It’s been a happy week at the Workhouse!

What with Grahams wedding, Nicky meeting the Duke of Kent, and the sun shining it’s been a happy week at the Workhouse! It’s been incredibly busy, Campo’s been doing some great work on Stax Trade Centres World Cup promotion which includes scratch cards, a giant spot the ball competition and an online fantasy football game which you can join here…. http://staxfantasyfootball.co.uk/

We’ve been doing a load of work for Lancashire Police Authority and received this nice testimonial from them recently….

I just wanted to say that  I am extremely impressed both with the quality of the work to date and the support, information and sunny dispositions that you have.  Please also pass on my thanks to both Jamie and Graham who have excelled themselves design wise and Graham in being such a good sport about donning the Bond suit!

We also got a good testimonial fom Andrew Graham for the work we’ve been doing on Youth Zone…”

Nicky, the marketing was outstanding”!

Well done to all the guys here who work on the Youth Zone project.

It’s been great to see James Warburton in the building this week as Heidi and Jamie help him with his new venture, and it’s very pleasing to be working on some nice stuff for Crown Paints with Steven and James which we presented yesterday. We’re getting excited about  The Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board Tourism Awards which is happening on Weds… we are sponsoring the Small Visitor attraction of the Year Award. Heidi, Nicky and Steven are going along to the awards to support our client (definitely not for the nice big slap up lunch)

And we’ve been busy on loads of other clients too, and met some potential new clients. Good to catch up with Rob Carder at Mid Pennine Arts, who created the fabulous Panopticons which I blogged about last week.

I go on my summer hols on Wednesday, a cruise round the Med (Nita no longer does aeroplanes!), sailing from Southampton on the new P&O liner Azura which was launched in April. Looking forward to stopping at Venice, Gibraltar, Dubrovnik, Split, Malaga and two places in Greece.

It’s a nice feeling to go off on hols knowing that we have a happy business, a growing business, and a successful business. Just hope it’s like that when I get back!!

Mark

A wine show, record sales, a winning mentality, and a good deed for The Rainy Day Trust.

John Woodhouse, Nita's Dad at 80.

Spent last week in Northampton, for Father in Law John’s 80th Birthday bash, and then London for the London International Wine Fair at Excel, hence no blogs. The birthday party was thoroughly enjoyable and John is so fit and healthy for an 80 year old he puts the rest of us to shame.

The Wine Fair is one of the best trade ‘shows’ there is. I’ve been three times before (just for fun), but this time, as son Tom, has opened The Whalley Wine Shop it was business all the way (honest!). Presented with an empty tasting glass on entry you’re faced with all the best wine makers in the world desperate to get you to sample their best wines……tough I know, but someones got to do it.

click to go to website

Pleased to say The Whalley Wine Shop did record sales on Saturday not because of clever Workhouse Marketing insight, but because the sun came out! The weather has brought the barbies out, and sales of summer tipples have been excellent with chilled whites and rose wines, juicy ciders, cold beers and bags of ice in big demand. Tom is delighted with the response of the Whalley public who have been very supportive of him and the shop is outperforming it’s previous Threshers business. My ‘layabout student’ son has morphed into a driven businessman. Saturday he was stocking up at the wholesalers at 7am, did his busiest ever 8 hour stint in the shop, then gave a wine tasting to members of the Chamber of Trade, getting home at midnight (a 17 hour day!)

Meanwhile back at Workhouse Marketing, it’s been incredibly busy, and a combination of holidays and sickness have seen us under pressure to meet our deadlines. But as usual, our team pulled out all the stops to make it happen. I don’t tell them often enough but I’m proud of them and have a lot of respect for them. We’ve recently won, and been very busy working on, projects for the Lancashire Police Authority, specifically on community engagement, and have really enjoyed working on their campaigns. It’s great that virtually all our clients are busy and very positive about the future. There’s a winning mentality about our team at present.

One of our team is incredibly positive about the future. Mark Camp, staunch ‘Seasider’ was at Wembley on Saturday to see his beloved Blackpool promoted to the Premier League. Favourites to be relegated, their fantastic run at the end of the season, inspired by the winning mentality of manager Ian Holloway, propelled them above Welsh clubs Swansea and Cardiff, to the Premier League. Well done Blackpool. However, enjoy it while it lasts because with a crowd of 8,000, the worst pitch in the whole of the Football League, and no money, you will surely be relegated next season. (Sour grapes!)

That is, unless you can persuade Jose Mourinho to come to Bloomfield Road! This guy is amazing,winning three trophies in a season with Inter Milan isn’t down to luck or timing, his ability to motivate people and to make them believe they can win is phenomenal, not just at Inter Milan but at Chelsea and Porto too. I can’t wait to read his biography, a business classic in waiting surely. A winning mentality indeed.

This week is a big week for two other members of our team. Graham (Grez) gets married on Friday, his lovely bride to be, Kat, is German and the wedding is in Germany. And Angeline is off to her homeland, Kenya, for a holiday to see family and friends. Here’s hoping that Volcanic Ash and British Airways staff, don’t cause you any troublesome delays on your big adventures.

Workhouse Marketing's Andrew Woodhouse, finishes 3rd.

Yesterday, at the Warrington Go Karting track was The Annual Hardware Trades Karting Challenge, in aid of  The Rainy Day Trust, organised by David Hibbert of Stax Trade Centres (far left). The Trust raises money to help some families who have retired from the hardware trades and through no fault of their own have fallen on hard times. Some 20 teams representing some of the top DIY brands in the country compete for a range of awards. Workhouse Marketing won it last year, mainly because one of our team Jamie Brown is an amazing driver and wins the individual prize every year. This year in the final act of Grahams week long stag night the Workhouse Marketing Team, led by Graham, but minus Jamie, finished a creditable fifth. Well done to all the businesses for putting in the money, and all the participants for travelling some distance and giving up their sunny Sunday to support the Rainy Day Trust. Everyone’s a winner! (Now that’s a good name for a promotion!)

Mark.