apt blog

apt Team Member Cooking for Royalty!

Our very own Business Development Manager, Jules, will be helping to supervise the preparation and service of food for The Queen by representatives from her daughter’s school, as one of the winners of the ‘Cook for The Queen’ competition.

The competition was bought to Jules’s attention after her daughter read about it online. Asking for her Mum’s help, Jules was quick off the mark to agree it with the school and help to pull together a supervisory team. 

The competition was open to schools all over the UK and Eastington Primary School in Gloucestershire won, along with 3 other schools out of a whopping 208 entries!

With a bit of adult supervision from Jules and the teachers, the pupils enthusiastically sourced local produce for their recipes. Sample ideas were produced and judged by a panel of 60 people including some of the local producers and suppliers before ‘qualifying’ for presentation to The Queen.

The winning pupils and teachers will be helping Royal Chef, Mark Flanagan, to prepare, cook and serve their meals at a special reception attended by The Queen and The Duchess of Cornwall as a tribute to The Queen for the Diamond Jubilee.

The winning menu from Eastington Primary School is as follows:

Savoury:

Camilla's Cucumber Crowns filled with Wye salmon smoked over tea
Asparagus Encrusted Diamonds - asparagus with a lemon hollandaise served in a diamond shaped vol-au-vent
Rarebits of Diamond - Godsell Gloucester diamond shaped cheese rarebit sandwiches with local homemade apple chutney
Beefeater's Delight - Duchess potatoes with seasonal horseradish and Gloucester beef
Will's Spot of Windsor - Gloucester Old Spot shredded belly pork served on a courgette and potato rosti with Windsor apple sauce and apple jus.
Harry's Hungry Hunt - wood pigeon skewers served with spiced beetroot and pomegranate molasses chutney.

Sweet:

Luv’lee Jub’lee Bub’lee - elderflower strawberry and champagne soup
Royal Rhubarb Trumpet - English rhubarb syllabub cream trumpets
Buckingham Biscuits - lemon shortbread with apple and lavender sorbet
Queen's Crumble - Gooseberry crumble with elderflower and gooseberry ice cream
Union Jack Pudding - Rice pudding layered with raspberries, blueberries, and Gloucester honey served in shot glasses
Royal Mint Princess's Pudding - Chocolate pound cake covered in royal mint icing

Well done to the school and good luck with cooking your goodies to perfection! (... And, of course, enjoy the day Jules!)

 

apt get racing fever ahead of Gold Cup week

With only a week to go until the celebrated Ladies Day during the Cheltenham Festival, apt invited The British School of Millinery, Cousins of Cheltenham and Martin and Co. jewellers to offer guests attending the Ladies Lunch at The Daffodil some retail therapy ahead of the big day.  

The prestigious Gold Cup brought in by Martin & Co. was the main attraction for the event   themed as ‘Ladies Day at The Races’. The company has been providing the trophy for over 70 years and we were lucky enough to see it up close before it is won next week and of course take a few pictures next to it too!

The event was really popular and although we didn’t get to try any of the spectacular food, we still had a brilliant time chatting to the guests and exhibitors. It was good to see the guests planning their outfits with Cousins of Cheltenham, as well as trying on some of the striking designs of hats and fascinators from The British School of Millinery.

The Ladies Lunch events at The Daffodil are held on the first Tuesday of each month from 12-2pm. Each month has a different theme and is the perfect excuse for a little self-indulgence whilst catching up with the girls over a delicious lunch!

www.thedaffodil.com

Ladies at apt support Movember

Our team at apt are supporting male friends and relatives throughout the county taking part in Movember and have even gone so far as to sport our own moustaches in aid of the cause!

The moustache-growing charity event held during November each year raises vital funds and awareness for men’s health, with thousands of men in the UK sprouting moustaches in return for generous donations. 

As passionate supporters of the local cancer charity Cedars Amethyst Trust, we wanted to join in with Movember to raise awareness of male cancers and the work of Cedars Amethyst Trust in offering free relaxation therapies to men suffering from cancer throughout the county. We have all been supporting family and friends taking part with donations but wanted to go the extra mile by wearing our own upper lip accessories to help raise awareness. Two of the pr team even went to a meeting in Montpellier wearing their moustaches, which certainly got the attention of passers-by!

apt clients delighted to support success of GCCC

apt marketing & pr is pleased to hear the news that Gloucestershire County Cricket Club has made a profit for the first time in two years.

apt’s client, luxury travel company, Abercrombie & Kent has signed a three year sponsorship deal for the A&K Coaching Zone, investing in Gloucestershire’s younger talent. 

Justin Wateridge, Managing Director of Abercrombie & Kent said: “As a company committed to supporting the local community, we are delighted to be contributing to the success of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club and to be encouraging young people to get involved with the sport.”

The Montpellier Wine Bar made a welcome return to the Cheltenham Cricket Festival with a stunning marquee serving cricket lunches and teas and offering its finest beverages.

apt marketing and pr also arranged sponsorship deals with Mercedes-Benz for the Gloucester T20 Cricket Festival and the University of Gloucestershire to be the sleeve sponsor for GCCC for the next three years.

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Gloucestershire-County-Cricket-Club-hits-winning/story-13809219-detail/story.html

Event was a Firm Favourite for Racing Fans

With The Open at Cheltenham Racecourse just around the corner (or over the fence!), the apt team have been rubbing shoulders with an array of famous faces from the sporting world at The Montpellier Wine Bar Racing Evening earlier this week.

