EEF Venues uses drone technology to showcase venue

EEF Venues has taken to the skies to showcase the group’s flagship venue, Woodland Grange in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

Thanks to drone technology, potential bookers can now get a bird’s eye view of the award winning conference centre which is set in 16 acres of grounds. 

Ian Chaplin, general manager of Woodland Grange, said: ”Location is everything when booking a venue, and our drone footage not only adds to our marketing collateral but it gives potential bookers a rare insight into our unspoilt location which is just ten minutes from the Midlands’ motorway network yet a million miles away from the daily grind  of office life.

“It really highlights how taking a meeting or conference out of a normal office environment can be a refreshing experience, particularly if a venue has the benefit of outdoor spaces.”

The AIM gold accredited venue attracts up to 35,000 delegates each year, and EEF Venues is now planning to capture similar footage inside Woodland Grange to showcase its stylish interiors which feature 28 versatile conference and meeting rooms, 114 en-suite bedrooms, a leisure suite, two bars, a restaurant and a café/bar.

“Our vision is to bring our venue alive for potential clients and to make it as easy as possible for them to get a sense of our facilities,” said Ian Chaplin.

“This is all about streamlining the customer journey and ensuring that their Woodland Grange experience starts before they even have to commit to a booking.” 

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imago makes new marketing appointment

imago has appointed a new marketing manager as it looks to raise awareness of its portfolio of venues. 

Rob Chamberlain took up his position having previously held marketing and event management roles at Warwick University, Body Power Expo, and Keele University. His experience has seen him manage a wide variety of live events with responsibility for the marketing and promotion of venues and brand portfolios. 

He joins imago at a crucial time – one of his first tasks will be to oversee the rebranding of the conference and events arm of Loughborough University, which is due in 2017, as it seeks to consolidate its position as one of the UK’s leading academic venues. 

Speaking of his appointment, Rob said: “I’m delighted to have joined imago team. It’s exciting to have the opportunity to work for such a fantastic portfolio of venues and its great time to be coming on board. There are lots of exciting initiatives in the pipeline, including the launch of imago’s new branding, to raise awareness of everything imago has to offer and I am looking forward to being involved in its continued success.”

Emma Boynton, Head of Sales and Marketing Manager at imago, comments: “Rob is a welcome addition to our team and joins at a crucial time as we look to enhance our marketing strategy. His experience of academic venues and the events industry as well as his creativity is a huge asset as we look to promote imago to a wider audience.”

2016 marks the 25th anniversary of imago, which unifies Loughborough University’s conference and events venues under one brand offering high quality meeting spaces, venues and accommodation along with excellent sports and leisure facilities. imago manages the AIM Gold accredited Burleigh Court and Holywell Park as well as Loughborough University’s conference and events facilities and The Link Hotel. 

Cumberland Lodge joins Venues of Excellence

Cumberland Lodge, a distinctive residential conference centre and educational foundation in Windsor Great Park, has joined Venues of Excellence as its latest member.

The former royal residence, a beautiful Grade II listed building nestled in the heart of the Crown Estate, provides delegates with a distinctive setting for creative thinking and inspiring discussion. Situated 20 minutes from Heathrow, close to Gatwick, and just 25 miles from Central London, the venue combines historic rooms, the friendly atmosphere of an English country house, and all the facilities expected of a modern conference centre. It is a self-contained venue, noted for its excellent food, indoor and outside dining options, and exceptional quality of service.

Cumberland Lodge is popular as a venue for meetings, retreats, away days, professional development courses, weddings and other special events. It offers a range of flexible meeting spaces, spread across three historic buildings, including large conference rooms with linked breakout rooms, elegant reception rooms, private meeting and dining spaces and an open-air woodland seminar space. The venue features 60 individually styled bedrooms for residential events and extensive grounds to explore. It is equipped with a library, gym, chapel, table tennis room, snooker and pool room, tennis court and bicycles, with free wifi throughout.

Commercial bookings at Cumberland Lodge support its core work as a charitable foundation, which brings together students and academics, community groups, policy makers and leading figures in public life to discuss the social and ethical issues that affect us all, through subsidised student study retreats, cross-disciplinary conferences and seminars, and mentoring schemes and scholarships for early career researchers.

Mandy Jennings, Director of Sales for Venues of Excellence comments: “We are really pleased to be working with Cumberland Lodge, and providing our clients with the opportunity to book such a remarkable historic venue. It has the excellent facilities and service which are a given in all our member venues, plus a real wow factor from the moment you arrive.” 

As a member of Venues of Excellence, Cumberland Lodge is now able to benefit from the consortium’s marketing and membership activities, sharing best practices and benchmarking to ensure customers enjoy the benefits of consistently high quality standards.

Matthew Hancock, Sales & Marketing Manager at Cumberland Lodge, added: “We’re very pleased to have joined the Venues of Excellence network and we look forward to making the most of all the membership benefits.

 “We’ve already participated in a study tour of member venues, which was beneficial in terms of assessing what we offer in relation to others and looking at where we can make further improvements for our guests in the future.

“We’ve been somewhat of an undiscovered gem to many in the conference and events industry, over the years, so one of our main reasons for joining Venues of Excellence was to invite new organisations to come and experience the special character and ambience of Cumberland Lodge.”

Come and Get inspired at the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel

Clients, colleagues and stakeholders were recently invited to a special first look at the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel’s new Inspiration Space.

The Inspiration Space is a brand new versatile and flexible meeting space, which will allow the Hotel to continue to grow as a Venue of Excellence as they receive an ever increasing number of delegates from around the UK and beyond. 

