Trade It; load of hot air?

News from Bristol, where the Trade It team have been kept busy by a balloon fiesta.

If you’re a little confused as to what goes on at a balloon fiesta, Jon Chamberlain has kindly provided us with some details. The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta is a massive event in the South West, attracting 500,000 people across four days, and is held at the start of August each year.

A celebration of all things ballooning (as you might suspect), the Trade It promotions team managed to hand out a hefty 7000 goody bags at the event, as well as 3000 balloons, even with the ever-reliable British summer putting a dampener on proceedings. Despite the mudbath, the event proved to be a great success, and was topped off by a dazzling performance from the Red Arrows.

Thanks to Mitch Ackerman, Paul Scrivens, Laura Kite and Lizzi Wood for helping out at the fiesta alongside the promotions team of Jon Chamberlain, Neil Ackerman, Carly Modessa, Pete Ward and Sarah Dunn.

There's a new vegetable in Business Services...

Only joking, sort of! However, there is a strange new arrival in Business Services in the shape of Rose's amazing giant courgette!This really has to be seen to be believed. Measuring a staggering 24" long and 6" wide, the courgette took only three weeks to reach its supersized level. Rose is keeping quiet however, on whether any unorthodox techniques were used to help the monster courgette to grow (aside from a little help from last year's tomato compost).

I sense a FAD vegetable growing contest is on the cards, so if you have terrifying tomatoes, colossal carrots or massive melons (careful..) just let me know!

The courgette's been on display all day, so if you've got a spare moment, go and check it out...

Some new (and not so new) faces!

This week has seen the return of an old face in Chris Wilson, who returns to the FAD fold after 18 months away. Chris was here for 9 years before leaving in 2006. Good to have you back!

And it's also a belated welcome to Mark Charlesworth, who took up the role of IT Manager at the end of June. Mark previously worked at Sony's Computer Entertainment Europe HQ in London. It seems our resident blogger's been a little slow on the uptake in spreading that news, sorry Mark...

While Mr Somerville's off en vacances in France, I'll be taking his role as the Oracle (I'm not worthy), so if you have any news or information that you'd like to share with everyone, then feel free to drop me an email.

Chip.

New member for Alan's pit crew

More news from Alan Stuart as Jo Wood (pictured below, second from the right) has recently joined the Spidersnet team. she was previously working for Johnson Press in their motors department, but has seen the error of her ways and joined us. Prior to that she was selling cars.



And also Alan will be racing in the Friday-Ad/Spidersnet liveried BMW at Silverstone on September 19th.


He will be supporting the Brit Car 24hr race in the Toyo Production Saloon race. This will be the biggest event of the year on the full GP circuit in a 45 minute race. Car and driver should be well up for a good result and you can check out more info here.

Motor shows success

Our Friday-Ad and Spidersnet motors teams recently partnered up with Motorshow Events to help stage the Eastbourne Motor Show (12 and 14 July) and Tunbridge Wells Motor Show (27 and 29 July).

Both shows were a huge success (over 40,000 alone at Eastbourne), with excellent feedback from both visitors and exhibitors alike. Thousands of people attended the shows and the sun even managed to shine a bit too.

The big red Friday-Ad bus was the backdrop to our stand at the events, with the centrepiece being the 'win a car' competition we ran. At Eastbourne the car was a brand new Lotus Elise S worth £25,000 was the prize for anyone who managed to roll 7 sixes in one throw, Dream Machines the Lotus dealers for the Heathfield area were the suppliers and sponsors of this very popular competition.

This caused a real sensation with a long cue all day for both days of punters trying their hand at winning the prize. Unfortunately no one did win the full size car but one lucky winner did get a model of the Lotus Elise.

At Tunbridge Wells the car was a Ford Focus, donated by Lifestyle Ford. Again there was no lucky winner, but from both shows a total of £1277 was raised in total from both shows It was split between BEN (all the money raised at Eastbourne £920) & Hospice in the Weald ( Tunbridge Wells local hospice).

This year's guest compere was Mike Brewer (Driven, Wheeler Dealers, Deals on Wheels and Pulling Power) who did a fantastic job. Despite the searing heat he was knowledgeable and amused everyone with his witty banter and dodgy competitions such as the 'Topless challenge'.

For more photos of the events have a look here for Eastbourne and here for Tunbridge Wells.

Help Gabriel the Ferret win!

Binny has nominated one of her ferrets - Gabriel - for the Perfect Pets competition in the Mid Sussex Times.

She's keen for Gabriel to win so is asking if you can help her by voting.

To vote for Gabriel simply text the word 'PERFECTPETS' and '029', plus your name, house number and postcode to 81800. Texts cost £1, plus standard charge. Full t&cs on http://www.midsussextimes.co.uk/.

I'm sure if Binny wins the £150 top prize she'll refund you! Alternatively if you get a copy of the Middy, fill in the postal voting form then return it to Binny.

And I can't mention pets competitions without bigging-up 'Pet Idol' on our very Vivapets.com.

If you know anyone with a pet then get them to build a pet profile on the site, recommend the site to five friends and they could win a brand new iPod touch!