Alan Lee, the Racing Correspondent from The Times newspaper hosted the evening, interviewing Grand National winning Jockey, Jason Maguire who spoke about his big win on Ballabriggs and the unfortunate, recent incident of breaking his neck!

As the event got into full swing, guests enjoyed a gorgeous duck dish in the main restaurant area followed by a cheeseboard with an assortment of Cheltenham’s finest cheeses.

Kim Bailey also had a Q+A session with Alan Lee, as he did with several other racing legends, each discussing their wins, future plans and their tips for upcoming events.

Not forgetting that the event was raising money for the Cedars Amethyst Trust, the apt ladies were on a mission to sell as many raffle tickets as possible! Raffle prizes included a professional golfing lesson, three pairs of tickets to Cheltenham FC, several beauty treatments and gift hampers from La-De-Da among others.

An auction raised £250 for a painting which was kindly donated by Shezan Restaurant, and following the sales of the raffle tickets, £420 was raised, meaning the total amount raised for the evening was £670.Not bad for an evening’s work!

December decorations

It's the first of December and that can only mean one thing...It's time for the Christmas decorations to go up! This morning, after sliding our way over the snow into the office, we rooted out the twinkling Christmas tree and hung up our oversized baubles and tinsel! What's more, Buck, our resident office entertainment, swapped last month's cowboy hat and necklace for tinsel garlands and big baubles!

We'd love to know what you've done in your offices!

 

Jake finds fame!

Jake, one of our PR guru’s, is famous this month after being included in an article in Cosmopolitan magazine!!

A few months ago, our lovely Jake was invited to take part in a judging panel of five eligible bachelors, enlisted to review a ‘marketing’ campaign for Cosmopolitan’s very own writer Rosie Mullender. Rosie, a single 32 year-old writer, asked four top London Advertising agencies to create the Rosie ‘brand’, selling her to potential ‘Mr Right’s’; all four agencies submitted highly variant campaigns, ranging from image based, through to flowchart treasure hunts, all in the name of a date! The concepts were then submitted to the panel for evaluation, where Jake (of course), submitted a long and very eloquently written evaluation of each piece, finally choosing his favourite to be the concept produced by TBWA\London Group

Whilst they didn’t include his full evaluation, in fact only a couple of snippets, there is a lovely picture of Jake on page 112, alongside a choice few of his words! He even suggested a date with Rosie, but alas, so far she hasn’t taken him up on this (personally, we think it’s all to do with distance).

Good luck to Rosie in her future search and we cannot wait to find out the outcome of her dates!

In the meantime, check out the full article in Octobers Cosmopolitan Magazine, pages 112-116. Alternatively, find out more about Jake on our website.

 

All new Google!

This month Google launched its latest search enhancement tool; Google Instant. 

The new tool enables the user to view search results as they type and also includes an enhanced prediction facility.

Providing instant feedback, Google claims that if everyone used the new search tool we would save ‘3.5 billion seconds a day’ which is the equivalent to ‘11 hours per second’. Not sure how the office would feel if the boss instructed everyone to stay late because Google Instant had saved us 1.6 minutes during the day! 

Having trialled it at the apt office, we feel that it definitely saves time and is very clever, however as with all new programs there are improvements that can be made. For example, we typed ‘Coffee machine repair Cheltenham’ and the following options appeared:

Sewing centre, washing machine repair, coffee machine centre, coffee machine brands and computer repair - no coffee machine repair in sight! 

We are also wondering if it will become clever enough to recognise where you are based; for our coffee repair option it suggested London and Leeds. Will this be an added feature?

  

The main point for business like ourselves is that the search facility has not affected SEO so far, however, only time will tell...
 

Note to Gloucestershire County Council:

We have a team of experienced proofreaders here at apt...

Apt Academy: Hollie's week!

Hollie came to Apt for work experience to indentify the differences between marketing and PR. Here is a brief description of her week by Hollie herself!

"From day one, I learnt ten times more than I had expected at Apt. Every day was a new one, and I was taught new things and told about different clients/tasks, so I was kept really busy throughout the week. I’d felt as if I was not only benefitting myself from the work, but as what I did was proof read and actually used within the business and clients, it was as though I made a difference.

I really enjoyed being given little projects I could work on in the day and things I could work on independently, then getting feedback from everyone. It helped me look more deeply into what I was working on and I was definitely kept busy all the time.

I was taught how to use the Apt mailer, which allowed businesses to send things such as newsletters, statistics and websites. It helped so much that I could see the entire process from start to finish, as well as actually sending off my newsletter for Good Taste Foods and the very end!

Doing the ‘todays’ for both Good Taste Foods and SOHO Coffee Co. was really fun as well, as it let me put my own style into live websites and I could check the next day to see if my messages had been posted!

One of the main things I wanted to know was what the difference was between marketing and PR. I decided that I enjoyed working in both parts of the company (marketing and PR) and that I’d love to look even more into marketing so I could make a decision between the two! Doing the How-To guide for Google Analytics helped me learn how to use the program as I was writing down what I learnt in the form of instructions.

Being downstairs in the office let me see both sides of marketing in action by just swapping which conversation I listened into! From my time in Apt, I’ve learnt that it’s most beneficial is I search for as much work experience as possible and gain as many networks as I could to gain links and relationships between different companies.

Overall, my placement has been fantastic – I loved the atmosphere I was in all day and I couldn’t have faulted it. I was welcomed to the team really nicely and it’s such a great family at Apt."