Tuesday, June 7, 2011

A Lot of Help From Friends

When the power went off in our building this morning we had to develop a contingency plan to host a special group of guests for a luncheon. After 45 minutes, with no indication of resolution, we had to enlist the help of our next door hotel neighbors and the flexibility of our caterer to create an alternate venue.  Thanks to PDAs, email notification of the change of venue was possible. 

The hotel makes a lot of revenue from food and beverage, so under ordinary circumstances they would never have allowed us to rent a room and bring an outside caterer to produce the event.  And for these same reasons, the caterer had never produced an event at a hotel.   Thankfully, the hotel made an exception to policy and the caterer has had experience in setting up their mobile operations in widely varied venues.  Fire code necessitated setting up the cooking elements outside the hotel for today's luncheon.

All of our expected guests (plus an extra one) arrived, and a great time was had by all.  Fortunately, we had a terrific, long-standing relationship with our hotel neighbor and caterer.  Both parties rose to the occasion to help us create the special event we'd planned.  We all need help from our friends, but we don't always know when.  I believe that it was only because of our positive relationships that we were able to change venues and make the event appear seamless to our guests.

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