Colchester Classics – Classical Music Picks for July

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OUR CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMNIST LIZ LEATHERDALE, FOUNDER AND OWNER OF COLCHESTER CLASSICS, BRINGS YOU HER PICK OF JULY’S CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENTS IN, AND AROUND, COLCHESTER.

Classics

On Friday July 15 sees the first night of the 122nd season of the world’s greatest Classical Music festival, the BBC Proms, offering opportunities to explore Classical Music through the BBC Proms with a diverse season of live concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, on BBC TV and BBC Radio 3.

The BBC One Show, Tuesday 12 July at 7pm, should broadcast a film with Gyles Brandreth interviewing Patrick McCarthy, a local musician about how he saved Andre Previn’s live televised performance Orff’s Carmina Burana at the BBC Proms in 1974.

Last month we were treated to many Music Festivals in our musically rich region. This month the Roman River Summer Festival and more is happening! Feast your ears and eyes on festivals and concerts in our musically rich region.

Colchester’s Roman River Festival recently published its main brochure detailing events, talks, walks and, of course, concerts for the main Festival (16 September – 2 October) which will feature world-renowned musicians including Nicola Benedetti.  In addition to the Autumn concert series, there is also a mini-festival (8 – 10 July) with musicians Tom Poster, Elena Urioste, Orlando Jopling and others in informal concerts in Mistley, Wivenhoe and East Mersea.
Box Office (07759 934860) for further information on all events for both festivals

Saturday evening (9 July) Chris Phelps will be conducting the Colchester Symphony Orchestra in an all-Russian programme including Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.3 with young soloist, Erdem Misirlioglu, piano category winner of the 2008 BBC Young Musician of the Year. The Third Concerto is often over-shadowed by No.2 , but received greater recognition when featured in the Oscar-winning film, Shine.  The movie told the true story of the Australian concert pianist David Helfgott, who suffered a mental breakdown and abandoned his career for many years. Saturday July 9 at 7.30pm in St Botolph’s Church, Colchester . (Both the second and third concertos were heard in the same venue performed by international pianists Noriko Ogawa and Philip Smith at St Botolph’s Music Society’s 50th Anniversary Gala concert)

Tickets. £14 (01206 271128)

On Sunday 10 July Chris Phelps will be guiding The Kelvedon Singers through arrangements of well-known English songs in the beautiful setting of The Coach House at Marks Hall Gardens. The evening includes a glass of wine, canapés and complimentary access to the Gardens and Arboretum in Coggeshall.

Tickets: £15 (01376 563796)

Also on Saturday evening at 7.30pm James Davy, Organist & Master of the Choristers at Chelmsford Cathedral and conductor of The Chelmsford Singers, presents an organ recital at St Peter-ad-Vincula, Coggeshall.

Tickets: £7.50 on the door

The final concert in the current season at Studio Music at Brightlingsea begins at 3pm on Sunday 10 July with Trio Goya presenting chamber works by Haydn.

Tickets: £15 www.studiomusicbrightlingsea.co.uk

The East Anglian Single Reed Choir, an ensemble of clarinets and saxophones, presents its summer concert including music by Holst and Rimsky Korsakov on Sunday July 10 at 6pm, St Mary’s Church, Little Bromley. Tickets on the door by donation.
Tickets: 07425 1450222 or www.harwichfestival.co.uk

If you have a forthcoming concert of classical music, you would like previewed, contact Liz Leatherdale on 0800 999 6994.

Start your love affair with Classical Music at www.colchesterclassics.co.uk and take a minute to watch their company video: 

Liz Leatherdale

 

 

 

 

 

Liz Leatherdale

 

Wellies & Black Tie Ball

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* Sponsor * Enjoy * Participate * Dance * Laugh * Share * Learn *

The 10th anniversary celebrations of Wellies-On Community Interest Company and Colchester Classics will be held on the 22nd of July at Wivenhoe House Hotel with a Wellies & Black Tie Ball.

In order to ensure the success of this key fundraising event, we are seeking contributions to help defray the costs associated with the event so that all funds raised can go directly to the community.

It’s only with support from generous donators such as yourselves that we are able to continue to provide local individuals and families in need with innovative intervention, therapeutic services and education.

We hope that we can count on your support, enabling us in our work to build confidence and improve skills within the people that attend Wellies-On Care Farm.

Our service helps individuals to see their inner strengths, giving them skills and resilience to help them to cope with the things with which they struggle.

We will, of course, make it known from where the prizes for the silent auction and sponsorship have been donated with plenty of media opportunities, thereby also raising the profile of your company locally.

