SBT Yellow Fish Think Tank

Cube Corner - August 20

Welcome to the

Cube August edition of

Corner Cube Corner. This month has seen an opening up of bars, restaurants and coffee shops which has brought a buzz back to the City, the number of people out has grown considerably which is a real bonus for our local cafe scene, and also helps when for arranging client meeting venues. Hopefully this can be continued throughout the summer.

The Eat Out to Help Out scheme, certainly seems to be assisting with getting people back into Brighton and with the new protocols in place at the establishments it will only help with customer confidence.

July has been really busy with appointments for my Cube Clients, people are a lot more confident with face to face meetings, which is so important for when businesses are connecting for the first time, lots of great work has been achieved on Teams and Zoom but it has been really good to get out with clients to meet in person.

One of the first venues I visited after re-opening of course was Gars as soon as it opened. I met with Paul and Lisa Ollerton who recently sold their Viisana company to Meyado Private Wealth Management. Paul, Lisa and the team all stay in situ which is great, this also gives them access to a new stream of products such as mortgages, pensions and estate planning, if you did wish to meet with Paul and Lisa please let me know and we can set up a meet.

I am delighted to add 2 more clients to Cube, MCR Media, Max Robinson who

I am sure many of you will know, MCR are based in Burgess Hill and also have offices in Hove and a London base. They cover most aspects for print, large and small format, signage and vehicle graphics. I am assisting Max with Business Development and Lead Generation and I am looking forward to getting started with Max this month.

City Utilities is a fairly new business, which as the name suggests is an alternative to the big suppliers. During the past couple of months many businesses are trying to find effective cost savings and this is an area City Utilities can help. I will be working with Steve Darby and Malcolm Jacobs to assist with the growth of their Sussex customer base.

The team at Rivervale have had a strong July across the business, the leasing team have been busy with a mix of pent up demand favourable terms from the manufacturers and with most of the European factories now approaching full production the back-log of vehicles from March, April and May now coming through. There has been a spike in enquiries for electric vehicles with strong discounts and the benefit of zero company car tax attracting new clients to this sector. We had 2 of the sales team jump into the new electric BMW I3’s this week and the reports are really positive.

I also had further meetings on the electric vehicle fleet concept with

Richard Ball at Floral Image and Julian Drage at Inspired Gardens to talk through suitability for their businesses.

Andy Tugwell at the team at TSS hosted a ‘Return to the Office Post-Covid ‘ workshop for my Cube Clients at their Training Centre in Portslade to discuss the requirements and protocols to ensure all Air Conditioning, Heating and Water Units have the necessary checks prior to staff returning to work. Thanks to Phil Bristow - Nsure, Bruce Hayter - Rix and Kay, Stuart Noakes - Carpenter Box, Gar Hine Cheung - Gars and Sam Thomas - Sussex Business Times for attending.

The weather for golf has of course been incredible. I was lucky enough to play at Pyecombe and spend a great morning with Andy Tugwell at TSS and Stuart Noakes from Carpenter Box and meet up with Andy Belton previously of Vines BMW to play up at Mannings Heath last week. The company was great and the golf was average, as per usual.

I hope you all have a productive month.

Dodge

Think Tank

Senior Event Manager and C&IT A-Lister Rachel Douglass shares the importance of maintaining focus on sustainability in a new world of experiences.

Everyone is asking the same question: ‘When Think Tank will things return to normal?’ But what is normal anyway? Before the pandemic, the focus of the events industry (and, we hoped, the entire world) was moving towards creating a sustainable future for us and generations to come. For now, those efforts have given way to adjusting and navigating an unknown path of life after lockdown.

However, a positive has emerged, time to collectively refocus and take heed of the lessons from the past and how we drive change moving forward.

Time to refocus

We have seen first-hand from the lockdown measures how quickly we are able to adapt to a slower pace of living and there could be a long-lasting positive environmental change after this pandemic, but it’s how we move on after lockdown that will decide this.

At Yellow Fish, we have always understood the importance of sustainability and we plan to drive this even harder as we move forward and out of this pandemic. We have been using this newfound ‘downtime’ to really focus on what is important to us when delivering events and the standards we expect from our suppliers and partners around the world. We hope our industry colleagues are doing the same and that we can come together to insist these become industry standards.

Second nature

With that in mind, we hope questions that are currently asked during initial discussions with our hotel partners won’t need to be asked in the future because the answers will be second nature.

Questions like: are you partnering with local initiatives to ensure food waste does not end up in landfill? Are the food items locally sourced from a sustainable resource? How can we make sure the event is having a positive impact on the local community?

The list goes on, but the answers and explanations hold the key to a more sustainable future for our industry.

Responsibility to educate

As an agency operating in a high carbon footprint industry it is our responsibility to help educate our clients to ensure they make informed choices regarding the environmental impact their event could have. We work with them to reduce that footprint by using recyclable materials, providing

reduced air travel plans, and providing hybrid or fully virtual alternative solutions. There will always be the need for live experiences and we will look at every element to ensure we minimise the carbon impact as much as possible. Simple changes can make a huge difference, from electric transfers for VIP’s, looking at destinations with access by train, recyclable staging, a vegan menu and introducing a CSR activity which benefits and connects the audience to the community.

Now is the time for our industry to step up and embrace this next chapter we find ourselves in. To be trailblazers in sustainable events and consultants to our clients to ensure our planet and our people can continue to breathe. This is a golden opportunity to come together and make a change for the better.

Think Big... Go Large

MCR Media Ltd produces digital large format graphics, exhibition printing, signage, vehicle graphics, small format digital and litho printing, branded merchandising using sustainable materials and processes. Whatever aspects of brand awareness you need, we can help with design all the way through to delivery or installation, on time and at the most economical price.

Sustainability is at the core of MCR and we do not only supply and manufacture sustainable print. We also consult and source sustainable materials for our clients, therefore reducing their carbon footprint and damage to the environment.