We’ve got some lovely clients. We really have, and they’ve supported us in all sorts of ways since we launched the business. But the highlight so far has to be the invite we received from Annabel from Global to the Summertime Ball at Wembley at the weekend.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but felt the need to brag to my 18 year niece who loves Example and Ed Sheeran, both of whom played a set. I haven’t actually told her that I was too busy drinking Pimms to watch Example (aka Elliot) but I’m already in her bad books, so might not dwell on that!

I was told we had VIP passes, but if I’m honest I thought that we’d just get nicer seats and possibly a buffet. But the guys at Global really know how to put on a show. We were greeted in the VIP area with a glass of Pimms (don’t mind if I do) market stalls with BBQ’d kebabs, seafood, burgers, chicken and anything else you could possibly throw on a BBQ.  There was also a pizza stall, a salad stall, a strawberry stall and a big section in the middle with scones and cream cake. Not great if you’re trying to shed a few pounds for the holidays.

While we were trying to find our bearings and figure out which acts we really wanted to watch and the ones we weren’t that keen on, our glasses were constantly topped up with pimms. There was also another room, with another bar as well as ‘pick’n’mix’ and candyfloss machine.

The show opened with Coldplay who were great, and then a constant flow of acts from Kelly Clarkson, Flo Rida, Example, Pitbull, Usher, The Wanted, Jessie J and Ed Sheeran.

There were also some nice surprises with Cover Drive and Lawson, Dizzy Rascal and Cheryl (who apparently has dropped the Cole). Well he’s a cheating bugger and I’d have got shot of the name a long time ago! Oh and the boys from Rizzle Kicks made a guest appearance with Jessie J.

While we were rocking out (well swaying lightly is a better description) there were ushers constantly supplying us with Chinese food, mini fish and chips, beer and ice cream.

I actually started the day by star spotting, after seeing Neville from Harry Potter on the train down from Leeds, so made a point of trying to get to double figures by the end of the day. Here’s who I managed to see. I didn’t get back 9, but thought I’d done alright. See if you can figure out who they are…

For those Beliebers out there, we left before he came on stage, although we heard all the crazy 9 – 12 year olds screaming their heads off. Also missed Katy Perry, who accordingly to the 9 year old girl (Jessica) I met on the train back up North on Sunday morning was ‘so cool’ but she was disappointed that fireworks didn’t appear when she sang firework! A note to the artist team for next years show.

Had a thoroughly enjoyable day, felt about 50, but drunk my bodyweight in Pimms and had a good old laugh with Annabel. Hope we do enough great stuff over the next 12 months to get another invite. Maybe I’ll have to pass my invite over to one of the boys. I hear Paul is a Belieber.

Thanks to all the guys and gals at Global for being such great hosts.

Genuinely can’t believe it’s been a year since we launched Chatter. This time last year we donned our gladrags and celebrated our launch with friends, family and prospective clients, with far too much music, alcohol and nibbles (well you can’t afford a full buffet when you’re a start up).

And hasn’t time flown.

We’d already planned for a big slap up meal to celebrate, but didn’t get carried too carried away at the start of ‘birthday week’ with 3 major projects underway and trips to Telford and London. Not to mention VAT return, year-end reporting and a visit from the ‘happy’ bank manager.

Our thoughts are focused on the new financial year and the upcoming work in the pipeline, but we still managed to squeeze in a little time to produce an end of year video, print and send out some Chatter mugs and crack open a bottle of bubbly at San Carlos after a long old week.

Thanks to everyone for their support in the last 12 months, roll on the next.

The weather well and truly turned this week. From wintery mornings and icicles to sunshine and daffodils. Spring is on its way and we’re just a month away from our Chatter 1^st birthday. Time flies and all that.

After trekking around the country last week, it was good to be back in Yorkshire, and much needed given the number of projects we’re involved in at the moment. Some really diverse stuff too; career site builds, the development of an app for internal client use, L&D brand development, technology based recruitment campaign and even a couple of full colour press ads!

The boys started the week running a training session in the Midlands, focused on helping one of our clients get to grips with how to use technology and social media alongside their direct hiring plans, and I took the opportunity to shy away from Monday rush hour traffic and work from home.

Some of our Flockers were back from a well earned ski break and spent a few hours with us on this week going through a number of build and development jobs we’re working on with them. Great to sit down face-to-face and review objectives and think about creative solutions to meet them. Five heads are definitely better than one.

Jon was knee deep in CMS training on Wednesday using a free online webinar tool http://www.anymeeting.com/ , and then up at the crack of dawn on Thursday for a trip up to Edinburgh, working with one of our old friends Ian Morgan at Hermes on an interesting web project for Edinburgh University.

We’re all busy ‘doing the do’ at the moment, so we don’t have that much time to take breather and take stock, but Dom and Stu invited us out for a Christmas curry on Thursday. It took us over 2 months to get together, but when we eventually did, a good night was had by all. The beer didn’t flow as much as usual, but what do you expect on a school night.

The week ended with a few coughs and splutters as I started with my annual cold, but I laboured it as much as possible throughout the day, to eek out as much sympathy as possible. Didn’t work. Hope it clears for next week ;-(

An absolutely bitter start to the week which saw me hotfooting it down to London to run a series of workshops with a client to review the way in which they provide HR information to their employees. Luckily the snow that fell over the weekend, didn’t disrupt anything. There was still snow on the group when I landed at Borough which you don’t often see.

The groups were really well attended, the people were well engaged and helped to deliver some great insight into the good, the bad and the ugly (or less pretty in their case).

Back at my desk on Tuesday for a series of conference calls with two new potential clients. A traditional recruitment brief with a twist to recruit some seriously specialised boys and gals in London, and another to help a well known financial institution present their new HR operating model to the wider business.

Jon was invited to speak at the Hireserve User Group session on Wednesday, affectionately knows as HUG and braved the cold for a 6.15am train to Reading. We’d also spent some time crafting an introductory video to our services (I say we, but I mean Paul and Jon), which looked great and was well received on the day. There were a few positive tweets from the day too. So all good stuff.

We’re working closely with Omni on a number of initiatives for the Hyde Group and the lovely people at Omni invited me and Simone (one of our Flock) out for a meal on Wednesday night at Rosso in Manchester. Beautiful setting, but I think we were all a bit disappointed with the food and the service. Still had a great night though, topped off by seeing the lovely (albeit incredibly young) Harry Styles. He was celebrating his 18^th birthday. And yes we got a picture for one of our clients Emma. She said it was for her 10 year old daughter but I’m not so sure.

Luckily my meeting in Altrincham the following day was pushed back to 10am, so it wasn’t too much of a struggle to get there in time.

The latter part of the week was spent finalising a couple of proposals and also dragging Jon out to Holmfirth to sort out some of my personal IT issues. As I often say, everyone needs a ‘Jon’ in their life.

It was a crazy rush to the Christmas finishing line this year. Best laid plans and all that. For as long as I can remember I’ve had this utopian view that there would be a nice wind down to Christmas, an opportunity to Christmas shop, wrap all the pressies up in time, play Santa with the extended family as well as eat, drink and be merry, but with two new onboarding portals about to be launched for Hyde Housing, a large digital attraction plan for a global business and a microsite for a well known yoghurt brand it was all a bit manic before the break.

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