This year Colchester Classics are celebrating 10 years as a multi-award-winning Classical Music CD service to clever collectors and also  those starting their love affair with music.  Additionally, they offer CDs at concerts, festivals and rehearsals and preview and review concerts in Essex Life, Essex County Standard and Colchester Gazette. Not only are they helping us to celebrate with some fantastic music but they are also providing a huge amount of support to make the evening a success.

Why not treat yourself and your team to this glamorous night out whilst helping a worthy cause? You can request booking information and sponsorship opportunities from admin@wellieson.com

I hope very much to hear from you, and that you will be able to help to support us and our event.

Book your tickets HERE.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Gold Package  – £500

Purchase of table center pieces

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Logo on Tables

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Social Media Coverage with Web Links

Ball Sponsors Listing

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Silver Package No.1 – £300

Music

Logo on Tables

Logo on Pre-event Marketing

Social Media Coverage with Web Links

Ball Sponsors Listing

Logo on Table Plan

 

Silver Package No.2  – £300

Purchase of Chair covers

Logo on Tables

Logo on Pre-event Marketing

Social Media Coverage with Web Links

Ball Sponsors Listing

Logo on Table Plan

 

Bronze Package – £150

Essex Life Photography and associated acknowledgment

Logo on Pre-event Marketing

Social Media Coverage with Web Links

Ball Programme Sponsors Listing

Logo on Table Plan

The Legend of Tarzan

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When Colchester 101 asked for a review of The Legend of Tarzan our resident movie critic Andy Oliver swung into action.

Tarzan

Tarzan is a character out-of-time. In a post-colonial world, the “Slayer of beasts and many black men” is an anachronism, a throw-back, a hero for then and not for now. As much as I loved the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs as a child, it was always difficult not to notice the underlying racism and misogyny that pinned them firmly to the era they were written in: the natives were invariably cannibalistic, mean and destroyers of the nature that surrounded them; women were either damsels or riches/power-hungry manipulators of men.

So how does a film-maker approach Tarzan in the twenty-first century? Very carefully, it would seem. And it is that very carefulness that is at the centre why The Legend of Tarzan does not work as a piece of entertainment, though, unfortunately, it’s not its only failing.

Set some years after Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) has returned from his jungle upbringing to claim his hereditary title of Lord Greystoke, the film begins with a character still uncomfortable with his gentrification and his wife, Jane (Margot Robbie) still uncomfortable with the constraints of society and city life after her childhood of freedom in the Congo. It is with little persuasion that the Greystokes return to Africa, initially to investigate British access to The Congo and subsequently to investigate claims that King Leopold of Belgium is building his empire on blood and toil of slaves. This second reason to return arrives in the form of George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) before you can say, “British Colonial crimes against humanity”!

Tarzan

Once back in Africa, Skarsgård (and the film) can’t wait to get his shirt off and start swinging, swimming and running about with his old jungle chums: apes, lions and simple, jolly natives. Conflict comes in the shape of Belgian emissary, Leon Rom (Christolph Waltz doing his usual, kooky bad-guy turn) who has some convoluted plan to hand over the lord of apes to his mortal enemy, Mbonga (played with super-baddie charisma by Djimon Hounsou). The story of Mbonga’s enmity is told in flashback which also charts Tarzan’s already well recorded origin.

Director David Yates, who directed the fun (but increasingly dark) last few episodes of the Harry Potter franchise, struggles to maintain any pace and interest in a movie that looks increasingly like it was written by committee (inasmuch as that old joke about “a camel is a horse designed by a committee”). There are moments where, tonally, the movie is all over the place and Jackson (despite giving his best with a more than clunky script) sometimes seems little more than the movie’s “Get out of jail free” card (an intelligent black character, based upon a real person, whose expositionary speeches about fighting in the American Civil War and killing Native Americans are supposed to remind viewers of America’s own patchy record of human rights, but in reality feel flat and simperingly apologetic).

Tarzan

The action, when it comes, is efficiently filmed and never feels like it packs any punch, for example Tarzan battles a gorilla, but the confrontation lacks excitement and edge-of-the-seat thrills, yes it’s noisy but it’s all a bit, “Yeah. So that just happened”. The stunt work is under-realised and the computer generated animals never look anything but computer generated. Judging The Legend of Tarzan’s effects against this year’s other child-in-the-jungle movie, Disney’s The Jungle Book, is like judging a meal at The Ivy against a micro-wave dinner for one: it fills a hole but it won’t impress your friends when you tell them about it. Having said that, the climactic stampede is pretty good, but it’s a case of too little, too late.

