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Archive for the ‘Other thoughts’ Category

Eating for charity: the best kind of PR lunch

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Friday always brings a warm fuzzy feeling to the team at Focus PR but even more so today for one particular pod which consists of Holly, Sasha, Lauren, Dettie, Preeya and me (Ali), plus guest diner and desk neighbour Hilary, whose office is next to our pod.  At our marathon auction fundraiser a few weeks ago we outbid all rival pods to secure a four-course lunch extravaganza, courtesy of Petrina (financial controller) and Adrienne (executive assistant). Petrina donned her apron all morning and somehow managed to juggle ice-cream making, data inputting, lamb stewing and invoicing – this woman is a dream, Nigella Scmella! We all wanted to marry her until we found out it was actually her husband who had spent all day Thursday preparing the dishes, and now we want to marry him! Big shout out to Mr Day – nice croutons!

Adrienne was the perfect hostess, pirouetting in and out of the boardroom with tray upon tray of mouth-watering dreamy goodness, topping up wine glasses with a tasty Wairau Cave 2011 sauvignon blanc after every sip, and plugging us into the lunchtime broadcast of Home and Away – rock ‘n’ roll I know!  

After a first course of smoked salmon, second course of Moroccan lamb or poached chilli salmon, and boozy berries with zesty ice-cream for dessert, the last thing we needed was a cheeseboard the size of the boardroom table!   There was ZERO chance any of us could possibly eat another morsel…..oh, hang about…er…whoooops….in it goes!!

Well done podettes and a BIG BIG thank you to domestic goddesses Petrina and Adrienne – DREAM TEAM! The Blue Cross and Beating Bowel Cancer will share the £87 + gift aid donation we raised today.

Bad weather is bad for us and bad for Britain

Friday, May 11th, 2012

After more than a month of dreary wet weather (when spring should have been in her element and flip flops enjoying their first outing), everyone I spoke to, whether at work, the school gates or in the supermarket, complained of feeling “down”.  

Even the heartiest of souls, never usually prone to SAD or low mood, were feeling the negative effects of a lack of Vitamin D and too much mud.  All confirmed that the weather was influencing their mood and therefore their behaviour.  I was at the front of the queue researching holidays to exotic places I couldn’t afford, buying a new face serum that claimed it would make me glow and still filling my family’s plates with food to keep the winter bugs at bay (“Not more broccoli, mum!”).

The fact that my mood and behaviour were being partly controlled by dark clouds, coupled with reading alarming newspaper articles on how the poor weather was affecting retail sales in an already tough market, got me digging a little deeper into this phenomena.  (more…)

Raising money, thanks to Jimmy Choo and the London Marathon

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

Adrienne at mile 25 (just behind the chap in red, looking at the camera)

While the team here are no doubt fed up of hearing me mention the words “running” and “marathon”, with a bit of luck I can get away with it once more by coupling it with how proud I was on Friday 20th April 2012 to have them as my colleagues. My reasons for this on other days could fill quite a few sides of paper, but the new reason that day was because we’d all congregated in our boardroom to raise money ahead of me running the London Marathon two days later for The Blue Cross, plus also Trina Day, our financial controller, running it for Beating Bowel Cancer – two charities close to our hearts. (more…)