Would you invite a Chef to a dinner party? - by Natasha Lockwood

No, of course you wouldn’t. Why? Because it’s not healthy for anyone concerned.

It’s not healthy for you because before you have even said "entrees" they’ll have produced a whisk and whipped up a delicious Fresh Fruit Pavlova (where did they get the eggs from!?) that puts your ‘Angel Delight served in Martini Glasses’ to shame.

It’s not healthy for them either: the minute they spy you emerging from the kitchen with your ‘Pate on Toast’ starter the evening is a write-off and the only logical course of action is for them to protect their taste buds by getting in the kitchen and doing the job themselves.

Which leaves me to wonder... as an event planner in training (a bit like a Jedi, but without the light sabre), is it really healthy for me to be organising my own wedding?

If I were to place an advert in the local newspaper for an Event Manager tomorrow, it would look something like this:
The candidate must be
• Organised
• Mildly telapathic
• Very, very paranoid. All the time. About everything.

One phrase you will never hear an Event Manager say is “I assume”, because we don’t. Ever.

Everyone in my office possesses the qualities required to be an Event Manager; they are experienced fountains of knowledge and wisdom, kind of like Yoda.

On the one hand it makes me proud to be part of this team, and to know we do a fantastic job.  On the other hand it makes me feel very sick; because if we are the 'Yoda' of event management, then the Event Manager of my wedding is definitely the opposite of this, or ‘Oppoyoda’, if you will.

From the very first email, on which I was instructed to go on to ‘Google Maps’ to find their venue, I knew that this was not going to be easy.  Bad quickly went to worse when, on the food tasting, I mentioned that in a room full of 350 people there was bound to be at least one vegetarian/dairy free/low fat/Atkins diet/don’t like tomato/chocoholic – who would probably only make their preferences known on the day. I received a blank, open mouthed, gaze in return.

I had also naively thought that we would receive a show round of the venue on our first meeting, as is common practise here. Wrong again. Not only did Oppoyoda neither offer or arrange a show round, they actually suggested that I do it myself, direct with the venue, as it wasn't their department.

Sometimes I forget how very lucky we are here to have a fantastic marketing, conference and catering department, all under one roof.  Who, funnily enough, we communicate with daily.

Several weeks later, tired of waiting around for Oppoyoda to reply to my messages regarding the venue contact, I took matters into my own hands and found the right person myself. Having arranged my own show round I re-contacted Oppoyoda to request his presence, to which he had the audacity to accuse me of going behind his back on the matter, further adding that he would have to check his diary for availability.

Is it any wonder I need something stronger than Angel Delight - where did I put those Martini Glasses?

Know Your Competition - by Richard Handscombe

There are many facets that are key to running a business – great products, good service, effective marketing, defined goals and so on, but one very important piece of knowledge is to be aware of what our competitors are doing.  We can find out what our competitors say about themselves by searching the web, going to exhibitions, and reading the trade press and the same means can tell us what others say about them.  But one of the best ways to learn about the competition is to get out there and visit them.

I used to be a wine importer and seller.  I found that in order to do my job better, I had to drag myself through vineyards and wineries in Italy, France, Germany, Yugoslavia (yes it was a while ago) and California;  I didn’t want to do it of course, but you just have to knuckle down and put up with the drudgery.  Although one vineyard is actually quite similar to the next, the knowledge of the region, the company and its people, picked up during these visits, gave us the competitive edge when we sat in front of buyers trying to sell the wines;  our stories could be told with passion, and were always better than a competitor who had never been to the region.

OK, perhaps visiting venues in Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham and here in Leeds is just a smidgeon less glamorous than Verona and Epernay, but the learning experience is actually similar, and as a bonus, you don’t need any sun-cream.

When the conference sales team visit competitor venues, they gain an understanding of the strengths and limitations of our competition;  they also, incidentally pick up some good ideas that we can pinch!  These visits are done quite openly - none of this Mary Portas stuff, with hidden cameras and the like (although wouldn’t that be fun?) – as by and large our business sector is very hospitable and anxious to show off.  We simply make an appointment, walk through their venue, ask a million questions and Bob, as they say, is your mother’s brother!

Naturally, the quid pro quo means that we have to be open to visits from our competitors too.  We’ve had just a handful, which gives me a warm glow of satisfaction – we know what they do, but they haven’t got much of a clue about what we do, other than what we write in press releases and on the web.

And we write that.


Find out what we write at www.meetinleeds.co.uk/news