4

The cast do their best but they are shackled by a script that is never quite sure what it wants to be: too comic-booky to be Hugh Hudson’s Greystoke, too earnest to be a Jonny Weismuller action/fun-fest. Belgium’s legacy of horrors in West-Africa sit uneasily within an action movie framework and add little to the overall tone, a return to the source material might’ve provided a more fun, if problematic, experience. Like The Lone Ranger before him, Tarzan feels like a character who has had his day and now seems like as good a time to retire him and hand the vines to new heroes as any.

There’s little to recommend about The Legend of Tarzan unless you’re a fan of male abdomens, if you are you’ll probably love it, for the rest of us though it’s an ill-fitting wig that daren’t move too fast lest it fly up and reveal what lies beneath.

(BBFC 12)

Andy Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Oliver

The Nice Guys

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No sooner had 101’s movie reviewer Andy Oliver submitted his review of Warcraft: The Beginning then his was straight back to the town’s Odeon cinema to watch The Nice Guys for you.

The Nice Guys

Nobody does action, character and snappy, laugh out loud dialogue quite like writer/director Shane Black. His scripts are sharp, cynical, often brutal, often prone to misanthropy, always quotable and always hugely enjoyable. His characters are damaged, fast-talking and, more often than not, absolute scumbags. Black made his name as writer of the classic Mel Gibson action vehicle, Lethal Weapon and, along with all three sequels went on to script The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Monster Squad before graduating onto the rather excellent Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3 as writer/director. The Nice Guys might not be a revolutionary departure from Black’s previous work, or bring anything sparklingly inventive or new to the screen, but it’s difficult to care when you’re presented with something this damned enjoyable.

Set in an asphyxiated 1970’s Los Angeles and revolving around a labyrinthine plot that wouldn’t seem out of place in an Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen novel, The Nice Guys is a call-back to a time we still had buddy movies, a time before Hollywood invented “Bromance”. Private investigator Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a terrible person, he swindles old ladies and drinks so much that he has to have his 12-year old daughter drive him around town. When he accepts a case to find a missing girl it brings him into contact with Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), a big hearted barrel of a man who makes his point with his fists and breaks limbs the way most of us break sweat: with little conscious effort. The problem is that Healy is in the business of helping the girl stay missing.

The Nice Guys

But when Healy decides that the girl shouldn’t remain hidden he teams up with March and his daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice) to discover why a porno film made by high-school environmentalists is so important to Detroit car manufacturers, and why so many bodies are dropping around them and bullets flying in their general direction.

Gosling and Crowe work amazingly well together and – this is going to sound a little weird, I admit – there’s more than a touch of Abbott and Costello about their double act: Crowe in charge and constantly exasperated, Gosling as the fall guy who’s never quite sure what’s going on. I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed the two of them as much I did here, Crowe’s earnest, lumbering resoluteness is stripped away and he’s (almost) likeable as Healy and Gosling delivers a whole truckload of goofy, manic charm in lieu of his usual brooding seriousness. Healy and March are riffs on the classic pulp noir anti-heroes of post-war “Men’s” novels, damaged individuals who might just stumble upon redemption even though they were never looking for it; amoral idiots who get a taste of doing the right thing and it doesn’t taste as bad as they thought it would.

The Nice Guys

So it is left to Angourie Rice as 12-year old world-weary Holly to be the moral centre of the movie. Like a Nancy Drew who grew up too fast, Holly sneaks into porn parties and confronts hitmen, she is the hero her father probably once dreamt he would be and the character Healy knows he possibly could be if he wanted to. Rice is great. No, not great, Rice is really, really great. Gosling and Crowe are bringing their A-game to The Nice Guys, Rice is absolutely knocking it out of the park.

Crowe’s LA Confidential co-star Kim Basinger turns up as the missing girl’s mother and Matt Bomer plays the big bad in typical Shane Black style (think Gary Busey in Lethal Weapon), full of barely restrained megalomania and psychopathy. They’re both great but, let’s be honest, they’re most definitely not the reason you’re watching this movie.

There’s a couple of scenes that hang around a touch too long and a dream sequence featuring a talking bee that could easily have been trimmed out, but on the whole it does exactly what it sets out to do and that is to entertain. It’s sleazy, amoral, hilarious and moves at such a cracking pace that you really don’t care that the plot seems to make little sense or even work. The Nice Guys is a great night out at the cinema and a movie that I’ll enjoy returning to again and again, you probably will as well.

Andy Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Oliver

Colchester Classics – Classical Music Picks for June

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OUR CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMNIST LIZ LEATHERDALE, FOUNDER AND OWNER OF COLCHESTER CLASSICS, BRINGS YOU HER PICK OF JUNE’S CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENTS IN, AND AROUND, COLCHESTER.

