Event Organisers Update ISSUE 87 November/December 2011

SOME OF THE FRAUDSTERS JAILED Three men have been convicted and jailed for their involvement in a £5 million online fraud whereby consumers paying them for…

ONE TO WATCH Two companies offering a list of 8000 event organisers to hoteliers and others supplying the market are Red Banana Marketing Ltd and RBM Data Ltd…

LOOK AFTER YOURSELVES Some safety tips passed on to us by reader Steve Kingshott, and originating from American police officers, are worth repeating on the…

BACK TO NATURE WITH TRAVELODGE Budget hatel chain Travelodge is moving to the great outdoors with a drive to set up units near National Parks, to cash in on the…

LOTS IN LEEDS A total of 37 modern meetings rooms, including 18 syndicate rooms, is offered at the Weetwood Hall Conference Centre and Hotel, in the leafy Northern…

MORE UNI FACILITIES IN MANCHESTER The Victoria Park Campus of the University of Manchester, around 1.5 miles south of Manchester city centre, comprises three …

CONFERENCE SOLUTION IN SCARBOROUGH Three historic venues in Scarborough – Beiderbecke’s Hotel and Brasserie, Woodend Conference Centre…

UNSPOILT IN STAITHES For those organisers interested in a package for small residential and non-residential events Seaton Hall in Staithes, near Whitby, Yorks …

FUN FOR THE MONEY A 24-hour delegate rate of £112.50 plus VAT and complimentary theme park tickets is offered by Alton Towers Resort for bookings…

NEW IN SHOREDITCH A 6000 sq ft Victorian warehouse, Factory 7, is now being offered to organisers. This is built onto the side of a power station and is located on…

GET THE BOYCOTT LIST

The latest issue of Ethical Consumer magazine focuses on the effect of boycotts of products and services over the last 20 years and offers a list of all the on-going ones.

Companies targeted, for a variety of reasons include Adidas, Air France-KLM, Bacardi, British Heart Foundation, Burberry, Caterpillar, Chevron-Texaco, Coca-Cola, Estee Lauder, Johnson and Johnson, Kellog’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kurt Geiger, L’Oreal, Mars, Motorola, Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, and Unilever. Retailers targeted are Boots, Harrods and Tesco, and countries boycotted are Canada, China, Israel and Mauritius. Continue reading

BARCLAYS WORST

Barclays was the UK’s worst bank, going on the number of complaints, in the first six months of this year, say the Financial Services Authority (FSA)

The bank drew more than 250,000 complaints, more than 10% of which were still unresolved after two months. A former contender for worst bank, Santander, drew around 150,000 complaints and had around 2% still unresolved after two months.

Last month the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) revealed that complaints against banks and other financial organisations had doubled in the last 12 months.

PARCEL SCAM

With Christmas fast approaching the frequency of the Undelivered Parcel Scam will be increasing.

As most readers will know this is where we receive emails, or cards through the door, advising us to call a telephone number to trace a parcel addressed to us that a parcel delivery service was unable to deliver. The number turns out to be a premium rate one that costs at least £1.50 a minute, billed through your friendly telephone service provider, who take a lucrative cut of the fraud and squeal. if challenged, that they are simply the utterly innocent “conduit” for the fraudsters.

Dont make any of them richer at this festive time. www.crimestoppers-uk.org

IMAGE PROBLEM

A basic annual salary of £1 million is “very low”, according to Sir Martin Sorrell, head of advertising agency WPP.

Sorrell was being interviewed on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme when he revealed that he has to struggle along on the above amount, made less challenging by an additional £3.2 million in incentives.

Some have wondered what planet Sorrell is living on. For our part we wonder why a man who makes such a screw-up of his own public image should be heading a firm whose job it is to look after other people’s.

SEXUALISATION

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is introducing tough new rules governing racy and provocative images on billboards, which are claimed to have the effect of sexualising children.

Some images which have been used by the clothing and perfume companies will be banned from placement within 100 yards of schools and the more sexual will be banned altogether.

FTC BUTTS IN

Trainer makers Reebok have been fined 25 million dollars (£16 million) in the USA by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for falsely claiming that their EasyTone product was proven to tone it’s customer’s buttock muscles 28% more than its rivals.

In the UK the face of Reebok, (in the USA the fanny?) is model Kelly Brock, who poses on billboards in just a pair of EasyTones, showing off a possibly airbrushed posterior that might or might not have been toned by them.

TOP TASTES FOR XMAS

A recent blind tasting by a team at foodie magazine Delicious found that some of the cheapest Christmas fare available tasted the best, after tasting 121 samples.

An Asda Christmas Pudding at £3 beat others up to £14, a Tesco Christmas Cake at £10 beat others up to £23, Co-op mince pies at £2 beat others up to £9.25 and champagne from Morrisons at £19.99 beat others up to £30.99. Those beaten included products at luxury prices from Heston Blumenthal, Fortnum and Mason, Waitrose and Harrods.

TWEET TOO FAR

Sending helpful tweets can be bad for your wealth, it seems.

The £60,000 a year head of Greewich Tourism, Neil McCullam, told his fellow twitters about a trip he was making to Woolwich, which has something of a name for pickpockets, and advised that he was going to “make sure wallet is not visible” Sadly his employers did not share his sense of duty to warn the public about such things and he was sacked for his honesty.

Watch your wallet in Woolwich…

SMELLS REET TASTY

A new fragrance, Eau de Burton has been launched containing notes of products associated with Burton-on-Trent.

These include smells of brown ale, Branston Pickle and Marmite and the product retails for £36.50 for 500ml.

Of course those wanting to save the money could just splash on some beer and dab a little yeast extract behind the ears…