Newsletter 1

Charisma Productions Gazette Volume 2, Issue 1 January 2010

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E

1 Happy New Year

1 Wacky Venue Charges

2 Time Management

3 Readers Forum

Happy New Year

Now that the holidays are over and everyone is getting

back to their routines. Charisma Productions Network

thought that we can help everyone ease into the New

Year with a little humor. So this edition is focused on

laughter and humor.

Let’s start with company holiday parties. Did you do

anything embarrassing at the company Christmas

party? Did you play, who was the best and worst

dressed? Did you overindulge with food or beverage?

We understand, we’ve all attended our share of these.

Some are fun, some are boring, some you just want to

forget altogether and a few, you just lie and tell people

you never attended that one. And do we have stories to

tell. But we’ll keep those to ourselves for now, but if

you share some of yours, we’ll share some of ours.

So, let’s move on to those vendor gifts. How many

vendors sent you the all too familiar popcorn tin? Or

did anyone get a fruitcake? Or what about a meat and

cheese on a carving board set?

Now think about it, if you’ve received any of the above

mentioned gifts, you are either on the bottom of their

totem pole or they are frugal. I think we’ve all seen our

share of “unique” gifts. Here’s a few funny one’s for

you. This year we received a half dozen desk calendars

Wacky Venue Charges Always Check Your Invoice

Don’t Get Stuck With the Bill Charisma Productions Network

Being a big follower of LinkedIn I found that someone had

started a discussion on “WHAT IS THE MOST

OUTRAGEOUS THING A VENUE HAS TRIED TO

CHARGE YOU OR YOUR CLIENTS FOR”? Sad but

true I was amazed at some of the things that I read and

thought you all might be interested in hearing about a few

them. I decided to take the list of these comments and title

them “HOW LOW DO WE GO IN ORDER TO MAKE

A BUCK” or maybe even create a game show about it

“THE PRICE IS NOT RIGHT”.

1. Charging $3 per person for toilet paper

for 700 people, the bill came to $2100 +

tax + gratuity. When the resort rep was

questioned in regard to this charge they

said it was for the bathroom attendant.

On the day of the event both men’s and

women’s restrooms were checked for

attendants and of course none were ever

found. Charges were deleted from the

final bill and they did apologize for the

inconvenience. WOW! Can you imagine

trying to explain to your CFO why you

were charged $3 per person for toilet

paper? Always remember when going to

a meeting, don’t forget to send a memo

out to your attendees not to drink any

fluids or eat anything 12 hours prior to

the meeting. This should cut down on

your TP costs.

2. Charging $4 per chair for 4000 plastic

folding tent chairs. Do they even cost that

much to purchase one? The total charge

for this one would have been $16,000 +

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Newsletter 2

Happy New Year

with so much vendor advertisement on it that we

couldn’t see the actual days on them, oh by the way,

did I tell you we don’t even know who that vendor is?

We have never worked with them before.

We want to know what the strangest gifts you’ve

received were because we want to share them in our

next issue. Or, if you would like, tell us about your

embarrassing moment (We promise not to mention

your name and company)?

Now the parties are done and the New Year’s

resolutions kick in. We know, we know; you have to

start your diet or you exercise program or you are

giving up cigarettes. What about your work

resolutions? How about being more organized? Well,

you know? You walk into your office after the New

Year and clean your desk and make new files and

swear that you will keep up with it for the rest of the

year. Then you get bombarded with meetings, emails

that need to be read (The Charisma Productions

Gazette) or responded to, memos that need to get out,

events to plan, RFP’s to send, phone messages that

need return calls (within 24 hours, not the usual 4 days

later or not at all and hope they call back). Then sticky

notes get posted around your computer screen and on

your desk and all of a sudden, your desk looks just like

it did last year.

Time Management

Something We Can All Appreciate

Charisma Productions Network

Do you find that your days just fly by and you feel like

you haven’t accomplished much? Personally I feel

like this more days than I care to admit. Trying to

manage home, work, children and their activities is

like being the circus juggler. When I finally get a

moment of quiet, which is a rare occasion I make an

attempt at organizing my life. The old adage of

making lists has helped me become organized and

accomplish more than expected. Here are a few tips

and or tricks that have worked for me:

1. At the beginning of the week, take five

minutes (preferably in the morning when

everyone else is sleeping) and make yourself a

list of tasks you need to accomplish by the end

of the week. Keep the list with you at all

times, don’t just leave it on top of the kitchen

counter or on your desk.