Classics

BBC Music Day

BBC Music Day is a UK-wide celebration of everything we love about music with the aim of bringing people together from different generations and communities. On Friday 3 June, Colchester celebrates this event with the Colne Valley Youth Orchestra,  students from Academy East Music School, Tendring Music School and pupils from local schools including Philip Morant, Thurstable and Colchester Royal Grammar School perform some of the BBC 10 pieces which are being promoted by Essex Music Education Hub through workshops and lessons.  Friday 3 June at 7pm, St Botolph’s Church, Colchester.

Admission is free with a retiring collect.

Frinton Festival & Family Concert

The opening concert in the annual Frinton Festival is on Thursday 2 June with music by Saint-Saens, Hugo Wolf and Beethoven.

This concert and also the Family Concert on Saturday 4 June have a limited number of free tickets for those aged 8 – 25. (01255 319141)

The Sixteen

The Sixteen, comprising both choir and period-instrument orchestra, are recognised as one of the world’s greatest ensembles. Saturday 4 June the sixteenth choral pilgrimage of The Sixteen under Harry Christophers comes to Chelmsford. The concert celebrates the work of William Byrd and Arvo Pärt, composers from very different eras, both considered masters of sacred music despite having faced considerable persecution for their work.  Chelmsford Cathedral, Saturday 4 June at 7.30pm.

Tickets from £15 (0333 666 3366)

Dulcis Venti & Francis Knights

Discovering that there was no existing repertoire for recorder quartet with harpsichord, Colchester New Music challenged composers around the world to rectify the situation. Saturday 4 June,  Dulcis Venti and harpsichordist Francis Knights present the first ever performances of works for this mysteriously neglected ensemble. Dulcis Venti is a newly formed recorder quartet, based in East Anglia and directed by Stephen Watkins. Francis Knights is Director of Studies in Music at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and trained as a harpsichordist under Robert Woolley. Saturday 4 June at 7.30pm. Headgate Theatre, Colchester.

Tickets: £8 (01206 366000 or email tickets@headgatetheatre.co.uk)

Nicholas McCarthy

Born without his right hand, award-winning British pianist Nicholas McCarthy is a champion of the left-hand repertoire. On Tuesday 31 May, his Summer UK Piano Tour begins and on June 5, Nicholas returns to his hometown of Colchester for a concert at St Botolph’s Church at 3pm before completing his UK tour on 16 June. Nicholas is one of the rare musicians who captivates the audience with his musicianship and informs and entertains with his remarkable repertoire knowledge.

Nicholas performs music especially written for the left-hand only, transcriptions and arrangements, including his own, and recent commissions.  Tickets: £10 (0800 411 8881). At his Colchester concert Nicholas will pick the winner for a signed copy of his debut album, Solo. To enter the competition ring 0800 999 4994 or by email  liz@colchesterclassics.co.uk  Sunday June 5 at 3pm in St Botolph’s Church.

Tickets: £10 (0800 411 8881 www.nicholasmccarthy.co.uk)

Beth Spendlove & Nigel Clayton

At 2.45pm on Sunday 5 June Beth Spendlove and Nigel Clayton perform music for violin and piano by Handel, Mozart and Szymanowski in Lion Walk Church, Colchester. Tickets: £12 on the door.   Beth and Nigel present a recital on Thursday June 9 as part of the 22nd season of Summer Concerts, St Mary’s Church, Frinton.

Free admission with retiring collection.

Witham Choral Society – Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday

On 11 June at 7.30 pm at Witham United Reformed Church, Newland Street, Witham Choral Society will be celebrating Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday by performing some of the music played at her Coronation back in 1953. Accompanied by the Colchester Bach Ensemble the concert will feature Handel Coronation Anthems (including Zadok the Priest), Greensleeves and Purcell’s Trumpet Tune. The choir will also sing Vivaldi’s Gloria and music by Haydn and Mozart.

Tickets are £10 and £5 for those in full-time education. www.withamchoralsociety.org.uk

Purcell’s The Fairy Queen

Shakespeare has inspired countless composers throughout the ages. Purcell’s The Fairy Queen is a magical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it inaugurates both the Maldon Festival and its commemoration of the Bard’s 400th Anniversary. The City Lit Opera with Pegasus Baroque Orchestra perform at the Amphitheatre, Promenade Park, Maldon on Saturday June 25 at 6pm. Tickets: £15 (01621 856503). On the same evening, the Colchester Choral Society performs Purcell’s The Fairy Queen in the version devised by Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst, and first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1967.

