Welcome note

To all you caterers, event managers, venue owners and event organisers out there...

This place is for you to express your opinions on your experiences, your delights, your successes, your grievances, your failures, your organisation; but most of all, to network and speak to others in the same industry without having to attend a conference or exhibition!

Tuesday, 8 May 2007

Working lunches just got better!

Have you ever been so busy at work that your lunch break would consist of a sandwich from Tesco (or Pret), and a view of your computer screen? Well in my case its home made sandwiches because i don't actually have the time to go get one from a shop.

Well this was the case until a few weeks back when a friend recommended getting lunch delivered to my desk. Delivered to my office? I thought, this is too good to be true and therefore began to think that i was becoming the butt of some joke. So i decided to do a little research before, just in case my worst fears became a reality. Onto the Internet i went, and into Google i searched for corporate caterers. Up top came a website i could hardly understand or navigate around, second a wedding caterer, then third was London's Flying Chef.

So i had a little read of their site and looked through their menus, all quite fancy and posh for a lunch isn't it? But nevertheless tasty looking. It said that all orders are for at least four people, which meant i needed to get some others involved, so i rallied some troops and my boss, who like me has a non-existent lunch break, and we ordered lunch for the next day via telephone. By this time i was beginning to think that my friend was telling the truth after all.

The next day the food arrived about 3 seconds earlier than the time we requested. A big platter full of little sandwiches, pittas, wraps and rolls, all with a variety of fillings. Now I'm no food critic but this was the best lunch id had in months, the last being at Chez Gerard. Perhaps the best thing though, was that each sandwich was filled how they should be, i.e. no poxy proportions of fillings like you get in Tesco, these were doorsteps in comparison!

Since then i have been a regular customer of London's Flying Chef, in fact, word has spread so fast that pretty much every company in our office block order food from them. Its even got to the point where the receptionists are on first name terms with the delivery personnel.

Top that Tesco!


Unsung Heros

Ok so i went to my first exhibition last week, or rather the first that i can remember. I have been to various events like the London Motor Show and the London Boat Show, both at Earls Court, however, i was a wee nipper when i went to both, and therefore didn't really know what was going on. All i cared about back then was chasing my sister around and pissing off my parents, which would promptly incarcerate me back into the pushchair.

The exhibition i attended last week was not the typical one you would expect a man in the catering industry to be at, nevertheless it opened my eyes and i learnt alot about a subject i previously knew diddly about. Internet World it was called, and i know what your are thinking, a geeks paradise...and you wouldn't be wrong in thinking such a stereotypical thing. But it also gave people like me an opportunity to learn about stuff like Google, the future of the Internet and most importantly the skills to setup this blog.

Even so, this is not what i wish to write this post about. I am now at an age that if i misbehaved my Dad wouldn't dare whip me round the ass or have Mum chain me into the pushchair; and therefore i have enough intellect to realise that there is more to an exhibition than it being an opportunity to chase my sister around or subsequently piss of my parents.

The thing that was most clear to me at Internet World was that i could only imagine how much time, effort and coordination it must have taken for the event to take place. I think the organisers are the last people that visitors to such events think of when they attend, and it is now clear to me that they are the unsung heros in the world of events. Much like all those programmers at Microsoft, who endlessly develop computers while Mr Gates (the man who actually stole windows, not invent it) gets all the recognition and probably the cash.

Anyhow, this is a big "thumbs up" and thankyou to all you event managers/organisers out there, on behalf of all visitors to your events (apart from the kids running around pissing off their parents). Keep up the great work!