What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 15 September 2014

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 8 Spetember 2013

Welcome to another week and now that normal service is resumed, the kids are back are school, most holidays are over, and thoughts are turning to the busy Autumn schedule ahead, here at Cloud 9 Towers we are as busy as ever! We've various projects on the go and Bristol Media Brand You is only a week away so its all systems go.

Our main focus at the moment is the MADE Festival in Sheffield at which we are exhibiting. Held over a couple of days in late September, MADE is the UK's leading Entrepreneur and Business event and offers visitors a spectacular range of business events and activity in and around Sheffield.

Festival highlight MADE for Success takes place on 24 and 25 September at Sheffield City

Hall. This centrepiece features a blend of business experts and leading entrepreneurs -

who will share their experience and knowledge on achieving success.

MADE for Success covers a wide range of topics, including Establishing and Developing a

Brand, Managing Business Growth, Leadership and Management, and Driving New Sales and we'll be taking notes as well as networking the life out of the event!

Paul McKenna is speaking on 24 September to provide an interactive show demonstrating 

techniques to increase business performance and results. A truly unique opportunity to

hear a powerful new message from a world leader in human behaviour.

Other guest speakers include Musician, chef, entrepreneur and TV personality, Levi Roots,

Visionary entrepreneur and founder of School for Startups, Doug Richard, Digital entrepreneur and founder of SMARTA,  Shaa Wasmund, SB.TV founder and sensational young entrepreneur, Jamal Edwards along with Fashion & design icon, Wayne Hemingway.

If you are going then make sure you come along and say hello to us on Stand 51.

In other news this week, we're sad to be saying goodbye to our two interns who have both been with us over the Summer.

Harriet is returning to Leeds Metropolitan University to complete the final year of her degree in Event Management and Toby is starting a Management Degree at Goldsmith's University in London.

They have both been an invaluable part of the team and we hope that they will both be back in their respective holidays. So in tribute to them, we've blatantly pinched this article from the Huffington Post which we think they need to read.

Unless you intend on squatting in disused houses after you graduate, student life at university is the first and last time you'll enjoy such a carefree lifestyle. Your second and third year is usually spent sharing a house or flat away from campus with your friends and it's probably going to be the weirdest experience of your life so far. Some people have the time of their lives, some don't, and so if we're going to be honest about this, student living is a lot more than house parties and hot-boxing your landlord's conservatory.

Here are some of the less-than-great aspects to sharing a place with your fellow students...

1. Be prepared to see strangers' poo - a lot of it. There is a clearly a gap in education, be it at home or at school, in which correct flushing and cleaning after the use of a toilet was missed out. I hate to break it to you, but the chances are that if you yourself are not a culprit of leaving a caramel cave leading to the u-bend after using the toilet, someone else in your house definitely will be. Good luck bringing it up with your housemates too, it's not an easy conversation. "So, um, have you ever considered fibre in your diet...?"

2. There's an asshole that will only communicate with you through passive aggressive notes - and they think you're an asshole too. Unfortunately, this is me. I'm that asshole. Instead of trying to convey messages face-to-face to every person in my house, I find it easier to leave notes in places that everyone will see. Sometimes these notes are friendly, like last month when I thanked someone for cleaning the kitchen so well, to the less friendly, more passive aggressive one I left by my housemate's door last week telling him he was the loudest human being I've ever met and I hated living with him. Notes aren't a good route to a peaceful house dynamic, so try to stay on talking terms and generate some house rules that everyone agrees to...and that you can then use against them when they start being morons.

3. Sometimes people think it's funny to invite strangers in your house. A course-mate of mine got deliriously drunk one night at a house party and was found in an alley by some guys who then carried him to their house where they let him sleep on their couch and put a bucket by his head, just in case. That's a good story because he wasn't sick and made his way home in the morning. But sometimes it doesn't work out so well...

4. There will be someone totally incapable of sharing or considering others. Whether it's getting them to actually do their share of the housework or making them understand that washing-up liquid and toiletries don't magically appear, some people just do not want to think of anyone else but themselves. They steal your stuff, they use your plates and cutlery, and they'll probably deny everything if you accuse them. It's no surprise then that some students take revenge on these asshats.