Further information www.colchesterchoralsociety.co.uk

Harwich Festival

Tickets are now available for the Harwich Festival 2016 (24 June – 3 July) with discounted season tickets on offer for its Classical Music concerts with performances by the Amphion Consort, the European Union Chamber Orchestra, the London Piano Trio and many more.

Tickets: 07425 1450222 or www.harwichfestival.co.uk

If you have a forthcoming concert of classical music, you would like previewed, contact Liz Leatherdale on 0800 999 6994.

Start your love affair with Classical Music at www.colchesterclassics.co.uk and take a minute to watch their company video: 

Liz Leatherdale

 

 

 

 

 

Liz Leatherdale

Warcraft: The Beginning

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Once again our intrepid movie reviewer Andy Oliver brings you his take on the latest release at Colchester’s Odeon cinema. This time it’s the turn of Warcraft: The Beginning

Warcraft

There are people in the world that will absolutely adore director Duncan Jones’ Warcraft: The Beginning, a fantasy epic based on the best-selling video game, World of Warcraft, hard-core fans of which will revel in seeing the in-game world brought to cgi-rendered life, the rest of us may struggle to understand what on Earth that appeal may be, though. Whilst not being an out-and-out awful film, it’s certainly colourful and diverting enough, Warcraft is as lumbering and clumsy as the film’s ten-foot tall Orc protagonists and there’s more than a whiff of Disney’s epic-fail John Carter about it.

Set in the world of Azeroth, a medieval fantasy realm pulled wholesale from the minds of a million Dungeons and Dragons players, Warcraft centres around a clash-of-worlds plot device as Orcs, fleeing their dying home-world, come into conflict with the world of man. The portal through which the Orcs escape is powered by the dark magic of sorcerer, Gul’dan (Daniel Wu) and relies on human souls to keep it open. Learning that many of his fortresses have fallen to a new threat, the king of Stormwind (Dominic Cooper) Sends Commander Lothar (Travis Fimmel), Guardian Medivh (Ben Foster) and novice magician, Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer) to investigate. Meanwhile, Orc chieftain Durotan (Toby Kebbell) is beginning to suspect that Gul’dan’s magic may be responsible for the death of their home-world.

Warcraft

Whether Warcraft’s world building works or not for you will depend a lot on your experience with the game, I only ever dipped a toe in and, therefore, I found myself scratching my head for much of the film’s opening scenes. Jones is not aiming for the great fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones with his movie, rather Warcraft is more Conan the Destroyer or The Beastmaster in all their goofy glory. Coming from a background of smaller, character-led films (Moon and Source Code), this is his first foray into blockbuster epic territory and, unfortunately, it shows, the action and battle set-pieces feel at times confusing and blurred and the stakes never feel like they are escalating as it moves forward.

Warcraft

With its mixture of cgi and real characters the acting tends to lack consistency, some of the tones and choices seeming occasionally at odds with the narrative and attempted feel of the movie. The cgi characters often feel more emotionally realised than the hammy, at times over the top and, at times, annoyingly quirky performances of the human actors.

Warcraft: The Beginning is one of those rainy day kind of movies that, I suspect, people will opt for because there’s nothing else on. It’s the kind of film that many people will pick up in a three-for-two deal on dvd, watch once or twice and then leave on the shelf to gather dust next to John Carter and Wild, Wild West.

Andy Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Oliver

Are we nice in Colchester?

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Scott Everest takes another look at Colchester’s tourism and where we might be going wrong?

Are we nice in Colchester?

Make no mistake about it, tourism is at the apex of the hospitality industry. A town’s reputation as a desired destination can be made through all the encounters a tourist or a visitor experiences throughout their stay occasion.

A difficult challenge you may say, as all attractions and associated business have their own way of doing things, especially with regards to customer service.

So why is it important for tourists to have a good experience, or to expand further why is it important when tourists have a bad experience for it to be resolved to their satisfaction?

In 1999 a company called TARP research conducted a study and it stated that only 1 person in every 26 unhappy customers will make a formal complaint about their experience.

The others will simply take their business elsewhere and will not return. But here is the kicker. Each unhappy customer will tell an average of 10 people of the experience who in turn will tell another 5 people.

This means that the 26 complaints will influence 1300 people, (Rises to 1560 if is a formal complaint) to not come and visit Colchester. How much does that small section cost Colchester’s local businesses and attractions?

The silent majority are the scariest type of customer out there, the ones who just go elsewhere.

Customer Complaint

However, there was a second part to the Tarp research which was also very interesting. For every complaint you resolve then 82% of people will return if you resolve the complaint quickly.