Director of the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel, Bronagh Bell, commented on the new facility, saying: “We wanted to create an open and bright space that could be used by meeting planners, to encourage innovation, collaboration and creativity: basically to provide a blank canvas that would allow organisers to roll out their ideal event."

The room can be open plan, or divided into three separate areas, offering space for more than 100 delegates in a plenary session and 30 per-area in a break-out setting. 

Bronagh added: “It’s a fabulous space, right beside our Central Plaza hub, with the technology in place to support top level conferences.  From the outset our aim was to bring the outdoors inside, and the Inspiration Space is flooded with light from our adjoining gardens, which we hope will not only result in dynamic and energetic events, but will encourage delegates to take part in ‘walk and talk’ sessions, or get outside and enjoy the scenery in between sessions. 

“The most popular meeting style today is the ‘cabaret’ format. Our Arcoona meeting room can support cabaret conferences for up to 150 delegates, but we had to turn down other events as suitable spaces were full. This made creating the Inspiration Space an easy decision for us. Not only does it allow us to continue to support the Golden Jubilee Foundation’s aim of leading quality, research and innovation, carrying on the themes and technology available in our Innovation Centre, but it will also allow us to meet this increasing demand and offer a first-class experience to our delegates.  We are very excited about the possibilities of this space, let’s hope people get inspired!”

EEF Venues strengthens sales team

EEF Venues has expanded its sales team with the appointment of a new sales executive to support its busy sales operation across its three AIM gold-accredited venues: Broadway House in Westminster, Engineers’ House, Bristol and Woodland Grange in Leamington Spa.

Shakeela Cumberbatch joined the business at Woodland Grange in Leamington Spa on the 12th September 2016 where she is now responsible for generating new leads and developing business across the group.

Before joining EEF Venues, Shakeela, from Radford in Coventry, worked for The Ricoh Arena Coventry as a sales executive, having started there as an apprentice after leaving college in August 2014. She quickly progressed through the ranks to gain strong experience of working within a highly targeted sales conference sales environment to secure high profile corporate clients and large events. 

David Vaughton, director of venues for EEF Venues, said: "Our year-on- year order book is 21% ahead of the corresponding point last year, following on from turnover growth of 31% over the last three years, so this latest investment is an indication of the confidence we feel in the market. 

The diversity and calibre of the business gained is testament to our strong sales team, led by Anna Poole, our national sales manager, whose commercial focus and people skills continue to impact on our performance.”

Competition Heats Up For Cook and Serve Challenge

Venues of Excellence hosts its annual culinary competition ‘The Cook and Serve Challenge’ in October, and the heat is on with a record entry of 15 teams from within the venue consortium.

Now in its 18th year, the competition previously known as the Chefs’ Challenge, has been renamed to reflect the addition of the team element to include a chef and waiter or waitress. This format reflects the team ethos in member venues, where the production and delivery of the finest cuisine is one of the most fundamental and distinguishing features of the consortium’s members.

Taking place on October 29th at the Cambridge Regional College, the competition asks each team to prepare and serve to two invited diners a three course meal, suitable for an end of conference banquet, accompanied by cocktails, appropriate wines and coffee.  

Judged on the day by a panel of industry experts, the event continues into the evening with a celebratory gala awards dinner to be held at Wyboston Lakes. The event is a fitting celebration of the skills of all the team, and has traditionally proved to be a very successful networking event for the membership group.

“Our food and beverage offering is a fundamental element of our service and it is therefore no surprise that this event is one of the key dates in our year”,  Barry V Stonham OBE, Cook and Serve Chairman. “It’s an invaluable experience for young and talented F&B teams and they more than rise to the challenge, with standards being exceptionally high year after year. We rely on the extremely generous support of our sponsors, judges and host venues without whom this longstanding event could not take place. We wish every team the very best of luck and look forward to a great competition."

Follow the competition and awards announcements on social media using #VenExCookandServe

For sponsorship opportunities or to book your place at the awards dinner please contact Barry V Stonham, Cook and Serve Chairman: barrystonham@venuesofexcellence.co.uk

New Business Development Manager for the Golden Jubilee

The Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel has appointed Crystal Durok as their new Business Development Manager. 

The role will focus on the 2020 Conference Hotel strategy by developing business opportunities aligned to its vision to become an internationally renowned venue of excellence, focussing on medical and healthcare related association and research  meetings  from around the world.

First joining the Golden Jubilee as a Sales Co-ordinator in June 2015, Crystal began working in hotels as a teenager and brings a fantastic range of experience to the role. After completing her degree in Business Management with Human Resource Management at Edinburgh Napier University, she moved into Event Sales in 2012, working extensively across Dumfries and Glasgow.

Discussing her new post, Crystal said: “I am delighted to have been promoted to the post of Business Development Manager at the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel and I am looking forward to continuing to work with our fantastic team, helping to grow the business, welcoming more delegates and guests than ever before. 

“In my new role, as part of our 2020 Vision, I will be working towards building our reputation as an internationally renowned facility for events, providing collaboration in health, hospitality and learning for both the private and public sector.” 

As Scotland’s dedicated, Conference Hotel with clients from all across the UK, and a key part of the Golden Jubilee Foundation alongside the Golden Jubilee National Hospital, Research Institute and Innovation Centre, the purpose built facilities are particularly suitable for clinicians, medical technology, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies.

Crystal added: “The cutting edge technology we have access to, including fibre optic audio visual links from our Auditorium to the hospital’s theatres, cath labs and diagnostic imaging suits, puts us in a unique position to enable creative and collaborative working and training opportunities.”

The Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel is an accredited member of the prestigious International Association of Conference Centres (IACC) and is Scotland’s only member of the UK’ Venues of Excellence collection. The Conference Hotel has a proven track record in outstanding customer service, and recently receiving their sixth consecutive TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence.