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BDMA 2011 CHARITY DINNER

The Charity Dinner & Awards Ceremony is one of the highlights of the biennial BDMA Conference and this year was no exception. 

The evening, which marked the end of the two day conference, celebrated the people and organisations that define our industry, culminating in presentation of the 2011 Industry Awards.

A donation to this year's nominated charity acknowledges the needs of others and the tremendous work done by charitable organisations everywhere. 

With superb food, convivial company and a great after dinner speaker this was a great way to round off the industry's premier event.


2011 NOMINATED CHARITY

THE OXFORD CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL 

 

The Children’s Hospital opened in January 2007 and is one of a handful of purpose-built, specialist children’s hospitals in Britain.  

 Over 65,000 children are treated each year, not only from Oxfordshire, but from the surrounding counties and, in some specialties, from across the country.

Children have very different medical and surgical needs, requiring an approach that takes account of the differences in their physical and emotional maturity. Getting it wrong with children’s care can result in negative experiences that may slow their recovery. It may also affect their emotional and social development and even have long-term effects into adulthood.

Charitable funding supported the building of the Children’s Hospital enabling facilities to be provided way beyond what the NHS alone could fund. The hospital's goal now is to maintain this very high standard.

A donation was made to The Oxford Children's Hospital at the Charity Dinner on 1 December. 

 

 

OUR SPEAKER

MICHAEL FISH, MBE, DSc

 

In addition to giving diners the benefit of his wit and wisdom, Michael hosted the 2011 Damage Management Awards at the end of the evening and we were delighted to welcome him as our honoured guest at the BDMA Charity Dinner. 

Legendary TV Weather Forecaster, Michael Fish, will always be remembered for the mis-reported 'Hurricane' forecast in October 1987 but there were other highlights such as wiping out thousands of pigeons and the wrong sort of snow. Far from such notoriety damaging his reputation, he has been hailed by The Times as a 'national treasure' and remains a highly respected expert in his field.

In December 1996, Michael was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the City University, London and, in August 1997, he was granted the Freedom of the City of London. In June 2004 he was made an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours. In July 2005 he was further honoured by an award of Doctor of Science from Exeter University.

In addition to publicising Climate Change on behalf of Government Agencies and standing in as a 'relief' weatherman on BBC South East and GMTV, Michael's time at the moment is spent on the after-dinner and lecture circuit as well as doing voice overs, award ceremonies and writing articles. He is also Patron of numerous organizations and charities, not least Age Concern.

Of interest to conference delegates will be two of Michael's forecasting services, providing valuable information for those involved in responding to weather incidents:

• a weekly online tv service, which is updated every Thursday, on www.netweather.tv, and consists of a medium term outlook using state of the art 3-D graphics and 

• a freephone weather service accessed by dialing 0800WEATHER

Incidentally, four times in recent years Michael has been acknowledged as 'Tie Man of the Year' and is famous for his 'Fish' motif ties of which he has over 100. Several years ago he was voted 'Worst Dressed' and 'Best Dressed' man on television in the same year.

Who better to address an audience whose working life is frequently determined by the vagaries of the weather?