Oh What a Night!! - CIPD North East Awards 2008
Were you one of the 410 people who attended the Branch Awards evening at the Marriott Gosforth Park. The event on Tuesday 4 March will take some beating next year.
This event was a sell out according to Branch Chair Tony Leather. He proudly introduced the evening to the packed audience. The room looked like something out of the Oscars. The competitors were presented to the audience by Wendy Gibson and supported by a DVD of their achievements.
Prior to the awards all the guests attended a free drinks reception hosted by PWC. Drinking free champagne is an acquired art form agreed George Barker past Chair. The food was good as one would expect.
However the introduction of Brendan Healy to get the awards off to a hilarious start was a good addition this year according to William Hunter of University of Sunderland.
The main organisers Tony Weightman and Catherine Attwell spent the evening in calm mode as all the hard work was done in advance. A team of eight committee volunteers packed the goody bags in record time. All attendees got one of the best goody bags ever seen in the North East. This was due to a lot of hard work by committee members especially Claire Atkins from John Lewis. Each bag had a major cosmetic item due to her hard work. A big thank you from all the guests and committee is due.
Plans are already well started for next year’s event. Sponsors will be meeting in late March to discuss how to enhance next year’s event. Some committee members have already suggested new ideas.
If you have any ideas please let us know. Also don’t be shy come next year or better still make an entry in one of the eight categories. Be able to say next year, “I was there”.