Optimus Performance Marketing Summer BBQ Thanks

Thanks to everyone who attended on Friday night for what was another great event in Plymouth, even if the weather wasn’t as good as last year over 80 people attended the event, travelling from all over the UK. Awards must go to Malcolm Cowley who drove over 820 miles to get here due to a cancelled flight, Dom who travelled for what sounded like a whole day on the train, and Clarke, Stuart and Carol from POR who travelled down from Glasgow.

Onto the evening that started with a champagne reception sponsored by Affiliate Window, people just gathered round outside overlooking the sea, although with the mist it wasn’t really that visible, and lots of networking was done, with some deals being done as I was informed by some people through the night.

People then started to enjoy the many drinks that flowed all night with the free bar that was helped out by Commission Junction, Linkshare, Smart Shopping and Haysom Lighting (who was going to come to the event but having spent 3 hours in traffic and satnav insisting he was still not going to get to the event till 9:30 decided to turn around).

We then had what was supposed to be a BBQ but due to the weather had to be cooked indoors, people tucked into burgers, sausages, steak, chicken skewers, and various salads and potatoes.

We then moved onto a quick speech by me thanking people for their contribution to make it such a great evening, and also announce that Optimus Performance Marketing are delighted to announce that we are now managing the Crocs programme for all the EU affiliate markets.

This was followed by a few words from the heart by Julie York about “Little Hearts Matter” one of the 2 charities we had selected for this year the other being Homes for Heroes Charitable Foundation:-

Optimus Performance Marketing Summer BBQ Charities

So we then went onto the Prize draw for the many prizes donated by affiliates, and clients:-
Raffle Prizes
We hope you enjoyed your prizes, and we are still asking Martin who works in the Technical team in my office what he is going to do with £50 of Tightsplease and Lingerieplease vouchers, which as yet he hasn’t answered.

After the raffle had taken place and we sold £885 worth of tickets on this, we moved onto the charity auction, with prizes donated by Graham from Homes for Hero’s, who was hoping to make the event but got held up due to business and phoned me at 7:00 in the evening to say he was still in Manchester, and also a Plymouth Argyle signed football donated by PAFC, although I said it was priceless it sold for £25.
The following items were auctioned:-
Lewis Hamilton Signed Hat
Enzo Maccarinelli Signed Boxing Gloves
Enzo Maccarinelli Signed Photograph
2 night stay at the Renaissance Hotel (a 4 Star hotel) in Manchester with 2 tickets to a show (this will be confirmed depending when they pick the weekend, subject to availability)
Plymouth Argyle Signed Football
From the charity auction we raised over £1,300, thanks to the people who bought these items.

The night then turned into the normal fun we have come to expect at the Optimus Performance Marketing BBQ, with plenty of drink flowing and also quite a lot of dancing being done.

We then followed this with Sandwiches @ 1:00am for people to enjoy.

The night carried on until about 4:30, although some people had moved to the casino at about 3:00, not sure what time they got back as I decided @ 4:30 it was time to head to bed.

The next morning at breakfast everyone looking a little tired and hung-over, people kept saying what a great night it had been again.

We are delighted to say the we raised over £2,200 for the charities with each getting over £1,100 each.

The Optimus Performance Marketing summer BBQ will be back next year in Plymouth again, on the 12th August 2011, make sure you are there for what I am sure is going to be another brilliant night.

Again a massive thanks to everyone who attended and also everyone who helped with Sponsorship and Prizes without you all this would not be the event that it was!!

See you all on 12th August 2011 for the next Summer BBQ and hopefully the weather might be better!!

Massive Thanks – Summer BBQ

Well the first ever Optimus Performance Marketing event was a massive success with over 70 people attending, thanks to everyone who attended, sponsored and donated prizes.

Last Thursday was the first event to be organised by Optimus Performance Marketing and what better place to do it than in Mark’s hometown and the town of the company offices. After months of looking and planning for the event we chose the Quality Hotel in Plymouth which to be honest has one of the best views in Plymouth, overlooking Plymouth sound.

Well onto the event we decided what better to do than to organise a BBQ overlooking the sound and make sure there was space, loads of drink and lots to eat.
So the party started in the afternoon with various people arriving and either enjoying the sun at the hotel on the terrace with all the Optimus Performance Marketing crew, while others headed into the nearby Barbican for food and to look at some of the yachts at the end of the Fastnet. While the rain was about for 10 minutes in the morning the sun decided to join us, which helped to make it a lovely afternoon and evening to make the most of the view and terrace area.

At 7pm the networking started with the champagne kindly sponsored by Buy.at to really begin the evening. Stood in the sunshine with stunning panoramic views of the water was something really special.

We also had a table by the bar for people to help themselves to some local Tribute ale and also some Cornish Orchard cider, which went down a hit as people seem to have enjoyed both.

At 8pm our special guest, Jamie Mackie from PAFC came to help out with the Charity Raffle. With well over 52 prizes in total and over 610 tickets sold the raffle was a huge hit with plenty of people chuffed at their prizes! And a few bemused faces! We managed to raise over £600 for RNLI which was a great success.

Around 9pm and out came the food which was served by the hotel manager no less. The food was brilliant and certainly helped to take the edge of the local cider and local ale! Most people ate outside as it was so warm still and a really beautiful night!

Next up came the DJ! He played exactly what we asked him to play so out came some Wurzels classics!

Lots of networking was done between 9 and 12, after 12 the dj was getting louder and more and more people were moving on the dance floor and not quite so much networking was done from 12 but seeing all the network staff, affiliates and the EAM team all dancing together was quite amusing and something that I think lots of people will remember forever.

At about 1am with the disco in full swing we had some late night sandwich snacks brought out for everyone to enjoy as we enjoyed more of the DJ’s classic tunes. All of them disappeared within seconds, all the dancing must have made people hungry! Eventually Wayne the Dj had to head home, but that didn’t stop the party!

We really hope that everyone had a good night, it was certainly a great night for it! We all really enjoyed ourselves.

Some of you will have seen that on the Forum and Twitter we announced that this will all be done again next year and we have booked the same location for the 20th August, this is a Friday night and we hope to see you all again and maybe a few more people will join us. We have decided to do this again at request of people who attended and also have gone for the Friday as we hope people can then make a weekend of it and bring their families.

Massive Thanks To The Following
Oak Furniture Land For Sponsoring The Bar!
AffiliateFuture For Sponsoring The Bar!
Buy.At For Sponsoring The Champagne!
Linkshare For Sponsoring The Bar!
All Up And On For The Envelope Angels!
Julie H For Selling Tickets!
Everyone Who Donated A Prize!
Everyone Who Bought A Ticket!
Jamie Mackie
The Hotel Staff
And, most importantly everyone who turned up!