What's Floating Around Cloud 9?

Week Commencing 13th February 2012.....

Love is in the air this week at Cloud 9 Towers and we are celebrating Valentines Day, not with flowers, not with chocolates and not with Champagne (well, not until the night anyway) as during the day we are off to Donnington Park for the Love Business East Midlands Conference! We haven't been before but it looks like being a well attended event and a good chance to do a little networking and make a few new contacts.....http://www.donington-park.co.uk/events/2012/02/14/love-business-east-midlands/

We are also getting ready for the launch of our new service, Dazzling Table Displays. With the huge number of events we have run over the past 10 years or so, we have accumulated a pretty impressive array of everything from Giant Martini Glass Vases to Peacock Feathers, Glittering Lava Lamps to Sea Shells, and most of them lie, unloved, and boxed up on storage. Well, not any more! It's time to share the love!

We thought it was high time that we shared some of our stock with the world so we have come up with an incredibly cheap hire service - and we mean cheap! You can hire items for as little as £1 a day (with a deposit of course) and over a four day weekend for Weddings etc, for just £2.50. So the next time you need 30 Table Top Lava Lamps, you will know who to shout! What's the point in buying when you can hire them this cheaply, and without the hassle?  

We are just putting the finishing touches to the website and then its all systems go - and not just with the hire service. Venue is also an option and we have ideas and stock to match and budget and any theme so look for details and we will let you know when the website is live - its taken longer than we thought to catalogue everything we have, which goes to show just how much stuff there is. Peacock Feather anyone? Go on, you know you would love one really!

Sticking with our Love theme for the week we thought we should mention an event which we would love to be involved with...the Carnival of Venice http://www.venice-carnival-italy.com/index.php

The Carnival of Venice is an annual festival, held in Venice, and starts around two weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Shrove Tuesday and is now world famous. First held in the 11th Century it fell into decline in the 18th Century but was revived in 1979 with great success. Nowadays it is a great excuse to don a mask and costume, parade around the city, enjoy the live music in the main squares of the city, the events organised by the tourist board and is a wonderful open-air festival where everyone can join in. Fantastic costumes are displayed in St Mark's Square and Venice is the perfect back-drop for amazing photographs. Here at Cloud 9 we would really like to go to the Great Baglioni Party which is held at the Luna Hotel. We just need to find the 295 Euros for a ticket (each, so that's 1180 for all of us to go), plus money for drinks, a great costume, a hotel....oh yes...and flights. Oh well, maybe next year!

 Our final love tribute this week has to go to a great book which was featured on the Jeremy Vine Radio 2 programme a week or so ago and prompted us to buy a copy...

Throughout history, soldiers have known that they run the daily risk of being killed in action for their country. When you are stationed on the front line, it is an ever-present danger. Hence, for more than three centuries, soldiers have been writing farewell letters to be read in the event of their death a last link with that person, and a voice from beyond the grave. If You¹re Reading This brings together a collection of these letters through history. Starting with the Napoleonic Wars and concluding with Iraq and Afghanistan, the book not only reveals farewell letters from soldiers of all ranks and nationalities, but tells a potted history of each individual soldier and his or her story. Where possible, the book will also explore the reaction and impact of those letters on the family who received them. Historically, these letters have been an opportunity to express feelings, facts, and instructions, but overwhelmingly they¹re a message of love to those who are left behind.

All we can say is get your hankies out, but we loved it anyway!

Love to all....