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FAT PIGS

October 8th, 2010

How big is the sense of humour of the English? As an outsider, I perceived in these months that English humour is quite brilliant. Understated, dry and subtle, but ever present for those who look out for it. Working in conferences, it is an important factor that makes our work so much nicer every day. We make phone calls to our clients, we talk to numerous delegates, and many of them put a smile on our face. When things unexpectedly go wrong (not that they ever do!!) that same sense of humour is just as important – even when the pressure is on, most of the time it is taken in good moods and all works out fine.

I started thinking of this subject because we are looking for new little treats to surprise our clients with. It is always wonderful to get a little thank you present, and so we have for many years now tried to please our clients with goodies, from wine to personalized pencil holders. Sometimes it is difficult to stay innovative, so we are always on the lookout for interesting new gifts.

This time, we found a delicious organic bar of chocolate, which is not the most original thing on earth, except that this one made us laugh, a lot: it is wrapped in shocking pink paper, with a drawing of a big pig snout, and the name of the chocolate is… FAT PIG! It has some instructions on how to eat it as well (“fast, before another fat pig grabs it off you!”) and we overall found it very funny. Looks like the perfect new little treat, just to put a smile on people’s faces.

But it is tricky: those who happen to be in a bad mood, might get highly insulted and never want to come back to that Fat Pig Conference Company. But for humour’s sake, I think it is worth the risk!

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Buses and bycicles

September 27th, 2010

An article published on the BBC news channel claims that “the average commuter spends 139 hours a year travelling to and from work”. Discounting holidays, that represents almost 3 hours per week. I suddenly feel very sorry for myself, as I spend about two and a half hours getting from home to work and back every day! But my own miseries and self-pity left aside, I wondered – how do people spend those precious hours?

London is definitely not a good place for the avid car aficionado. Lack of parking spots, expensive congestion charges, and LOTS of traffic make commuting by car an expensive, tiresome and overall dreadful experience. And then we’re not even talking about environmental issues yet. Even for those who love their car more than their new born baby, working in Central London, you’re better off looking for alternatives.

A popular option is rail transport: tube and train. These are usually extremely crowded, and I always feel like a country-girl as soon as I set foot in the stations, getting stressed and wound up simply from the amount of people crawling around. For some reason, when I’m in there I can’t stop thinking of ant colonies.

I usually take the bus myself, as I live in one of those far far away neighbourhoods where even the nearest tube station is a bus ride away. To pray every day no road works are taking place is part of the ritual. The bus does take quite a while even without the road works, but on the other hand, I can usually sit back and relax with my book, until the bus drops me off at the door of the workplace.

But overall, the winner of my best-way-to-get-to-work-award, by far, is the bicycle. Surprisingly, I don’t see many people using them to come to our conference venues. Has to be said I don’t have one myself – I consider my house way too far and the London climate way too cold – but I truly admire those who do cycle to work every day. It is a marvellous invention: one doesn’t pollute the environment, bikes are very cheap to buy, maintenance is close to zero, it’s entertaining and on top of all you get in shape!

But as all good things, even cycling has a downside. A BIG downside. It makes you sweat. Can you imagine sitting in a cosy conference room, all day long, next to a very admirable but oh so sweaty colleague? Hmm, ok, I admit… I am suddenly very happy I don’t see more delegates arriving in their cycling gear. But here goes an idea for the local councils: installing public showers and changing rooms next to the Boris Bike stations might just be what our London Cycling Scheme needs!

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When the remedy is worse than the disease

September 21st, 2010

Maybe some of you have read this blog a couple of weeks ago – I mentioned how we were trying to find ways to donate our surplus food to charities. This ended up being a lot more complicated than at first sight may seem.

We have, almost every day, a certain amount of delicious, healthy and fresh food that we don’t want; others want delicious, healthy and fresh food, that they don’t have. The equation seems simple, right? Wrong. After a week of e-mailing and making phone calls, contacting many charities to find out if we could make anybody happy with a free meal, I realised that, due to health and safety regulations, it is actually impossible for charities to accept and redistribute food that isn’t wrapped and does not have a use-by date written on it.

Now, our food is all fresh and prepared on site, which is why it is so fantastic in the first place (I know, modesty is not my forte). Obviously it isn’t wrapped and doesn’t have a use-by date on it! It does make one wonder. Health and safety regulations need to exist and be complied with, evidently: who does not want to be healthy and safe? But in some situations I think that the rules fail to remember their original purpose. Or, as Sir Francis Bacon put it, “the remedy is worse than the disease”.

With pain in my heart I conclude that we have to continue throwing our food in the bin.

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Last Sunday was one of those days

September 15th, 2010

Last Sunday was one of those days. As an intermittent shift worker I was called by the god of money to work. I was under the impression work would be a little light tinkering, maybe a doze and a long stretch of the Archers on the Iplayer, how wrong. The conference organised by some scarily efficient Chinese went wrong from the off, who was at fault, I have no idea. The theme internet trading, we were chosen as a venue partly because we can guarantee connectivity. Well now I know not on all lap tops. I had no idea there were different generations of Wi-Fi (pubescent, adolescent, spotty teenager, granddad the list goes on) We have learnt (the very expensive way) to guarantee connectivity you need to have some control all the equipment used (and ideally the users to) At our America Square Conference Centre we routinely supply delegates with top of the range standardised laptops, we will have to start at Cavendish Conference Centre.

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What a waste…

September 3rd, 2010

As many of you know, at Cavendish Conference Centres all food is prepared on site by a small team of dedicated caterers. This allows us to provide luscious lunches, including starters, warm meals, salads, cheese platters, seasonal fruits and much more, using only the freshest ingredients. We can suit all individual needs – vegetarian, lactose free, vegan? No problem, nothing is impossible for our amazing chefs!

There is, nonetheless, a downside to all this deliciousness:  Many days we have a big food surplus, which painfully ends up in the bin. But this is bound to change! We are looking into possibilities of redistributing the surplus food through charities that work with disadvantaged people in the community. If you have any experience with this kind of initiative, tips or advice, please do let us know!

We’ll keep you up to date, more news on this topic to follow soon!

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Utterly English

August 24th, 2010

Having only recently moved to England, many charming details have been catching my attention. It’s the little things that brighten up my day and remind me time and time again that I am, undeniably, living in London.  To start with, the expressions – it is absolutely wonderful to come into work early in the morning, and hear a bright “Hello darling, how are you today?”  Just the darling makes everything all right, doesn’t it? Even the rain ceases to matter.

But the loveliest bit of conversation was when my colleagues commented on a high-tea they had attended over the weekend. Quoting (very) freely:

“It all looked amazing, very posh, almost too nice to touch. But the one unmissable item, that we dream of and live for, the true essence of high-tea, was missing: scones!”

What followed was a passionate discussion about scones, the best place to get them, the ideal way to eat them, the perfect cream and favourite jams to put on top, and last but not least the tea – with milk! – to go along. 

It made my day, more English impossible!

And after so much talk about scones, the next day dear Rachel brought some in for us all. I have to give it to you, I’m sold: they are delicious. Maybe an idea to start offering at our conferences?

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