My first conference as a delegate! - by Natalie Ruecroft

November 2nd-4th 2011 saw me attend my first Venuemasters conference (also my first ever conference!) in the beautiful, but freezing cold, city of Edinburgh. The cold didn't bother me that much as I spent most of my time indoors drinking tea or sparkling wine!

I’d just like to say:
Firstly: what a fantastic conference! Plenty of great speakers and a chance to mingle with fellow academic venue conference sales types.
Secondly: What a beautiful city Edinburgh is.  Not quite as good as Leeds (obviously!!) but full of very welcoming people who made our stay very comfortable.

The conference really was great, it provided really useful workshops throughout the day and a chance to relax and meet new friends in the evening. Also a chance to dress up as Bonnie and Clyde with my favourite Head of Sales and Marketing, Richard Handscombe.

I took away some great sales tips and advice, especially from Adrian Webster who delivered a humorous, highly energetic and, at times, emotional speech on delivering extraordinary customer service. In fact, his TNT (tiny noticeable things) idea has spurred me on to add a little personal touch to my ‘Getting Venue Finding Agencies to Book Leeds’ campaign!
 
I am currently in the process of handwriting very attractive and glittery Christmas cards to each of the agents who have used us and thanking them for choosing the University of Leeds. I did contemplate sending a photograph of myself with a beard saying "Ho, Ho, Ho" but decided against this!

Merry Christmas everyone!

We Know How to Throw a Fam Trip (& cook corned beef hash!) - by Natalie Ruecroft

I’ve learnt a lot whilst I’ve been working for Richard Handscombe, our Head of Sales & Marketing.  Last week he taught me two things: firstly, how to make Corned Beef Hash and secondly, that the chef in the Teppanyaki restaurant doesn’t throw the Egg Fried Rice into your mouth, just pieces of sliced potato!  I’m hoping that over the next few months I’ll learn a lot more, specifically about Event Booking Agencies.

‘Let’s tackle agencies’ Mr Handscombe said to me shortly after I started my role here in the Conference Sales Office.

‘Venue finding agencies play a huge part in the Conference and Events industry and we need to make sure that the University of Leeds is a venue that agencies are aware of. Let’s invite them to the city and show them what we can offer!’

A great idea, I thought, from my Head of Sales and Marketing. This is going to be a fun project that I can really get my teeth into (much like the Corned Beef Hash) – I’m looking forward to this!

The plan is to host a ‘weekend break’ for agency staff where Richard and I will show the guests around the city of Leeds and also give them a tour of our impressive campus meeting space. A tour of our brand new accommodation development Storm Jameson Court will also be on the cards. With overnight accommodation being offered at Weetwood Hall, a deluxe 4star property owned by the University and lunch at one of Leeds’ fine restaurants, I’m sure we’ll get a fair few people interested!

We’ll be putting the final details together pretty soon so invites will be sent out in the next month or so. Exciting!

The main aim of this project is to put our University on the ‘agency map’ and make the University of Leeds the first place agents think of when looking for a conference or event venue in Leeds. I’ll be working pretty closely with Richard on this project as he has many years of experience working with agencies – I’m hoping that he’ll pass some of this knowledge on to me!