A friend of mine told me,

"I have a housemate who absolutely refuses to contribute to the buying of commonly used household goods, whether it's hand-soap, toilet paper, or anything else that can and should be shared. He has a year's supply of soap, toilet paper, shampoo, fairy liquid, and every other utility stuff stockpiled in his room. [...] And yet he has a habit of using the things the rest of us share, without contributing to the cost. One day we realised we were losing an excessive amount of milk, so we decided to all chip in together and purchase strong laxative, poisoning our own milk supply.
Initially we thought it was going to be rather amusing giving someone an excruciating amount of the squirts, but then it just ended up like some shitty Bay of Pigs. There were no ideological victors that day, only someone who kept really needing to poo."

5. Hygiene - not everyone values it. You may be blessed with housemates who wash regularly, who clean their clothes and who enjoy a life less infested with microscopic bugs. But the sad fact is, at least one of your friends is secretly disgusting and you'll only find out when you live with them. A hotbed of grime and shame is the shower, as one student told me:

"I was horrified to find that as I stepped into the shower one morning, the previous user had not removed his... 'seed' from the shower wall. Luckily, we had two showers."

So buy some bleach, buy anti-bacterial everything, it could get pretty terrible.

6. Some people don't get privacy. Although I don't know anyone who leaves the door open when they masturbate, everything after that seems to be permitted in a student house. For example, there's going to be a night when, as you start to fall asleep, you'll begin to hear groans and grunts and the creaking of a bed...and you're going to have to find a way to sleep without horrifying images in your head. But, as a student, the likelihood is that you'll be groaning and grunting at some point too (apparently) and, depending on the sort of people you live with, it could go in a weird direction, as one student recounted to me:

"So, post-sex with my boyfriend, the condom falls on its way to the bin and the entire contents manage to empty themselves on my bed (ew, I know). I'm about to clean it up when my housemate knocks on the door and, before I can even reply, comes straight in. She'd just had an argument with her boyfriend and needed to talk. So she walks straight into my room, plonks her bum on the corner of my bed and lands right on the wet patch. Completely oblivious, she tells us her woes and I'm trying my best to keep a straight face and look concerned. It seemed to be working as she doesn't notice a thing. Until she got up. Her hands slowly moved to the back of her trousers and she looked confused and disgusted. I braced myself for confrontation but she said, "...Anyway, I'm off to my room. Thanks, guys. I needed that talk."
My housemate and I have never spoken about this incident since. Still, I'm pretty sure she knew what she sat in. Moral of the story, knock and wait."

7. Some people don't care how much noise they make, so try not to end up living with them. The slamming of doors, the thudding footsteps of the childish housemate who jumps down the stairs, the enthusiastic conversation at 2 o'clock in the morning - these are the new instruments in the soundtrack of your life. I have a housemate who seems unaware that arriving home at midnight singing out of tune and monotone about blueberries is simply not OK, he slams doors so hard the house shakes and he makes the kitchen into the worst percussion band you've ever heard. If you like constant noise, then go for it, live with those people and have a bunch of noisy fun, but when exams are looming, when that deadline is staring you in the face, let's hope everyone keeps it down when you need them to.

Maybe none of this will happen to you, maybe just some of it will. I know people who live with people precisely because they're all noisy, or they're all messy, it's what draws them together and they enjoy their loud, mangy lives. And I know others who've escaped a crappy house and now live in a paradise. It's not all doom and gloom but sometimes you need a dose of the reality that a lot of people want to ignore. So my advice? Set down the ground rules, organise monthly house meetings where everyone can moan and complain about problems in the house, and, whatever you do, make sure you keep talking to each other. Why? Because if you don't you'll never understand why someone in your house decided to burn two fresh eggs in the box and leave them charred on the patio.

Seriously, what were they summoning?

So there you have it, a Student Guide for sure! Have a great week and we'll see you soon.

 

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 23 June 2014

Welcome to yet another week at Cloud 9 Towers! 

Last week we told you that the Bristol Media Brand You Awards will be closing for entries on Friday 20 June. There's a good quality of entries into the Awards again this year, but know that there are more of you out there who deserve to be recognised for your work. So they have extended the deadline to Friday 4 July, there's no excuse to miss it now!

