EEF Venues appoints Kanga Marketing

EEF Venues are pleased to announce the recent appointment of Kanga Marketing to help drive their business development, increase sales and realise marketing targets for the foreseeable future. 

Woodland Grange, Warwickshire

With three outstanding conference and meeting venues in London, Warwickshire and Bristol EEF Venues have a great reputation within the conferencing and events industry and a passion for hospitality and exceptional service. Kanga Marketing have been commissioned to build awareness of these venues and develop fresh business opportunities in new market sectors.

Kanga Marketing have worked with some of the biggest and most successful venues in the UK and will work alongside EEF Venues to help deliver the plan, which will use both traditional and digital marketing. With their many years of experience in business development and a great marketing team, Kanga will work on a campaign which will push the PR in a new direction, utilise new and patented technology previously unused in the events industry and work closer with EEF’s sales teams to create a more integrated approach.

Broadway House, London

Karl Neal, Kanga Marketing Client Director, said “We’re very proud to be working with EEF Venues. Having met many members of the EEF team at all three UK locations we have been hugely impressed by their commitment to outstanding customer service and their obvious desire for growth; we are really looking forward to taking the company to the next level. We have already completed our initial review and we can  see a number of opportunities that will impact in their business on a big way, really making a difference to bookings both on B2B and B2C.”

David Vaughton, EEF Venues Director, said “We are thrilled to have appointed Kanga Marketing to help us drive and deliver a bigger and better plan for the future. The growth of our business is an important factor and we’re positive about the changes we’re making. Our current clients can be assured that they will still receive the same exceptional service we pride ourselves upon. We are looking forward to opening our doors to some fresh new faces and welcoming back familiar clients at our venues.“

Engineers House, Bristol

For more information please call the Conference Centres of Excellence Hotline 0845 230 1414 or email info@ccceonline.co.uk

New Marketing Executive for Conference Centres of Excellence

Conference Centres of Excellence, the UK’s largest sales and marketing consortium of specialist conference, meeting and training venues would like to welcome Amanda Stacey to join their team in the role of Marketing Executive.

The group, with 33 members nationwide, is the country’s largest provider of dedicated meetings space and is synonymous with offering both a first class service and exceptional professional standards.

Amanda is excited and looking forward to continuing the marketing effort to enable Conference Centres of Excellence to maintain its strong brand identity of high quality and excellence, increase awareness and to generally raise the consortium’s profile strategically to benefit its member venues.

Amanda has worked in Estate Agency for the last 10 years, which has provided her with a strong background in client liaison and property sales and marketing. The skills she has attained during her career will enable her to manage the marketing and PR requirements for 

our member venues, and build strong relationships within the industry.

CCE’s Executive Director Anthony Lishman said: “Amanda brings with her a mixture of sales & marketing skills, we are delighted that she has chosen to specialise in marketing with us and I wish her every success in her new role.”

Amanda can be contacted on 01926 623 126 or as follows:

General – amandastacey@cceonline.co.uk

PR – pr@cceonline.co.uk

Marketing – marketing@cceonline.co.uk  

Twitter - @mktgexec_CCE

Bewitching Offers at Ashorne Hill

In the heart of England, set in 35 acres of landscaped grounds and yet only a few miles from the hub of the Midlands motorway network, Ashorne Hill is set around a beautiful Grade II listed building. Ashorne Hill offers a choice of well-equipped facilities to meet training and meeting needs including 13 acres of landscaped grounds - ideal for team building exercises and an array of leisure facilities. Our innovative, award-winning chefs offer a wide choice and variety, all freshly prepared using seasonal local produce. Ashorne Hill also provides a comprehensive range of training solutions in addition to the venue facilities, expert training consultants are happy to discuss both open courses and the design of bespoke training solutions.