It pays to resolve complaints or have a forum to do so. Unfortunately any attraction that does not have this facility runs the risk of the only ‘vented’ outlet being a review site on the Internet.

I guarantee you an internet based negative review will increase that Customer Complaint Iceberg formula exponentially.

To be serious about Customer / Visitors / Tourists you have to provide a facility to gather Customer Feedback, good, neutral or negative in a simple way, as otherwise you will never improve.

A good tool to use would be The Harvard University devised measurement called the Net Promoter Score (NPS) a sliding scale to rate your experience.

Net Promoter

 

A Detractor is someone who has had a negative experience, and the lower the score the less likely they are to recommend. The Passives are always discounted as they have no loyalty either way. Promoters are seen as a ‘Raving Fan’ who sings your praises.

It is said that to be ‘World Class’ you would have a Net Promoter Score of around 50%

Naturally you would need free text to capture customers verbatim, or use a problem tree to ascertain finitely what the problem is.

So to be serious, and to be a standout destination which takes honest unfiltered feedback, you need to be fully open to comments. The worst that can happen is you learn what people really enjoy (and keep doing it) and what people do not like (and fix it).

Thus keeping some reviews from public forums, if you resolve in a timely manner.

All of which is useless unless you know how to be hospitable in the first instance, and know how to successfully resolve complaints.

In 2007 I was lucky to be part of the 2012 Olympic Accommodation Committee, and being one of the chosen Hotel Managers to host dignitaries, staff and competition winners, was a great honour.

However, being an experienced Manager in the hospitality sector I thought that there was nothing I did not know. I have seen lots of things and own many of the t-shirts.

However the 2012 Olympics was known as the ‘Friendly Games’, which surprised the UK if we are to be truly honest with ourselves, as we are known for being quite a reserved bunch.

This was of course down to great leadership, vision and expense, but at the core of everything was something quite wonderful.

Not a lot of people may know about the mandatory training that we all had to undertake and in the lead up did not see the value, however what happened next blew me away.

The program we went on was called ‘World Host’ a specially developed program that was first used at the Winter Olympics and used to train and inspire the ‘Hosts’ on how to manage a large event and give excellent and memorable customer service.

Host

This profoundly changed the way I managed, and the core principles stuck with me on how I managed Customer Service from that point forward.

This was also used for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and will be used for the upcoming Euro 2016 Football Championship and the Rio Olympics 2016.

So Colchester, for an investment of £80 per person for a World Host one day Course for people who work directly in tourism is a worthwhile investment.

Is this aspirational enough for us to take this seriously for Colchester?

To finish, let me use this hypothetical formula;

26 People have a negative experience as a Tourist in Colchester each week

10 People each hear about that experience

5 people additionally from the 10 people also learn about that experience

1300 people could each week receive negative reviews about Colchester

£25 is the average spend per visitor

£32,500 is lost in potential sales per week

So to calculate for the year would equate to £1,690,00 in lost potential sales

The scarier figure is that is 67,600 people will have had a negative view of Colchester last year, and every year. That is nearly 1/3 of the population of Colchester Borough.

Hang on a minute, what if that hypothetical figure of tourists having a negative experience in Colchester is more than 26 people per week?

Scott Everest

It is not easy to be a tourist in Colchester

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It is not easy to be a tourist in our Town, in fact it initially requires a huge leap of faith to come to visit in the first instance, and even more to actually get into the town centre.

Scott Everest

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Everest

Colchester: A Vision (Part 3)

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Part three of Scott Everest’s look at what could be done to help Colchester achieve its tourism potential.

I would like to thank you all for the feedback from the last blog. It is good to see so many people interested in tourism and the potential of Colchester.

In part 3 it would be prudent to see what would happen if we are on the right track, the tipping point to success.

This is obvious as we would start to see street vendors.

1

There is nothing in this world smarter than those who can see an opportunity, a good retailer can sniff out an upturn in trade and footfall and take full advantage.

You may gasp in horror as people set up mobile stands to capture tourists in the heaviest footfall sites and it would be viewed by many as both anti-social and akin to begging.

Let me tell you how they do it.

This is taken from a true story from a vendor outside York Minster, whom I interviewed over 15 years ago.

A gentleman named Abid was a refugee who escaped from Afghanistan in the late 1990’s due to being persecuted for being a Christian Convert.

His Father was educated in York University in the 1960’s and upon returning liberated in mind he preached about the tolerance in Britain. In there house pride of place was a Snow Globe and inside was the impressive York Minster.

2

Abid loved the snow globe and to him represented a dream to live and prosper in Britain.

To cut a long story short he come to England and headed to the place of his dreams, York.

