said. "Well done - it's taken a long time to get that deal together, " I enthused back down the 'phone. "What about the timing?" I asked. We had long been discussing the relative merits of an October show over a February show, so I expected to hear one of those choices for 2007. After all, we felt running a show in 2006 wasn't really an option. There wasn't enough time.

There was a pause. Then those distinct Strine tones crackled gently across the ether. "We have to run the show next spring."

"Oh, " I said. There didn't seem to be much else to say at that moment. "That wasn't really part of the plan, was it?"

Organising an exhibition from scratch in just over four months wasn't quite what we had in mind.

"It'll be alright, " he said. He paused again. "Jane can do it?" The sentence seemed to hang in the air. We had been working towards this for so long. And now we had to run it in less than five months.

No. That's not quite true.

Jane had to run it. Jane Wilson, that is.

Jane and her team at Mercator Media are used to pressure. They've been running the Seawork exhibition for a long time now and making a huge success of it.

Just over four months to organise a show from scratch?

"Yeah, " said Jane when I spoke to her about it the next day.

"We'll do it."

It was never in doubt, really.

So Jane Wilson, Alissia Knight, Katherine Skinner and Kate Didymus (pictured above), picked the show up, shook it about a bit and opened the doors at 10.00 on Wednesday February 22 down at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC).

By the close of play on the next day, Thursday February 23, some 1494 people had visited the show.

I understand the last Marine Trade Show at Windsor attracted just under 950 visitors.

So Jane and her team did OK.

"Yeah. It wasn't a bad show, " said Webster with typical Australian understatement? Had to change We knew the show had to change. We wanted a venue that didn't rely on a tent and a car park in a muddy field. OK, so the Windsor venue served its purpose. But things have changed and we felt people didn't want that kind of thing any more.

So we took the show to Bournemouth. There's a car park adjoining the BIC. There are hotels right across the road. And hotels and B&Bs as far as the eye can see.

Some restaurants were closed - February is the quiet season, after all. But it didn't take long for people to sort themselves out. And they needed to, because we did away with the Gala Dinner. And while we didn't quite do the full Australian bit and have a barbie, we did throw a party instead.

We reckon about 400 people came to our party right after the show on the Wednesday night. It was free to all exhibitors and pre-registered visitors. And we used it not only to emphasise to everyone that we valued their attendance at the show, but also to present some awards.

The Marine Trades Association (MTA) had asked us to take over the presentation of its retailer award in 2004 when Simon Relph and his team from Mailspeed Marine took the trophy home.

Missing a year gave us the opportunity to change the award a little, so it's now a perpetual trophy that will collect the names of each year's winners. And from the shortlist of Breakwater Dive Centre, Rooster Sailing and BHG Marine, we were very happy to present the 2006 Retailer of the Year Award to the father and son team of Paul and David Martin at BHG Marine in Lymington.

And a conversation that I had with Howard Pridding, executive director of the British Marine Federation (BMF), over at METS last year set the scene for two more awards.

Pridding and I reckoned the current crop of movers and shakers in the UK leisure marine industry was getting a bit long in the tooth. But where was the next generation of movers and shakers?

We came up with a few names, but not many. So the Young Businessperson of the Year and the Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards were born out of this conversation.

We had a great response from the trade and received a lot of nominations, from which we made up our shortlists. The judges - me, Webster, Pridding and Alan Morgan, chairman of the MTA - debated the names and the relative merits of each for a long time. And on one award, we couldn't split the two clear winners. So we made a joint award.

Named in memory of Scott Deverell, managing director of Hartford Marina, who lost his battle against cancer last year, Mrs Amanda Deverell presented the Scott Deverell Young Businessperson of the Year Award to our joint winners, Paul Botterill of Barton and Andy Sims of Cooney Marine.

The Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award went to Clive and Mark Johnson of Tacktick.

And because the object of all these awards was to flush out the names of those who will be taking this industry forward, here are the shortlists:

Scott Deverell Young Businessperson of the Year Chris Feibusch - Lewmar Andy Steer - Offshore Performance Justin White - Poole Marine Services Paul Botterill - Barton Marine Equipment Andy Sims - Cooney Marine Young Entrepreneur of the Year Clive and Mark Johnson - Tacktick James, Nick, Guy and Dave Barke - Essex Boatyards Vaughan-Daniels - SmartSail James Cooney - Cooney Marine James Boyd and Andy Nicholson - TheDailySail The Workshops Another change we made was to run informal workshops in the exhibition itself that were targeted mainly on helping small retailers do better business. We did, however, run two very informative workshops on the first day: VAT on 2nd Hand Boats, presented by the BMF's Nigel John, and the Amendment to the RCD that came into force on January 1 this year, presented by the BMF's Nigel Saw with Nik Parker on hand for the questions session.

