What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 3 February 2014

Welcome to another week and it's a busy and interesting one to say the least!

We're working on behalf of the Birmingham Press Club again this year to launch the Midlands Media Awards, which is their largest and most prestigious annual event attended by over 300 of the regions media professionals and key guests from the business community. 

Entries are now open for the Awards to anyone working within the local media, journalists, broadcasters & online news contributors with 20 categories to choose from, including one which will enable the public to vote for their favourite source of news and information. 

We already have a fantastic line-up of two tier judges including Peter Lowe, Managing Editor of Sky News (Chairman), Peter Brookes, Senior Lecturer in Sports Journalism at Staffordshire University, Television presenter Marverine Cole, former Birmingham Post editor Fiona Alexander and Steve Dann, regional chairman of The Journalists Charity. 

The Awards will take place on the 5 June 2014 at The Holte Suite, Aston Villa Football Club again this year. Please see www.midlandsmediaawards.co.uk for full details.

On top of that, most of the team were down in Bristol for a couple of days last week for the Destination Bristol event. 

Destination Bristol promote the interests and development of the visitor economy, and working in close collaboration with stakeholders to develop and enhance the city centre. Destination Bristol has a first-class track record of delivering projects on behalf of third-party agencies and supporting the emergence of other partnerships by applying its extensive understanding of successful collaborative working, and its experience in delivering client-focused projects.  

For the first time they delivered an interesting and educational FAM trip, aiming to inspire visitors and differentiates the city region from its competitors, exploiting the unique character and its internationally recognised icons. We have to say, they did just that and we at Cloud 9 had a great time! 

Cloud 9 Team

It began with a tour around Bristol on the City Sightseeing Open Top Bus, which was great but we all did regret the decision to sit on the top in the current weather! The company had very kindly provided blankets for us all and after a few minutes there were requests for another blanket! It was a great experience and fantasitc, unique way to view the city. 

 During the trip we had the opportunity to look at some superb venues including The Avon Gorge Hotel, ss Great Britain, The Bristol Hotel, Hotel du vin, At Bristol and many more! As a result of this we were lucky enough to see a variety of unique conference and events spaces and release our inner child like behaviour. You may think how is being a big kid got anything to do with an educational FAM trip? Well... during our visit to At Bristol, we had the chance to explore hundreds of hands-on exhibits and their Planetarium! 

We had a fantastic time, they were great hosts, received firstclass, warm hospitality from all of the venues and met some lovely people, so we'd like to thank everyone involved in the trip!

Have a great week and we'll see you next week. Enjoy!