Friday 4 July is proving to be a rather popular date for deadlines as The Fresh PR and The Fresh Creative Awards entries are also closing then. Fresh is an independently owned organisation that works in conjunction with a variety of leading industry titles, delivering awards programmes designed to recognise and reward creativity, effectiveness and innovation in the Creative, Digital, Media and Public Relations arena's in the UK and Ireland. Established in 2003, Fresh has quickly become a recognised brand and important highlight in the industry calender, with an original approach to awards delivery and a policy of keeping the process of entering awards as transparent as possible. 

Fresh is committed to ensuring the appointments of only the very best people to judge the awards across all three of the programmes as well as making the events themselves, not only spectacular but also a real chance to network. You will never find plastic chicken and soggy veg at Fresh - they take their awards and entrants work very seriously, but want to offer great value and more importantly make the ceremonies as fun as possible. So can you sock it to 'em and get Fresh in 2014?!

Cloud 9 are quite heavily involved with both of the Awards programmes, so as you can see we will have a rather busy next couple of weeks. Moving on to this week though, we have a couple of exciting events that we're attending starting with the Visual Media Conference on Wednesday. 

Visual Media are the diverse technologies of the communications industry: print, broadcast, email, websites. The conference is in the North because the industry is buzzing and the appetite for informed debate is strong – the concentration of media companies, digital agencies and printers is a magnet for the leading experts, industry resources and suppliers.

This conference is a direct response to demand for a follow-on conference from Media Market Place’s 500+ attendees. Bringing together leading figures across the spectrum of media to inform a debate of how integration will continue to disrupt the current thinking on comms. This is a first to take Visual Media from the brand owners’ perspective right through to the consumers’ emotional response with all the links. 

The speaker line up is pretty impressive with interesting talks from VPress, Sky Adsmart, Prolific North, Bloom, Proco, Media-Plaza, HP and many more. 

Also this week, we have been invited to take part in The Accor Agent Football Tournament on Saturday. It has to be said that the team at Cloud 9 have no experience in football but we're all for the taking part! The five a side football tournament will take place at Lancashire Football Association, Leyland with an overnight stay at the Mercure Dunkenhalgh Hotel & Spa, so its sure to be a fun day. We even have an official Cloud 9 uniform....!

This football tournament is part of Accor's new 2014 incentive Footballers Lives. The campaign will allow venue finding agents, meeting planners and event agents to earn "goals" for every meeting they book at any of Accor's UK and/or Overseas hotels. As 2014 is the year of football with Brazil being the very heart of the action. Accor would like to give you a taste of that with their exclusive prize draw, giving you the chance to with the life of a soccer superstar! 

That's all for this week folks, enjoy!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 9 June 2014

Welcome to another week and we're pleased to report that last weeks Midlands Media Awards went extremely well, with 300 guests at Aston Villa, celebrating the success of journalists and broadcasters from throughout the region.

We had lots of nice comments following the event which is also a positive and judging by the photos from the night we think everyone looked pretty happy with the event (including Qasa Alom from BBC Radio in Stoke who seems pretty pleased!) so we think it was a job well done.

No time to rest on our laurels though as this week our attention is all on the CIPR Northern Conference which is taking place in Manchester this Thursday.

This year’s Northern Conference will provide insight and learning into the skills required to operate in a digital PR landscape. Industry leaders will demonstrate how PR, Content Marketing, SEO and Social Media all work together to create fully integrated and measurable earned media campaigns.

Delegates will learn from the best in our industry about optimising copy for SEO, how paid, earned, owned and shared channels work together, content strategies for social and PR, as well as digital reputation management and monitoring. 

The Northern Conference is perfect for PRs at any stage in their career and is filled with insight, learning and no doubt a good debate! So whether you are in- house or agency, in the voluntary or charity sector, or thinking about a career in PR, this is the conference for you.

Stephen Waddington

The Speaker Line Up is pretty impressive with Earned Media Specialist from the BBC, James English, CIPR President Stephen Waddington, Drew Benvie, founder of Battenhall (Drew is the UK’s #1 most respected practitioner in New Media Age’s 2011).

 Additionally we have the Global Social Media Manager for LateRooms, The Communications Director for the Met Office, Representatives from the Co-operative Group, Harkable and McCanns as well as Google and YouTube so it should be an incredibly interesting day.