The Thursday kicked off with a Breakfast Briefing with the deadly duo of Ian Atkins from boats. com and David Lewin from Flag Paints talking about the Internet - where it's going, what effect it is having on SMEs and how to work with it.

And this is the first trade show seminar/workshop I have attended that produced an audience of more than 100 people. There was standing room only at the back and you could have heard a pin drop.

But I'm afraid many of us did hear a plonker taking a mobile telephone call. Would you believe it? In a crowded public meeting?

Jonno Barrett from Kudos presented the Thursday midmorning session on maximising the return on stockturn and examining risk/return ratios on differing stock buying patterns.

Finally Paul Terry from PNTA offered some excellent advice on working with your local media to get editorial coverage as well as good advertising deals.

Keep reading BB and you'll find each of these workshops printed in future issues As for the BIC facility itself, it was excellent. OK, we had the odd teething problems here and there. One part of Solent Hall was a bit chilly. And the cost of the wi-fi connection at £20 for 24hrs was thought expensive. Some thought the food and car parking were expensive.

All of the above - and a few more issues - will be discussed at length at the BBEx wash-up meeting we'll have as soon as we've got this edition out of the way.

But we found the BIC was an excellent facility. It has room for BBEx to expand in the future and most of the staff were very helpful and friendly.

It makes a big difference to get a smile as your pass is being scanned.

We only had one complaint about the staff and that was concerning those working in the Solent Bistro, who were adjudged by many to be rude.

It'll be on the "do list" at the wash-up meeting? So what of the show itself?

While I have never seen so many smiling exhbitors at a trade show and the comments I got were mostly very supportive of BBEx, I'm not going to tell you everyone did fantastic business because that's not true.

I had four very unhappy companies and just about everyone had their slack periods during the show.

I'm not gong to offer any quickly thought up reasons for why some companies found BBEx didn't work for them. But we will be analysing the visitor returns and finding out where people came from and what sectors of the market they represented to see if we're missing any tricks here and there.

And we'll start planning for next year with those results in mind, plus the many comments we've been given.

One thing you can be certain of: BBEx is here to stay. The show is booked into the BIC for February 14 and 15 in 2007 and February 13 and 14 in 2008.

And, as is fitting, Jane Wilson has the last word: "Easily 75% of this year's exhbitors have already booked for the 2007 show, " she told me.

Well, not quite the last word.

Here are a few of the quotes we picked up around the show:

To be honest, I didn't think it was going to be this good - it's been brilliant. And it certainly beats a tent in a muddy field and it's the time of year couldn't be better. People want to buy stock and then sell it, not hang on to it for 6 months. Tim Millinder, Marathon Leisure It's better than LIBS. The girls have done an excellent job and we've had some interesting leads. We've seen more people on day one here than in three days at London. I know where I'd rather be. David Okey, Mermaid Marine We've had lots of enquiries from some big potential customers and we really like the stand. t's cut our set up time by 75%. We're definitely coming next year. Colin Burns, Fibreglass Grating Good enquiries and I'd expect to be here next year. Of the people I've seen, if they're interested, they're r eally interested - not like at a boat show. And it's a really nice hall. You wouldn't want to go back to a marquee after this! Mark Steels, Hindle Marine We flew in from Guernsey on Wednesday and stayed over. It's been very worthwhile and we're most impressed, especially with the general layout. We used to go to Windsor but I must say it's nice to have a solid building and no lumps of mud. Most of the people I wanted to see are here.

We came with some top up orders for people I knew would be here but bought some extras, too. I'd definitely come back next year. Chris Stagg, Boatworks chandlery, boatyard and fuelling station, Guernsey It's been good and we've had people down from Oban, Kip and Largs on the stand. Best of all, we've opened some useful new accounts. Phil Davis, Marine & Industrial We all know it's better here than Windsor and that's down to the venue and the organisers.

We'll be back in 2007. Mike Beacham, Watermota The breakfast briefing on ecommerce on Thursday was the best I've ever been to. Peter Edwards, ASAP We used BBEx to launch out GOTOP range of clothing. We were very encouraged at the end of the first day and Thursday morning was spectacular.

Adrian Hamlett, Yachtkit