He found it difficult as first, as anyone would and found himself in a situation of Poverty and living hand to mouth.

Everyday he would visit York Minster, pray inside and just spend hours looking at its splendour. He observed that York was developing and more and more people were visiting.

The boardwalk was very clear and he noticed that not many people were taking gifts home and he wanted everyone to have the same experience as him with a souvenir to cherish.

He spent the next few weeks with blocks of wood that were discarded from a local shop that was being fitted and proceeded to whittle down with a pen knife a 3D image of York Minster.

This took many attempts but slowly and surely he created something that resembled York Minster.

His next step was to create a mould, so he melted down plastic and wrapped around his effigy. This took many attempts until he managed to get a workable mould.

Then with a mixture of mud, old newspapers and boiled sugar water he made a paste and poured into his mould. This with a lot of trial and error ended being successful.

Obviously the item needed to be decorated. He liberated an old tin of emulsion that had around 2 inches of old paint inside, he added water stirred and painted 36 freshly dried casts of York Minster.

The final decoration of all the colours and was a mixture of puddle water, blood, Argos pen ink and sealed with clear nail varnish.

That very next morning Abid with his bed blanket spread outside the thoroughfare of York Minster sold 17 York Minster Souvenirs at £3.00 each.

A business was born, tourists had a souvenir from their trip and Abid was part of what we call an innovator of Tourism based retail.

York is a great example of what Colchester can be and we are on a journey to make this happen.

Abid is what you call an innovator or better term for it is a lone nut. He was out there by himself day after day.

Then people started to notice (early adopters) other likewise minded individuals all started to create and sell there souvenirs all across York.

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You cannot underestimate the power of souvenirs it is a physical reminder of a place visited that when you see it brings back the experience and memory. You purchase for friends and family who also become intrigued to visit the place from where it came.

It took a while but the local shops and the attractions saw an opportunity and became the early majority.

Then everybody saw the opportunity, to get the tourists into the shops they had to offer the same as everyone else. I took a long while but they made it in the end but they were the late majority.

Then there are the laggards or as I like to call them, CAVE dwellers (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) these are the people who said it would never work and created a lot of barriers with some of them in positions of power and influence.

There are lessons to be learnt but we are lucky in Colchester that everyone wants the same thing.

So when you see someone outside Colchester Castle selling a home made souvenir then it is safe to say we are doing something right.

Do not move him on, as I want his story and my picture taken with him as he is an innovator and we need more of them in our town.

As for Abid, it seems he never forgot our meeting and he found me by chance on Facebook in 2005, we chatted and he was still in York but was thinking about moving to London.

I had just started a job as a Hotel Manager in Covent Garden and without hesitation offer him a position to start immediately.

On his first day of work I gave him a snow globe of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

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I really want to buy my daughter a snow globe of Colchester as to me it’s a symbolic of my beliefs around tourism.

Scott Everest works as Special Projects Manager for a European based Hotel Group. His experience includes working for Pontins Holidays, CentreParcs, Disneyland Paris and Travelodge in various senior management positions across the UK. He has also attended committee meetings and briefings for the 2012 Olympic committee, and Goverment Department for Culture and Sport for hospitality representing the budget hotel chains. He has also consulted for Norfolk County Council and Blackpool Fylde Council in aspects of Leisure and inbound Tourism.

Scott Everest

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Everest

Captain America: Civil War

colchester101

It’s been a great week for Colchester 101’s movie critic Andy Oliver at Colchester’s Odeon cinema. Not only did he love The Jungle Book but Captain America: Civil War had exceeded all his expectations.

 

Captain America: Civil War (BBFC 12A)

Captain America

Captain America: Civil War is stuffed.

Stuffed full of action, suspense, great characters, wit, surprises and intelligence. It’s the cinematic equivalent of Christmas dinner: A plate brimming with so many diverse and tasty ingredients that you’re not quite sure it will all fit in your stomach, but satisfyingly does and, a couple of hours of rest later, you’ll want to eat it all over again. It’s everything that Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice wasn’t, thankfully, and it might just be the best Marvel movie yet.

Civil War is the culmination of many of the major climactic moments of the Marvel cinematic universe, all those huge ships crashing into the Earth, cities destroyed and innocent lives lost (see Avengers Assemble, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron specifically, but the entire back catalogue – with the exception of Guardians of the Galaxy – in one way or another). The movie kicks off with The Avengers in conflict with bad guy Crossbones and his mercenary force who are attempting to steal a bio-weapon from a scientific facility, a conflict that ends with an explosion that kills dozens of innocents and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is indirectly responsible.