You can follow some of the activity live on the day using #CIPRNC

In other news this week it would be churlish of us not to mention the World Cup as football fever will no doubt be gripping the nation in the coming weeks. However if you don't like football the next few weeks might be a bit tortuous so we thought we'd look at ways to avoid it altogether. We have blatantly pinched this article from one we found online, but it made us laugh so much, we ran out of time to think up our own ways of surviving the tournament!

 
1. Walk around blindfolded for four weeks. Not only will you not have to endure watching all those football matches, but you could say it was a social experiment.

2. Invest in cable TV. Then you can watch E4's live coverage of Big Brother all day, and ignore the football altogether. (Although if you really wanted to miss the World Cup, you should have applied to be in the Big Brother house in the first place).

3. Arrange a last-minute expedition trekking in the Himalayas. Lots of scenery but no TVs.

4. Use the four weeks to organise your wardrobe. Have a massive clearing out spree, then go on the mother of all shopping trips. Retail therapy is the only answer to football fatigue. You know it makes sense!

5. As many of the matches are shown in the mornings (because of the time difference), have a lie in and miss the whole thing.

6. Become a nun (it's only for four weeks), and spend the time in quiet contemplation at your local convent.

7. Rent out all your favourite films from your local video shop and turn your home into a cinema for the whole of June. You could even hold your own mini film festival, and invite all your friends who are also trying to avoid the World Cup.

8. Pretend you're Harry Potter, and live in a cupboard during the competition.

9. Become an eco-warrior, and go and occupy a threatened tree. Lots of fresh air, and no soccer highlights with Des Lynam.

10. Take up football and train really hard. Then you might get into the England squad and get injured, or into the Irish squad and fall out with your manager. Either way, you'll miss the World Cup altogether. It worked for Gary Neville and Roy Keane.

So that's it for this week. Don't forget the deadline for Brand You and for The Fresh Awards is fast approaching...

Enjoy! 

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 28 April 2014

Welcome to another week and after two short weeks, normal service is resumed here at Cloud 9 Towers!

Peter Lowe

Last week was pretty much taken over with second stage judging for the Midlands Media Awards which we run on behalf of the Birmingham Press Club. Willoughby PR kindly hosted the judging for us, which was chaired by Peter Lowe who is the Executive Editor at Sky News.

The nominations for the awards will be announced this coming Friday, 2 May and tickets for the ceremony which is taking place on Thursday 5 June at Aston Villa, are available online now for anyone wanting to snap up a seat near the front! We always allocate seating on a first come first served basis, so you have been warned!

Progress for the 2014 CIPR Northern Conference is also shaping up nicely and this year’s conference will focus on the digital PR landscape and the skills needed to spread news further, faster and more directly than ever before. The day will look at how PR, Social, SEO and Content Marketing all complement each other to engage, influence and manage reputations. 

Industry leaders will discuss the blurring lines between these channels the importance of digital PRs having a varied skill set to create digital PR strategies.There will be a packed schedule this year with a diverse range of keynote speakers and the opportunity to network with exhibitors so delegates will be able to make the most of their time and really benefit from attending.

 

Now in its 13^th year the objectives of this high profile event are to provide outstanding learning and networking opportunities for PR professionals through a mixture of challenging keynote speeches and practical master classes and workshops. The event is open to members and non-members alike.

The event is set for 12 June, so just a week after Midlands Media, so June is shaping up to be a busy month for us here at Cloud 9 Event Management.

To recover, Becky & Rubina are then off to enjoy the hospitality of the studio venues on Friday 13 June, with a promise to get lucky with both the studio and Staybridge Suites…



We have no idea exactly what that means, but  to celebrate the launch of their new 24 hour delegate packages, they are hosting an evening of fun and entertainment at thestudio, followed by overnight stay and breakfast at the recently opened Staybridge Suites, Birmingham. We have clients who are big fans of the studio and we are too, so it will be great to explore their new space.
  
Then, no sooner than the CIPR Northern Conference is over, our attention with turn to Bristol Media and the Brand You Awards as the entry deadline is 20 June.  