2. Daily lists puts too much stress on you. You

worry more on how you’re going to finish

everything you have to do and evidently not

get anything done at all.

3. After you’ve written your list, look it over and

make every attempt to prioritize it. Usually I

start by counting how many phone calls I need

to make and then take an hour or two, sit at my

desk and make all the calls in one shot. This is

usually quite successful, although sometimes

you may have to do it on two separate days,

depending on the follow up calls needed.

4. Then, after the calls, go over your list again

and review all the things that you are sure

won’t take but a few minutes to complete. Do

those next. After those are done, look at your

list and see how much you have accomplished

thus far and start feeling good.

5. Finally, do the more time consuming tasks by

order of priority.

6. Cross things out as you complete the task and

also add things to the list as the days go by.

You’ll notice that as the week passes if you

started with 15 tasks to accomplish, by the end

of the week you’ll have, maybe 15 or more

added to it. This is normal, and if this doesn’t

happen, you really did not have much to do.

7. By the end of the week, take that wrinkled,

ripped, messy paper you call a list and review

it. You’ll be surprised how much you’ve

actually accomplished and pat yourself on the

back. Just don’t worry if there are tasks left

undone, there’s always next week.

8. Any left-over tasks get transferred to the next

week’s tasks. And try to do those first on the

following week, or else you’ll start stressing and

say that lists don’t work, bunch the paper up in a

wad and throw it away. Then you go back to

being your old self, stressing over everything

you have to do and get nothing done.

I know like any good plan there are those

unexpected interruptions, or else it wouldn’t be

called life.

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Newsletter 3

R E A D E R F O R U M

Thank you for all your comments on our December Gazette.

We had several readers write back about our Customer

Service article. This is what they had to say:

Great article! I had just finished reading your newsletter and

that evening I went to purchase a piece of electronic

equipment and experienced “customer service” at it’s worst,

first hand. Where do they find these employees?!?!

Mark B.

What a terrible situation for your new hire to experience such

low lifes. Hope your employee is working out.

Kellie S.

Customer Service, boy that’s a word from the past. I think

Customer Service should be a mandatory class given to all

high school and college students, before they go out and get

a job .

Elizabeth A.

You sure hit a sour note on this article. We had an

experience with an A/V company similar to what you wrote.

We ordered an LCD projector and got a slide projector

instead. What a fiasco!

Steven F.

tax + gratuity and maybe even a setup

fee. So I guess we’ll have to start

bringing our camping chairs, or would

they charge us for space and set up fee?

3. Charging $5.25 each for a 10oz. bottle of

water (which cost them .36 each) for a

7200 room night, repeat piece of business

that wanted to purchase 45,000 bottles.

Hotel refused to negotiate a better price

so the group said no thanks and had the

hotel put up water coolers, saving the

group and costing the hotel $250k in

revenue. Always remember when going

to a meeting, drink your water before you

arrive

4. Charging a $.50 fee for each piece of

candy (that the group had brought with

them) that each person took from the

registration booth as they were

registering. The group protested and it

was taken off the bill. Oh well, they say

candy is not good for you anyway.

I will not go into any of the unnecessary technical

charges that hotels will try and charge the planner

because we promised that this issue was all about fun.

So next time you go into a hotel for a meeting make

sure you’re not being charged for bringing your own

candy and don’t forget the toilet paper.

.

.

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Newsletter 4

Charisma Productions Network A Geoff Andrews Company

805-241-0566 info@cpnevents.com

T H A N K Y O U F O R Y O U R S U P P O R T

We wish to thank our readers and our clients for their

support and feedback helping to continually grow the

Charisma Productions Network. We look forward to another

successful year in 2010 as we continue to grow and provide

you with successful stress-free events.

We appreciate hearing from all of you and strive to improve

our articles and hope to have something for everyone at one

point or another. Please send us suggestions for topics you

would like to read about or if you have an article that you

would like to share we’ll be happy to post it.:

Please send all comments or articles to: Info@cpnevents.com