Ashorne Hill

For more information about the latest offer from Ashorne Hill call the Conference Centres of Excellence hotline on 0845 230 1414 or email info@cceonline.co.uk

Back To Business

Companies need to plan now to catch back effects of summer of celebrations, says Conference Centres of Excellence 

The frenetic pace of major events in the UK this year has affected the ability of many companies to implement the conference and training schedules of a normal summer – and in the autumn they may face challenges in finding space to catch up. That’s the concern of Conference Centres of Excellence, the UK’s leading marketing consortium of specialist venues, which is also expecting a surge in demand for team-building space after the Olympic Games.

With more than 30 of the country’s leading venues in membership, Conference Centres of Excellence is well placed to monitor the effects of events such as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Olympic Flame tour and the Games themselves - and the recent European football tournament - on corporate activities. “While it hasn’t been appropriate to carry out a specific survey, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence from our members that demand for space for corporate events, including training, hasn’t followed the normal pattern this year,” explains Anthony Lishman, the consortium’s Executive Director: “What concerns us is that if events are being postponed until all the excitement is over, companies may not be able to use the venues they want at the time they require.”

Act now

Conference Centres of Excellence believes that many companies may have postponed customer events such as sales conferences and marketing briefings because client response will be adversely affected by the distractions of the programme of significant events and occasions. It also thinks that internal training events may have been adjusted or even deferred, particularly during June and July.

The consortium is urging companies not to wait until the last winner’s tape has been broken before seeking to catch up.

 “Now is the time to plan for getting back to normal business when it's all over,” added Mr Lishman: “What nobody wants is to find that a sensible decision to postpone an event backfires because the space that the company had in mind has been booked by someone else.”

All Conference Centres of Excellence members are suitable for the full range of internal and external activities, including conferences, briefings, marketing events and corporate dinners or lunches. In particular, they are specialists in providing focused, distraction-free environments that optimise the training process, with many of them also offering extensive scope for outdoor team-building activities. A number of them are themselves accommodating Olympic delegations or hosting receptions or pre-Games training for athletes.

Increased demand

Team-building at Cotswold Conference Centre

The summer’s events have opened up another potential area of demand in terms motivational events for employees – an increased focus on team-building. “The pervading ethos of the summer of events, in various forms, is team spirit, whether it’s the UK's sportsmen and women working together to clinch success, or that feeling of togetherness that the Queen’s Jubilee has engendered,” says Anthony Lishman: “Companies will want to capitalise on these emotions, harnessing them for the corporate benefit, and that’s bound to raise demand for team-building events.”

Conference Centres of Excellence’s Hotline service gives a ‘one-stop- shop’ service to clients seeking the benefits of a specialist venue. The group has 33 residential and non-residential member venues across the UK from East Sussex to Stirling in Scotland, in both countryside and city: a call to Hotline gives immediate access to information about availability, rates and facilities for each venue - 0845 230 1414.

Queen’s Award for Møller Centre Executive Education

Queen’s Award 

The Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Hugh Duberly, CBE this week presented Jeffy Li and Mark Carberry representatives of the team at The Møller Centre for Continuing Education with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade. 

 It was a very special celebration for the staff at The Møller Centre who were delighted to welcome back The Lord-Lieutenant who has previously visited the Centre as a client on more than one occasion. During the first week of the Olympics, The Møller Team was delighted to have its very own award ceremony!

This prestigious Queens award recognises the outstanding achievement and growth over the last three years at The Møller Centre, through the delivery of bespoke Executive Education programmes to leaders from overseas companies.  Income from this market grew by 90% last year and now represents 40% of revenue

Gillian Secrett, CEO of The Møller Centre commented: “We are both honoured and delighted to receive this award in the year of the Queens Diamond Jubilee.  It is an accolade to the entire team at The Møller Centre for their dedication and commitment to our clients.  The Centre identified eight years ago the potential to offer bespoke Executive Education to the Asian market and it has taken much hard work and dedication from both staff and associates to get to the position we are in today. We strongly believe that there are still significant opportunities for growth, and we would like to now build on what we have achieved and extend our Executive Education programmes into new markets.”  