With such a busy schedule ahead, client venue finding and planning, we are trying to keep as organised as we can and whilst Paula has finally given up, reluctantly, her Filofax, she still complains that her online diary is far too complicated for daily use!

So in tribute to all of those who still enjoy their Filofaxes (without the ridicule of younger members of staff), a little potted history of this marvellous invention!

The popularity of Filofax over the past decade has naturally led many people to believe it is a relatively new concept. Yet its origins go back as far as the First World War. In 1921, a London based company was formed to market personal organisation systems in the UK by mail order. In 1930 they registered the trademark "Filofax", the name having derived from the description "file of facts".

The business continued to grow and by 1987 had a retail network of 1250 outlets in the UK alone. Prestigious stores around the world stocked Filofax, Harrods and Harvey Nichols in London, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales in the US, Bon Genie in Switzerland, Galleries Lafayette in Paris and Seibu in Japan amongst others.

The Filofax personal organiser had developed from a simple loose-leaf diary and notebook into an indispensable organiser and status symbol for the 80s.In 2001 the Letts Filofax Group was formed after Charles Letts and Company Limited aquired the Filofax Group. In 2012 the company was acquired by HSGP Investments.

Paula maintains she is reviving hers next year, the Cloud 9 team remain unconvinced! Her response however, is that if Grace at 83 could pull off using a Filofax, then she can too! 
We'll see....and in the meantime, have a great week!

PS. Don't forget to ask us about FUSE by Cloud 9....

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 7 April 2014

Welcome to another week and boy oh boy, its a busy one! What with sorting entries now that the deadline has passed for the Midlands Media Awards, boosting the Bristol Media Brand You entries, tying up the speaker schedule for the CIPR Northern Conference and making sure the launch of Fresh 2014 all goes to plan, the team here at Cloud 9 Event Management could all do with squeezing every little drop of time possible into the week ahead.

Additionally, Paula, Shannon & Rubina are off to enjoy the delights of the Conference & Hospitality Show North in Leeds on Tuesday which is being held at Elland Road, the home of Leeds United Football Club. 

The Conference & Hospitality Show is a free to attend event which connects meeting and event organisers with a fantastic range of venues and an exciting variety of suppliers.  CHS14 offers inspiration with innovative and creative event ideas along with an informative and motivational educational programme. 

We are big on education here at Cloud 9 and we believe that you never stop learning, no matter your sector, so we are looking forward to enjoying some of the sessions and especially Dr Alexandra Kenyon who has a national and international reputation in the field of experiential marketing, emotions and social media and was one of the Leeds Metropolitan University teams conducting research into future trends within the events industry.  Alexandra has engaged in an ERASMUS funded project, COBERN (Consumer Behaviour Erasmus Network) with 30 European Universities to investigate ‘Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic Consumption Patterns across Europe’ using new methodologies such as picture-based questioning.  She has worked with Adragh Group; known for packaging the World’s biggest brands to investigate the consumer’s sensory journey.

Also speaking is Gill Quirke from the MOD and Catherine Butler of Westminster Abbey talk about their careers and how they came together to play a part in the Royal Wedding, one of the world's most iconic events.

Neil MacLaurin, Managing Director of Keith Prowse will give us an insight into the customer journey and how we can learn from one of the Industries leading Corporate Hospitality providers famous for their sporting and cultural events and there are a host of other speakers also providing sessions.

We are big fans of the CHS Show as its always great to connect with our existing hotels and venues and discover potentially new properties.

After a brief trip back to base, Paula is then off to enjoy the hospitality of the Hungarian Convention Bureau who are organising an international MICE Study Tour in Budapest which includes meeting planners from France, Germany, the UK and the USA .

The primary aim of the study tour is to introduce the conference, meeting facilities and unique venues of Budapest as a possible destination for future international events and includes some stunning looking hotels including The Aquincum Hotel, The Hilton, The Sofitel, The Intercontinental, The Bascolo, The Corinthia, Le Meridien and the Marriott.

Hungary is a not a place we know well here so with the impending trip, we thought it wise to do a little research. Although Hungary is not an unknown place on the globe, it is a new destination yet to be discovered for many. And who would deny that in order to attract delegates to a congress, selecting a location they have not known before is crucial...
 
The cost-to-value ratio is extremely favourable in Hungary. In general the quality of services is excellent and prices are still lower than in most European countries.
 Budapest is a magical place, rendered enchanting by the river Danube which divides the city into two. Hills, mountains in Buda, the line of hotels and the commercial district on the Pest side... an air of history, the pleasant climate, festivals and cultural events prove that the city is indeed the Pearl of the Danube. Several convention centres up to 2,000 located in pleasant environment, and 5.000 first class and luxury hotel rooms are at the guests’ disposal.

Living memories of the past, major historical monuments of Budapest may be special venues for banqueting events and social programmes. The fairy-tale Vajdahunyad Castle, the Museum of Fine Arts or even the Parliament can be rented for special occasions.
 

With unique programmes to choose from for groups seeking sport challenges, cultural heritage or gastronomy tours. One of the highlights of your event might be a fantastic evening cruise down the Danube, a magic day on the Hungarian Great Plain with authentic horse shows, and folklore programmes including delicious traditional meals and drinks.

Budapest is a city of baths, it is also called the Spa Capital of the world. A party spiced with a water ballet performance in the marvellous Gellért bath will surely result in a truly memorable evening. The marching of hussar companies in the Buda Castle; a Renaissance themed evening in a medieval castle; an exciting rally across the country with old-fashioned cars called Trabants: there is plenty to do to enrich your programme.


So there you have it, a busy week indeed. Enjoy or as they in Hungary élvez!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 3 March 2014

Welcome to another week and its a busy one again with all sorts of exciting stuff ahead, including quite a bit of activity with the Birmingham Press Club for the upcoming Midlands Media Awards and the launch of the second inaugural Brand You Awards for Bristol Media. 

We start this week, with the Editors Launch Lunch which recognises the official launch of the 2014 Midlands Media Awards. Chaired by the Birmingham Press Club's Chairman, Ed James, the event will be attended by the West Midlands Editors and headline sponsors, Birmingham Airport. 

Bournville College, principal sponsors of the Birmingham Press Club are very kindly hosting the Lunch for us. They were established in 1913 by George Cadbury, as a continuation school for Cadbury workforce. A hundred years later, the College now caters for around 15,000 students, offering a wide variety of courses for school leavers, adult learners and employers. It’s a truly international college with offices in Malaysia and India and a strong presence across all continents, welcoming around 1,000 international students every year.

In September 2011, Bournville College moved to a new £66 million purpose built campus in Longbridge, kick-starting wider regeneration of the area after the collapse of MG-Rover in 2005. The new campus features state-of-the-art facilities which include Mac suites, motor vehicle maintenance workshops, music studios, training kitchens, over 1,000 computers, Wi-Fi internet access, 3D cinema room, online learning material and much more.

Many facilities are also open to the general public including: a purpose built conference centre for up to 200 delegates, Urban Elegance hair salon, Urban Serenity beauty salon, Urban Flavours restaurant, Urban Fitness gym and sports hall and The Garage, offering MOTs and services for cars and motorbikes.

The College has sponsored the Press Club since 2011. Norman Cave, Principal of Bournville College, commented: “We are pleased to continue our association with Birmingham Press Club, which will have a positive impact on our courses in media and related areas, thereby strengthening students’ experience at Bournville.”

We're very much looking forward to lunch at their new Urban Flavours restaurant which is a contemporary training restaurant situated inside Bournville College, Longbridge. The restaurant offers high quality dining, using fresh locally sourced produce. It seats over 70 diners and is also open to general public as well as Bournville students. It also offers an extended range of services, including afternoon tea, twilight sessions, festive food and more.

We're also in the process of organising an East Midlands Conference on behalf of the Birmingham Press Club, open to all Journalists, Photographers, Broadcasters & Students which will focus on the Emergency Services. We already have a great line up of speakers from East Midlands Ambulance, Police and Fire Services, so it should be another interesting and successful event! More details to follow soon.....

Brand You is back this week which we help Bristol Media to organise. With categories that cover everything from Advertising to Design, Photography to PR, this unique awards programme is one of the few schemes in the UK that recognises individuals, hence the title, Brand You!

You have loads of time to enter as the deadline is not until 20 June, but plan ahead and don't leave it until the last minute. You can follow news and updates about Brand You on Twitter using #BMBrandYou.


