Caturday ... and Convention part 2

It’s Caturday... and part 2 of my Convention report.

Today’s Caturday pin-up is poor cross-eyed Lucky. There is another cat which apparently is a mirror-image of Lucky, called Charm, but I’m not sure I believe this as I have never seen him. In fact, I think I’ve only ever seen Lucky peeping out from behind the Wendy House but daughter spends more time there than me so managed to capture him on camera when he ventured into the living room. Yes, the shelter has a living room, with settees and a TV!

Now onto Convention, part 2...

Award Night is always inspirational, as you get to see demonstrators who have achieved amazing things. For instance, the top German seller had made over 77,000€ in sales! Imagine typing all those order numbers in to reach that height!

But the evening began with SU’s chief financial officer Scott Nielsen and his wife dancing, Strictly-style on stage, which was a big surprise and very entertaining.

Next year I and at least one of my team will be on that stage, if only for reaching our five-year anniversary with SU! So why not sign up and join us to watch us squirm!

There was a party atmosphere to the whole evening, as SU is celebrating five years in Europe this month. Hard to believe I’ve been a demonstrator for five years! What did I do with my time before SU?

So there was cake (although not big enough for all 850 of us!) and party gifts of a gold and silver pen and a bouncy globe ball to inspire us all to aim for the Grand Vacation in 2014, which will be a luxury cruise!

Following the ceremony, hands hurting from so much applauding, there was an After Party, with a live band and a buffet. This was described as finger food but actually it was much more than that. What was nice about this event was that the venue made it possible to be all things to all people. There was a small area for dancing in front of the band yet around the corner there were tables and chairs for those who wanted to take it easier. And of course, the display boards were still up so we could take even more photos of the samples.

That's us!

We did try to have our picture taken in our finery in front of the special chalkboard-style display, but they are very dark. Another tip for Convention: don’t take a brand new camera until you’ve worked out how to use it!

There was also a photo booth for demonstrator use which was a bit of a laugh. We ALL tried to cram in to get our picture taken but, sadly – and somewhat inevitably – we ended up with one blank screen and one of the back of my head! What we didn’t realise was that we were being filmed while we were in there – luckily we didn’t end up on the Convention highlights video like some folk did!

Convention slippers!

Fancy shoes were causing our feet to hurt so we switched to our Convention slippers and headed back to Alison R and Donna’s SUITE (did I mention they had a suite?) with our bottles of wine (no alcohol is served at Convention) and started working our way through all the nibbles we’d packed, so that we could make room in our suitcases for all our Memento Mall goodies and free stamp sets!

Back to bed to attempt to get some sleep before the second day of Convention. Ann set her alarm for 7am so we’d have time to get ready for doors opening at 8.30am.

Only she hadn’t set it so our morning began with a knock at the door (which I ignored because surely it couldn’t be our door, it was still the middle of the night), followed by another knock at the door which caused a panic scrambling for specs. Ann is deaf and had removed her hearing aid so was still out for the count. Next thing I know there’s a man entering the room! Eeek – another tip for Convention: put the bolt across your hotel door!  I’m afraid I shouted at him when he switched the “big light” on, partly because of the liberty, partly because I was scantily clad and partly because Ann was still in bed. Anyway it was only room service; our rooms hadn’t included breakfast but we found room service to be excellent value, delivering far more than requested and keeping us going throughout the day.

This is two Danish pastries at 2,70€ each, plus 2,50€ delivery!
Picture posted for Angela T's benefits as I know she expects
a food image on a Convention report!

Day 2 featured more demonstrations and business talk – and, of course, more prizes and giveaways. I forgot to mention the giveaways! We were promised all-attendee giveaways if attendance reached certain targets... which of course it did! So, in all, we were given THREE stamp sets on top of one ones for the Make & Takes. We received Papaya Collage, Summer Silhouettes and another one which I don’t think is released yet so I’d better not mention it!

I have to mention the brave demonstrator presenters here. There were three – one representing each country. Ooh, I wonder if that means there will be five next year, when Austria and Holland join us?

The UK’s Becki Ritson showed us some fabulous tips for using fabric – which were perfect for someone so useless with a needle as me. Cécile Ortiz, from France, showed us stunning techniques with flower stamps, creating dimension and depth. She doesn’t speak English; she a translator with her, but Cécile’s  facial expressions said it all anyway and had us in stitches.

Representing Germany was Cynthia Jacoby-Deventer, who was hilarious. She is an opera singer apparently and very at home on the stage, but got a little flustered demonstrating and even resorted to flinging pieces of cardstock around. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at a demonstration. Well, maybe at the last two Conventions!

At lunchtime we headed back to Memento Mall to discover that we’d probably left it a little late. But I did stock up on a few gifts for the people back home who help me in my SU business – and, lucky me, I managed to get to Chris from Demo Support’s till again! (I know he stalks all our blogs so I’d better be nice to him, LOL!)

Over lunch we managed to shift the last of the swaps. Another Convention tip: Don’t make too many swaps, or you’ll never get rid of them as other people will have run out.

Then it was a useful presentation on recruiting, which had the effect of inspiring some of my reluctant recruiters to take action. I’m looking forward to congratulating them on their promotions soon!

The final session saw more demonstrations and motivational speaking and, most importantly of all, sneak peeks of new products and Sale-A-Bration stamp sets! Whoohoo! It’s coming soon and you’re going to love it!

Patsy takes a break from falling over

Then it was all over, so we collapsed on the sofas in the hotel foyer before perking ourselves up with coffee and chocolate so that we could head into town for one last look. Found a lovely chocolate shop and lots of lovely Christmas decorations, grabbed a slice of pizza and returned to the hotel to wait for our taxi back to Frankfurt airport.

Excitement levels were building again in the back of the taxi – I’m sure this is why our driver, a pretty dour-looking chap, handed round sweets to shut us up!

At the airport we went our separate ways to do any last-minute shopping – there’s a fantastic little supermarket at Frankfurt airport so I could stock up on chocolate for the kids. Well, for me really.

In the departure lounge we realised that, once again, the plane would be filled with demonstrators. I somehow was seated away from the rest of my team but found another friendly demo to chat to on the way home – and we could see the Bonfire Night fireworks the window as we came into land at Birmingham.

Meanwhile, in the back of the plane, the rest of my team – and several other demonstrators – were enjoying free Champagne. I don’t need to spell out that this extra treat went to lucky Alison R and Donna... you know, they of the SUITE, the PRIZES and now the FREE Champagne! Not bitter, promise.

Taxi driver Steve picked us up at the airport but the adventures didn’t end there, as a lady stopped us to point out that Ann had her husband’s suitcase, which was identical in all but contents. So it was back to baggage collection for a quick swap!

And home we went, giggly and excitedly planning our trip to Manchester next year!