Event Organisers Update December 2016 ISSUE 14

POWER OF KNOWLEDGE Look’s like the old Overpayment scam is working its way into the events industry. We are grateful to reader Cindy-Michelle Waterfield of …

DEATHS IN CALIFORNIA PARTY FIRE More than 35 bodies have been recovered from the ramshackle Ghost Ship warehouse venue in Oakland, California after a blaze …

DEATHS IN KARACHI HOTEL FIRE Eleven people died and more than 70 were injured when a major fire started in the ground floor kitchen of the luxury Regent Plaza Hotel …

ROUX THE DAY Diners looking to try the three Michelin starred food at Mayfair restaurant Le Gavroche in 2017 could well rue the day they go if it’s after the end of …

YORK STADIUM DELAYS The £44million 8,000 seat York Stadium is set to suffer more delays in completion after IGS, its main contractor pulled out citing delays due to an …

CAN’T PLEASE EM ALL Registration company Eventbrite have published a list of ten things that event managers can never get right for all their delegates. These are the …

NIGHT FRIGHT A shift manager in his 30s has been sacked from the 3-star Best Western Walworth Castle Hotel, Darlington, County Durham after a young woman …

CREEPY Creepy it is, and eerie, disturbing, macabre and surreal, just some of the descriptions of the latest psychological thriller from Japanese director and horror genre …

DEATHS IN CALIFORNIA PARTY FIRE

More than 35 bodies have been recovered from the ramshackle Ghost Ship warehouse venue in Oakland, California after a blaze swept through the building on December 2 while a party was being held there.

No cause of the fire has yet been found but it is known that the venue was not fitted with smoke detectors or a working sprinkler system and had never been inspected for fire safety by Oakland’s Fire department, which is currently understaffed, with 63 job vacancies unfilled.

DEATHS IN KARACHI HOTEL FIRE

Eleven people died and more than 70 were injured when a major fire started in the ground floor kitchen of the luxury Regent Plaza Hotel, Karachi, Pakistan on December 5.

Most deaths were from smoke inhalation and most were trapped on upper floors, with many who survived having to hang knotted bedsheets out of the windows of their rooms and climb down.

Most of Pakistans buildings have sub-standard fire safety and it has been reported that the hotel did not have any emergency exits.

ROUX THE DAY

Diners looking to try the three Michelin starred food at Mayfair restaurant Le Gavroche in 2017 could well rue the day they go if it’s after the end of January.

This is when the 13% service charge levied by owner Michel Roux Jr (56) ceases to be discretionary and becomes compulsory, with Roux regarding it as revenue, rather than a payment to share between his staff, and pocketing the lot, in the same way that some cheap chain restaurants do. Continue reading

YORK STADIUM DELAYS

The £44million 8,000 seat York Stadium is set to suffer more delays in completion after IGS, its main contractor pulled out citing delays due to an official review and increasing cost pressures as reasons. (The Business Desk)

The City of York council say they are “fully committed” to the stadium which, when built, will include a 13-screen cinema and provide a home for York City FC and the York City Knoghts rugby club.

CAN’T PLEASE EM ALL

Registration company Eventbrite have published a list of ten things that event managers can never get right for all their delegates.

These are the level of the content, the amount of activity, the amount (or not) of communication, the location, the price, the catering, the starting/finishing times, the number of delegates, the volume of the AV and the temperature in the room. Continue reading

Charity Matters Dec 2016 Jan 2017 ISSUE 70

LETTING THE SECTOR DOWN The warning of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that charities risked becoming a dirty word has gained substance after the ICO …

LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS Age UK have revealed that nearly a million elderly 60+ people will suffer chronic loneliness this festive season while most other folk are …

CARE HOMES PROBE The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) are now carrying out an investigation into care homes. This follows complaints of unfair treatment of …

AID COMPANY CONCOCTS TESTIMONIALS A major player in the charitable distribution of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of foreign aid supplied by the …

IT’S A MIXED UP WORLD The number of children calling NSPCC charity Childline about gender identity has tripled in the last three years, to 2796 in the year to March 2016 …

FRAUDSTER SPARED JAIL A woman who fraudulently claimed money from the Cumbria Community Foundation charity has been given a suspended sentence …

COPYING THE CORPORATES It is a pity someone at the otherwise excellent Art Fund has decided the charity will behave like a big, bad company and suggest donors pay for …