stevieed

Like all events this one started as a simple idea and flourished to something rather more special. It all started at the MAN DO, organised by RedVee, when Chris1979 started thinking about a similar event in London. Chris and I got in contact to co-host and we started to think about venues, meeting up in the City for a coffee and a planning session. We had some good ideas for venues but I think we were both somewhat underwhelmed, we wanted this to be a special event and none of the selected venues really ticked that box. I admit to feeling slightly deflated at that point; other DO’s I have attended had a certain special factor, be it a tour of Concorde or the beautiful views on the island of Jersey. We would have none of those things, nothing to give that wow factor...that is until we received a PM from gav106.

Gavin offered us something really quite special, something so amazing that Chris and I could not believe it was true. But oh my, it was true! Gavin is an event coordinator at an NHS Trust in London and was able to offer us a venue at St Thomas’ hospital overlooking The Houses of Parliament. Not too shabby really, not shabby at all. From the moment that Gavin became involved me guided us through the entire process, I would highly recommend anyone who is looking to host an event in London to contact him; he was faultless!

During the run up to the event we were overwhelmed by the responses on the forum, we had well over a hundred people sign up, which was just incredible! Indeed, LondonAndy had the great idea of making it a charity based event, so thank you to him for the idea! And so after weeks of preparation the DO was a go! Let’s DO this!

stevieed

It was the day of the London DO 2013, but first I had to get through a Management Day at work; it was not an ideal day to be “off-comms” and so Chris and Gavin were largely in charge during the final moments. I felt quite anxious as I had never hosted an event like this before and I was really worried about not enough people turning up and not spending enough money behind the bar. That fear was soon to be relinquished.

I arrived at the DO just after 6, which was “boarding time”. Immediately I was greeted by the boarding sign, things were looking good.


I smiled. The event staff had clearly put in a great deal of effort (little did I know just how much effort) for this event. Heading on towards the “gate” I was greeted by the wonderful marquee.


Some people had already arrived and were tucking into the champagne, excellent!


The marquee was looking quite empty inside, but that would soon change.


Looking around I was staggered. The lounge area looked fantastic, infact it was styled on a BA Lounge and even had flight themed menus and BA photos on the wall. At this point I need to stop and thank Gavin and his team, they pulled out all the stops on this, it was bloody fantastic! Right, enough praise for now, back to The DO and back to Champagne!


Whilst quaffing some champagne I happened to bump into a true gent of a man, whom offered me some lovely Ferrero Roche, great!


OK, it was time to mingle with the lovely people whilst taking in the wonderful view.


I was slightly concerned at the initial turnout, but I need not worry, more people were en route!

stevieed

It was quickly time for food. I was wondering what we would get, given that it was a free buffet and recent BAFT members experience with buffets…I am happy to say, BA and BS take note! The buffet was lovely, a small selection, but a selection of good quality food none the less. We had crudités and dips, mini tarts with fresh fillings, hand carved meats, salads and a great cheese board. Again, it’s a credit to the hospitality team that they managed to put on decent quality food. I really do hope BA read this…


Yummy food consumed it was time to drum up support for the raffle. The raffle tickets were £10 each and there was an amazing list of prizes (see later post on Charities). Proceeds for the raffle, and bar, were going to the Evelina Trust. The proceeds from the auction, more later, would be going to Holidays For Heroes. Let’s go mingle some more with the ever growing crowd:


Seeing that the sun was setting I just had to head over to the waterfront and snap some photos.


Pictures snapped it was time for desert!


And then back to mingling!


The mingling was cut short as my new duty was to gather the FT troops for the auction. Again I was anxious, how much would we raise? I really, really, really wanted to raise some good money from this event. Both causes are outstanding and I just hoped that we would do them proud. Did we do them proud? Well, check out the charity section below (when it is updated on Monday) to find out, but the fact that I had a tear in my eyes post auction gives you some idea…screw it, I’ll let you all in on a secret, we smashed it, absolutely smashed it!

stevieed

The auction was intense and bloody brilliant; we raised so much money, but more on that later. It was time to go outside and get some fresh air after a heady auction and raffle. London was looking beautiful tonight.


And so back in to have a final mingle with people.


And that was that. The end to a great night. No, the end to a fantastic night. A night of fun, beautiful sights, interesting conversations, old friends, new friends and most importantly of all a night of giving to wonderful causes. I would like to thank Chris and Gavin who largely organised the event and also to each and every person who attended; without you there would be no London DO. I would also like to give a heartfelt thank you to all those who donates prizes and to those of graciously dug deep and donated an amazing amount of money to charity. That money will really make a difference to peoples lives and that is much more important that the slop in GF or the temperature of the LPGS in NF. A final thank you to Gavin’s staff; they were fun and put up with a bunch of flying geeks.

Thank you all.

stevieed

More to come here later.

stevieed

If anyone else has any photos they would like to add then please feel free to contact me and I will edit them in here.

angeloedades

What a great event ^

/AE

pianoamit

Can we do it again next week?

exilencfc

Good TR and your photos are far better than mine. Even so I shall go an dpost again on the thread I started

gav0106

Great report, pictures are great would be great if we can use some for future marketing if okay with you?
You have some new converts, some of the staff are very interested and finding out more about FT

stevieed

Given the amount of effort you all went to I am very happy for you to use any of my photos, so please go ahead and hope you get some more events I the bag!

stu1985

What a great report! And some amazing pics, especially those ones of Parliament - very good These Do's look like good fun!

chris1979

Great report and pics - you've definitely done justice to the event!

And it's been a pleasure organising the evening together - not least because Gavin and his great time did all the work and provided us with such a great venue and tasty food.

FenLandK

Excellent evening and a great TR. Looking forward to the next one I can attend!

Thanks to Stevie, Gavin and Chris for putting it all together. As it happens, my Mother in Law was at an event in the same place the following day!

KARFA

Great TR. It is helping me recover my memory from Friday evening!