For the United Nations, this is the final straw, The Avengers may be saving the world but at what cost? The UN passes a framework motion, The Sokovia Accord, which will see the super team no longer be a private group but rather a UN sanctioned task force. Schisms start to appear in the team as ideological differences begin to appear, first with an argument, then a scuffle, a fight and then all-out war.

Captain America

I don’t want to give away any more of the plot than that. Part of the joy of Civil War is watching the plot develop logically and organically. Everything has its place and every character is serviced by and, in turn, services the story in satisfyingly intelligent fashion. Something you’d be hard-pushed to claim about Zack Snyder’s hero versus hero smack-down, Batman V Superman, you’ll be pleased to know that there are no Jolly Rancher sweeties or jars of pee on show here.

Civil War skilfully demonstrates the long game Marvel has been playing throughout their movies, this is long-form storytelling not only in plotlines but in character arcs, also. Characters make decisions which are not based solely on the situations they are presented with in this movie but in all their previous appearances. Marvel is not resetting these characters at the beginning of each new movie, what went before really matters.

Captain America

Before you begin to think this is just another Avengers movie snuck under a Captain America banner, this is absolutely a Captain America movie. Everything that happens in Civil War revolves around the emotional, intellectual and philosophical hub that is Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), it is his relationship with Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) that provides the heart of the movie. Cap has always seen the world in black and white, but now shades of grey enter his world and he finds himself taking actions that are maybe not right, that are maybe selfish(?). It’s an interesting shade for Chris Evans to play, a new level of self-doubt, a Captain America who allows his emotions to obscure his moral compass.

With his revelation, way back in 2008, that he was Iron Man, it is obvious which side of the ideological argument Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) comes down on and this is what brings him into conflict with Cap. Iron Man made Downey Jr. a bona fide movie star, but in Civil War he reminds us that before that he was a respected, if troubled, actor and turns in one of the most genuinely nuanced and raw performances of his career. There are new levels of guilt and grief to Tony Stark and Downey Jr. sinks his teeth into the role with zeal and gusto rarely seen in any movie, let alone in a genre viewed by many as throwaway.

Captain America

One of the great triumphs of Civil War is that all of the characters involved are given the time and space to explore their decisions on which side of the divide they will fall. Not only that, but they actually grow. We get to understand more about them and find that they are more than just two-dimensional cut-outs in colourful costumes. From The Vision’s (Paul Bettany) attempts to understand humanity and his part in it to Scarlet Witch exploring her guilt and trying to find a place to belong. The remarkable thing is that not a single character feels superfluous.

Which brings me to the geeky bit: The new introductions to the Marvel Universe, Black Panther and Spider-Man. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) is T’Challa, ruler of the African kingdom of Wakanda, location of Iron Man and The Hulk’s battle in Age of Ultron, raised to don the Panther mask as protector of his people. Boseman plays him with not only the innate regal dignity of royalty but with all the grace and poise of the predatory big cat he bears the name of. It’s a great introduction and leaves you eagerly awaiting director Ryan (Creed, Fruitvale Station) Coogler’s Black Panther solo movie next year. Black Panther is a character you’ll definitely want to see more of.

Captain America

Technically, although being a Marvel Comics mainstay and titular character of five movies so far this century, this is Spider-Man’s first appearance in the MCU. Previous iterations of the character (played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) were produced under license by Sony Films and you may feel you know what to expect from him. This is an all new Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland), he’s a lot younger than you have seen so far, he’s a kid finding his way in a very grown up world. By the time he shows up you may worry that he’ll be one character too many, but Holland plays Spidey/Peter Parker to perfection and you’ll be glad he’s there, he’s a lot of fun and provides some great moments.

Captain America

In other hands Civil War could easily fall apart due to the always impending risk of bloat, but in the hands of directors the Russo brothers and writers Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeeley moves along at perfect pace and without an ounce of unwanted fat. Some feat that, even at a running time close to two and a half hours, you’ll not feel it has outstayed its welcome (there was no after credits scene in the press screening I attended, Marvel saves these moments for the fans. I know. I sat there for ages waiting for one). Civil War is a spectacle that takes the time to ponder the meaning of responsibility, loyalty, honour, the cost of revenge and the subtle betrayal of opposing ideologies. The action is exhilarating, from the awesome opening that sees the Avengers as a lean, co-operative fighting machine to the grandly operatic airport conflict, which pitches the heroes against one another in a battle-royale that is the closest you’ll come to one of those incredible double page spreads that coloured your childhood.

Captain America: Civil War is a triumph, a truly great action movie that raises the bar for everything that follows and actually manages to make everything that came before even better.

Andy Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy Oliver