The quality and proven success of the residential programmes, which initially targeted Japan, then developed substantially into the Chinese market, combine academic and practitioner-based learning for international business leaders particularly in the corporate, banking and healthcare sectors. .  The Møller Centre is located at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, and all profits from The Centre are covenanted to Churchill College for investment in undergraduate and graduate education and student support.

Conference Centres of Excellence Awards

CCE awards highlight outstanding performance of member venues and external providers

Conference Centres of Excellence has announced the winners of its first-ever awards. Presented at the consortium’s recent annual conference at the Wyboston Lakes Executive Centre, the awards recognise excellence from within the CCE membership, and also  in three categories for non-members - ‘best supplier’, ‘best booking agency’, and ‘non-CCE venue most admired by members’.

Submissions were invited from all members of the consortium, which is the UK’s leading group of specialist conference and training venues and has thirty six members. The judging panel comprised industry experts Tony Rogers, Anna Clover and Tim Chudley, and was chaired by CCE executive director Anthony Lishman.

Awards involving member venues were as follows:

The Innovation Award was won by Warwick Conferences’ Scarman House for its ‘comparetheconference.com’ campaign. The judges commented that the initiative  was both very creative and specifically targeted, and “will benefit the whole of our industry by promoting the conference centre concept”. Runner up was Conference Aston for its ‘aston.app’ initiative.

The Sustainability Award was won by Prospero House. The panel described its actions as “taking sustainability and CSR policy to the next level, with a big community aspect.”

The Best Non-Residential Venue Award went to Nottingham Conference Centre. Judges complimented the venue on its “creative use of an old building”, the focus of its SOPs and the quality of its customer feedback. Runner up was Maple House.

The Best Residential Venue Award went to The  Møller Centre. Judges complimented the venue on its regular customer focus groups, and the  excellence of its website. They also referred to the venue’s consistent achievement of gold standard in the BDRC VenueVerdict awards. Runner up was Scarman House.

Three other categories allowed CCE member venues to express their opinions on third-party organisations which were themselves not part of the consortium.  In the case of ‘Best Supplier’ and ‘Best Booking Agency’, the only requirement was that nominated companies must have an ongoing relationship with one or more CCE members. In the case of the ‘non-CCE venue most admired by members’, submissions were open to interpretation, and could be for service, quality, innovation.  The winners were as follows:

The Best Supplier to Conferencing award went to Berkmann Wine Cellars, which were described as “going above and beyond” and “adding value”. Runner-up was Wilson Vale.

The Best Conference Booking Agency was Trinity Conferences, which was described as demonstrating “ the ability to be a strategic partner” and as “particularly effective at engaging with the venue team so they have a good understanding of how their business works.”

The ‘Non-Conference Centre of Excellence venue most admired by members’ award was achieved by the Kingston upon Thames venue Warren House, which was described as “a venue that has consistently maintained exceptionally high standards of service” and which has “remained true to the conference and training centre concept”. Runner up was Dillington House in Somerset.

A special award for his ‘outstanding contribution to Conference Centres of Excellence’ was presented to Barry Stonham OBE, general manager of Wyboston Lakes. During his career in the conference sector, Barry has been a board member and treasurer of Conference Centres of Excellence and a board member and treasurer of IACC, the International Association of Conference Centre. He has ensured the financial stability of both organisations in difficult times, roles which have been undertaken voluntarily. Retiring at the end of this year, he is a Fellow of The Institute of Hospitality.

“Our awards achieve a number of primary objectives, one of which is to help enhance awareness of the role and purpose of dedicated venues and their continuing commitment to progressive enhancement of their services,” commented Anthony Lishman: “ They also help to strengthen still further the competitiveness of member venues, which must be good for their customers – and they also enable members to give a pat on the back to  organisations that are impressing them.”