Twiter remains a powerful outlet for Cloud 9 so if you are in events and want some help with understanding how social media can benefit your next event, then you might like to give our new FUSE service a try.

Its completely free and is already proving to be a hit with many in house event organisers.

FUSE is a new and completely free service available to anyone working within events for an in-house organisation. Here at Cloud 9 Event Management Ltd, we’re not after pinching or indeed pitching for your business, but instead, helping you to enhance your events in a subtle and unobtrusive manner, leaving you to do what you do best for your clients, staff

and stakeholders.

What exactly is FUSE? It’s four simple elements all bundled together to help event organisers make the most of their events, without any additional work – in fact using our FUSE service will actually save you time, increase awareness about your events and could also save you money.

With Free Venue Finding, Understanding Social Media, Styling for Events and Evaluation, all packed together for free, then FUSE could be the answer to your event headaches!

That's all for this week, so have a good one - enjoy! 

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 6 January 2014

Welcome to another week and firstly we'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

We hope everyone had a wonderful break over the festive period and you are all now rested and ready for the year ahead. We ended 2013 on a high with a new office move and a pretty full diary for the coming year so with pencils at the ready, please make a note of some of the dates ahead!

Fresh 2014 will open for entries in March and the closing date will be mid June with the final closing date set for 4 July 2014. The nominations will be announced on Monday 4 August and whilst we haven't quite 100% sorted the event date yet, it's looking very much like the first week of October 2014. Please keep an eye on the website for additional information and details of the Freshtival 2014.

Brand You from Bristol Media will also be back in 2014 and entries are set to open later this month. The Awards will once again recognise individual contributions to a wide range of creative disciplines and the awards are set to close in early Summer. The nominations will be announced once again in August and the event is set for 16 September 2014. After the inaugural Brand You Awards last year, working with Bristol Media we'll be making a few changes to the programme with a revised judging process and entry criteria so make sure you check out the Bristol Media Website for details of Brand You and regular updates.

The Midlands Media Awards, which we run on behalf of the Birmingham Press Club are now officially open for entries and set to close just before Easter. With another impressive two stage jury in place, chaired once again by the formidable Peter Lowe from Sky News, we're looking forward to celebrating the great work of journalists and broadcasters at Aston Villa, on Thursday 5 June 2014.

A week after the Midlands Media Awards we'll be in Manchester for the 2014 CIPR Northern Conference and the theme of the event is all around content and content management. The 12 June will see us at Manchester Metropolitan University with a rather special line up of guest speakers and an interactive event not to be missed.  

We've lots more events to announce over the coming weeks that we're directly involved with, but we'd also like to kick off the New Year with our lovely new website which our pals at Big Communications in Leicester have designed for us. We're pretty pleased with it and hope you like it too, as Cloud 9 Event Management Ltd gets a very modern makeover.

Don't forget please that we moved in December and you can now find us in our new offices Rosewood House | 84a Main Road | Radcliffe on Trent | Nottingham | NG12 2BQ | United Kingdom | T. +44 (0) 115 9333811 

Other key dates which might be of interest this next year, especially to the event industry, include in the first quarter of 2014:

• Spotlight on Venues in Bristol is 30 January at the Passenger Shed and is open for bookings now.  Only in its second year, we're hoping that one of the team can pay a visit with our increasingly Bristol based schedule of events. 
• Event Buyers Live is set for 30-31 January at the Crowne Plaza in Marlow and is a great opportunity for both those who organise events and suppliers. 
• The Event Production Show is being held on 11-12 February at Earls Court and is the perfect opportunity to find practical, workable solutions and innovations for every kind of event in 2014.
• The BNC Global Event Show 2014, Wednesday 19 February at The Brewery in London and registrations are now open. Both Shannon and Rubina are registered for this and raring to go!
• International Confex, 12-13 March is back at Olympia and now under the control of Mash Media. You can register your interest now and Paula will probably pop up at this one.

That's probably enough to bamboozle you with as you return to work, so enjoy!

 

 

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 7 October

Welcome to another week and its a very very very early start for the team on Monday morning as we taking part in events with our friends at m360 for East Midlands Trains, with singing butlers at Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield Stations.

From 7.30am-8.30am lucky commuters will be able to sample some of the delights available from the first class menus from East Midlands Trains, great way to start the week!

Last week was another busy one at Cloud 9 as we helped the lovely people at Bristol Media deliver the inaugural Brand You Awards. 

Over 140 people gathered at Bristol's Cutlers Hall at Brasserie Blanc at a sold out event to toast the winners of the first Brand You Awards in association with Synergist and Social Heads.  The atmosphere was buzzing as Fraser Bradshaw, CEO of Bristol Media, announced the winners in 14 categories across the creative sector. Fraser said "I'm absolutely delighted that the Brand You Awards have been such a success in their first year.  We received a fantastic response for nominations from the creative community in Bristol and Bath and it was a tough call for the national and regional judging panel to choose the final Highly Commended and Winners.  Congratulations to everyone - we're really looking forward to hosting the awards again in 2014".

Without further ado, here are the winners:
PR, sponsored by Synergist:
Pam Beddard, Winner
Lauren Nicklinson, Highly Commended
Client Services, sponsored by Social Heads:
Dieter Lloyd, Winner
Digital, sponsored by Smart Traffic
Emily Trotter, Winner
Matt Sutherland, Highly Commended
Karl Tynan, Highly Commended
David Smith, Highly Commended
Social Media, sponsored by Foxclock
Sam Beament, Winner
Gez Smith, Highly Commended
Marketing, sponsored by Synergist
Lizzie Everard, Winner
Video, viral and online:
Tiffany Maddox, Winner
Design, sponsored by FD Works
Luke Francis, Winner
Lizzie Everard, Highly Commended
Events & Experiential, sponsored by Commstar
Alex Pearn, Winner
Animation:
Dan Barker, Winner
Harry Powell, Highly Commended
Photography:
Charley Murrell, Winner
Games & Apps:
Ben Templeton, Winner
Hemel Dave, Highly Commended
Broadcast:
Olivia Thomas, Winner
Print and Publishing, sponsored by TSPM
Rebecca Paddick, Winner
India Rabey, Highly Commended
Advertising, sponsored by Synergist:
Sophie Klevenow, Winner
Brand You Recognition Award:
Debbie Rawlings, Director, Bristol Games Hub

Thanks to Bristol City Council, all of the winners and nominees also received a complimentary ticket to Bristol Medias second Master Class Day plus a certificate and the winners also took home a copy of the Little Book of Winners.  If you would like to order a copy of the Little Book of Winners, you can do so from Blurb.com. We are very grateful to all our sponsors without whose generous support the Brand You Awards could not have taken place.  Very many thanks to Synergist, Social Heads, FD Works, Smart Traffic, Commstar, Foxclock, TSPM, Bristol City Council and to Paula Kelsey at Cloud9 for her impeccable organisation. (We pinched this off the Bristol Media Website).

And we end this week with a thank you to the lovely people (you can tell we are sharing the love this week) at Hellidon Lakes who held a showcase event on Thursday evening at their hotel. It was a rather fabulous evening all in all!

Nestled in 220 acres of beautiful rolling Northamptonshire countryside lies Hellidon Lakes Golf & Spa Hotel. Just 14 miles off the M40 and 20 minutes from the M1 the hotel is also just 15 miles from Silverstone.

The hotel name derives from the eight sparkling lakes within the beautiful landscaped grounds.  Whether gazing out from the restaurant or trying to avoid them whilst enjoying a round on the 27 hole golf course, the stunning lakes plus the spectacular scenery make Hellidon Lakes a gem in the Northamptonshire countryside.

Whether you are looking for a business hotel, a retreat for a spa break, a golfing trip or a base for a family holiday, Hellidon Lakes offers something for everyone.

As a conference and meeting venue the hotel offers 24 state-of-the-art meetings rooms, suitable for board meetings, training seminars, annual conferences and awards dinners.  The beautiful setting and the flexibility of space makes the hotel one of the most prestigious wedding venues in the area.Hellidon Lakes Golf & Spa Hotel has thought of everything for those looking for a leisure break.  From the 27 holes of exceptional golf to the 4 lane bowling alley, the leisure facilities to the heavenly spa, there is so much to do you'll have to extend your stay a little longer to fit it all in.

Have a wonderful week everyone....!