CN Group Business Awards

What a great night we had last night at the CN Group Business Awards at Rheged. Ten of us (David, Sandra, Jonathan, Carl, Carrie, Sarah, Michael, Julie, Simon and myself) were invited guests along with other sponsors and nominees of the awards.
We all met up for a drinks reception in the Exhibition Hall. It was a black tie event so us girls got to dress up in all our finery and the blokes looked good too. We then went down to Mountain Hall where dinner was being served. It looked superb with Christmas lights giving it a real party feel and beautiful flower displays on every table. There was also some lovely free wine being served with the roast beef dinner and it was good that we had other businesses seated at our table that we could get to know.
At 9.30 we were ushered into the main auditorium where the awards ceremony was to take place. David Allen & Co had sponsored the Training and Development Award so as training partner, I was going to be presenting that award on stage. With a big drum roll the awards began and I was asked to join Compere David McNeill on stage. I was more worried about tripping up in my high heals than giving out the award, but everything went smoothly and “Oscar style” the winner was announced as Bells of Lazonby.
Our firm was in the final three for Medium Business of the Year and David was nominated for Businessman of the Year, so it was absolutely fantastic when he was announced as the winner. Julie was meant to be taking photographs of everyone, but unfortunately the battery ran out just as David was accepting his award or so she said. After the ceremony we went back into Mountain Hall where there was Live Entertainment.
The award is now sitting proudly on our reception desk in the office. It’s great that all David’s hard work and dedication has been rewarded this way and what makes this firm such a good place to work.
Alison Cartner

Glitz & Glamour

Carlisle Living magazine was launched this week and David Allen & Co has been getting involved in the sponsorship of the new magazine and being part of the “Glitz & Glamour” launch event.
This was a charity fashion show held at Carlisle Race Course on 29 October and had some of the Carlisle United players strutting their stuff in memory of player Peter Murphy’s girlfriend Kelly Gourlay.
Some of our staff had the pleasure of having VIP tickets for the show with prime seats on the front row so we wouldn’t miss a thing.
We were greeted with a champagne reception to start the night off then headed upstairs to catch the action.
The footballers were joined on the catwalk by some of their girlfriends and some professional models but the players did not look out of place at all infact they looked fantastic from where I was sitting.
They really got into the cabaret atmosphere, especially in the second half when the dirty dancing music started playing.
The office the next morning was buzzing with stories about the previous nights events. Linda our receptionist had a memorable moment when David introduced her to hunky midfielder Simon Hackney. He gave her a peck on the cheek, but that wasn’t enough for our Linda. Didn’t she just go and grab him and kiss him back. Her pink lipstick left clear evidence of what had happened.
The whole night was a real success and was a great showcase for local businesses like Chameleon, Crème, Casanova, Hoopers and Edinburgh Woollen Mill whose clothes were modelled and Hair @ Jibe who did all the hair and makeup. Hopefully lots of money was raised for the nominated charities.
Alison Cartner

It’s Friesian at David Allen & Co

Who would have thought that our cow family would be such a talking point when they arrived at our offices at Dalmar House.
From the first evening, they arrived they caused a stir. A driver pulling into the estate got a shock seeing some stray cattle and was about to report this when he realised that infact they were not moving and appeared to be chained down.
Since then our fibreglass family have had their photographs taken on numerous occasions. Local children from Dalston village love to come and see them and we have had many cars pulling up at the office and the occupants jumping out with camera in hand to get their photographs taken with the famous herd. We even had a groom and his best man pull up one morning before the big day to get a shot before heading off to church.
The cow family do get released occasionally and get to join us at local events we are sponsoring like the annual Dalston Show. Again the visitors love seeing them and we had a competition last year to name the cows which we had some wonderful suggestions.
Our offices would not be the same without mum; dad and baby Finlay, so watch out for them next time you are passing.

Julie Campbell

Welcome to the David Allen & Co blog

We have recently re-designed and relaunched our website, so having a blog where we could keep people up to date with everything going on seemed like a fantastic idea to complement the new site.
But where do you start?
Of course with any blog, you have to keep publishing posts on a regular basis and keep the blog up to date. The topics would need to be interesting and fresh plus informative and amusing to anyone who was reading them.
We want all our staff to get involved in writing articles but they are used to doing that. We have our own internal weekly newsletter and the staff here at the office are regularly putting in items and information about what they have been up to. Everyone is keen to get involved in the blog so watch out for all our latest news.

From all at David Allen & Co