Our Dear Leader is now completing his US trip in New York having been to Philadelphia (or Philly as it is known); the sixth largest City in the USA. More interesting perhaps to Andrew, knowing what a sports fan he is, is that Philadelphia hosts teams in the "Big Four" major sports leagues in North America. These major sports teams are the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball (MLB), the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL), the Philadelphia 76ers

Our Dear Leader is in the USA on an intrepid mission to drum up business for VSA and will be visiting St Louis, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. He tells us that in 2023 America will be the Land of Milk and Honey. We think that means he simply thinks there is a lot of money there and it could be headed to the UK, we don't think he is using the biblical meaning from Exodus, when God instructs Moses to lead his people, the oppressed Hebrew slaves of Egypt, out of bondage and

Although the Pandemic is over, our Dear Leader still seemed to disappear off on a course for the whole of the summer at his Cornish Lair. But he tells us that the summer is setting, and he has returned to a busy Autumn schedule. Busy with deals that we know he will have ingeniously cooked up whilst avoiding the bunkers. In addition, he has three major conferences planned this Autumn, two organised by VSA and a third which VSA is sponsoring and will be supporting in full. The

Our Dear Leader took the plunge and is back on his international travels and reports back to us from Vancouver. He left with a phone full of Apps to show that he was safe to fly with hard copies of every COVID passport, PCR test and QR code possible just in case his phone went flat. Canada currently has random testing and isolation at the border and that 'random' seems to mean 'everyone'! But unlike Novax Djokovic he somehow avoided detention and was allowed straight in. He s

Our Dear Leader is on his travels again and has headed West to America which he has not visited for a very long time. He is not visiting the usual cities that are associated with investment banking but when has he ever done " the norm"? He told us he would spend the first weekend relaxing in Atlanta and to acclimatise to the US time zone. He tells us there is more to Atlanta that just Coca-Cola and civil rights museums, he was particularly impressed by their Beltline concept

Our Dear Leader appears to be in a very good mood as the year comes to a close and he has even told his loyal staff that they can take Christmas Day and Boxing Day off. As his loyal staff, we are of course very appreciative even if they are a Saturday and Sunday anyway! Actually, we think Our Dear Leader quite enjoys Christmas and it's about the one time of the year when he doesn't message staff out of office hours. 2021 was another extraordinarily busy year (Editor - can yo

Our Dear Leader would usually be sending us his thoughts on African Mining Indaba from sunny Cape Town this week but sadly due to Coronavirus and travel restrictions he has remained locked down in his secret Lair in London. There are rumours that he had been developing a secret web forum “Eldon Street Bets” and a trading platform Merrymen.com and that he intends to take on the hedge funds with a gamma squeeze but he assures us that he is a not a day trader but a long term val

Sadly as you all know the Mining Indaba has been cancelled this year although it means 2022 should be a very good event! But it does mean we won't be having a party to raise money for the Kusasa Project and in many ways this year they need it more than ever. The Kusasa project has been supported by VSA, also Our Dear Leader (Andrew Monk) since its inception nearly 15 years ago and its aim is to help break the cycle of poverty for young local children (www.thekusasaproject.o