A forum for discussion of Social Activities
#136873 by Littlejohn
04 Sep 2006, 13:24
A revised version follows. What say you team?
Dear Sir Richard and Mr Ridgeway,

Challenge for the Virgin Atlantic Regatta

I write as the representing of V-Flyer.Com - the leading independent guide to all things Virgin Atlantic.

As you will be aware our membership is largely drawn from Virgin Frequent Flyers - over 22% of our membership being Gold with several other V-50s (See http://www.v-flyer.com/advertising.asp) for demographics). Because of this we've had the chance to experience your hospitality on numerous occasions. Now we'd like to turn the tables.

In a spirit of friendship and sportsmanship, the members of v-flyer.com challenge Virgin Atlantic Airways to a yacht racing regatta (subject to the enclosed challenge terms), the winner of which will take away the prize.

We have negotiated the use of two 68Õ racing yachts for the event, and two training days beforehand, with Sir Robin Knox Johnston (Chairman, Clipper Ventures Plc). The yachts recently returned from a round the world race and are currently being refitted ready for the 2007 season. Interestingly, the yachts were built in Shanghai and the project team used Virgin flights for their trips to visit the yard!

Clipper Ventures will also provide fully qualified and experienced skippers so that the safety of the people taking part will be assured.

I appreciate that you'll need time to think about this but I would respectfully request that you give due consideration to this proposal and respond expeditiously. Obviously Jeremy and I are available to answer any outstanding questions you may have.

I await your reply with interest

Kind Regards

Pete Shaw













Terms of the challenge

1) The regatta will be conducted on a date to be agreed between the competitors in 2007. It will be staged in the Solent, UK.
2) Virgin Atlantic Airways will nominate one person in their team to act as the point of contact. V-flyer.com nominates Jeremy Knight as their point of contact.
3) Each team will be made up of between 12 and 14 sailors (not including the skipper).
4) Each of the competitor teams will have the opportunity for 2 days sail and race training prior to the event, one of which will be the day before the event. In the interests of safety, at least 10 of the final team members must have completed the training.
5) The regatta, and training days, will be conducted in 2 one-design 68Õ racing yachts owned by Clipper Ventures Plc. Clipper Ventures will provide a professionally qualified and experienced skipper for each team.
6) Apart from the provided skipper, only 1 member of each team may have more than 1000 miles of yacht racing experience. The members of the teams must be made up of employees of Virgin Atlantic or members of v-flyer.com respectively. The teams are encouraged to field as many newcomers to the sport of yacht racing as is possible.
7) Racing will be conducted under ISAF rules, modified where relevant by the agreement of the teams and skippers.
8) V-flyer.com will provide a (TBC - Prize thread) magnum of champagne as a prize.
#136891 by Bazz
04 Sep 2006, 14:47
representing? representative.

Also Pete mentions Jeremy in the penultimate para but he has not been introduced in the aforegoing text.
#136920 by ChuckC
04 Sep 2006, 16:40
Originally posted by preiffer
You mean to say Decker was your nickname at school?


And there was me thinking it would have been something like "Peewee" ;)[:p]


Oh, my, God, that is so funny .... Paul, you are naughty![:p]

Chuck-
#136965 by honey lamb
04 Sep 2006, 19:29
While Jeremy is named in the terms of the challenge he needs to be introduced in the letter
#137057 by mcuth
05 Sep 2006, 01:43
What Barry & Christine said about the latest draft, plus I'm not sure about this phrase: "because of this we've had the chance to experience your hospitality on numerous occasions. Now we'd like to turn the tables." - sort of implies we're inviting them on a hospitality jaunt where we provide all sorts of free stuff.

Cheers

Michael
#137065 by Scrooge
05 Sep 2006, 02:10
Mike, I think we could come up with a couple of plain white envelopes with some ear plugs,eye shades and a apir of socks...though there is a very nice yacht house :D.

I like the idea,but I get the feeling that unless VS is allowed to control the situation they will not bite.In the good old days I could see SRB being up for it, im sorry to say now there are just to many levels of people for it to even get to him.

Good luck with it though, good idea as I said.
#137069 by mcuth
05 Sep 2006, 02:25
Originally posted by jetwet1
Mike, I think we could come up with a couple of plain white envelopes with some ear plugs,eye shades and a apir of socks...though there is a very nice yacht house :D.


ROTFLMFAO [y][y]

Cheers

Michael
#138339 by Littlejohn
11 Sep 2006, 11:16
Decker, NotNick, Honey and Pix - Follows is the final draft. Can you approve to me by PM please.

Pix - Are you able to titivate it, maybe add a vf logo as well as the reply address, print it off and sign. I can email a word copy if it helps. I guess the best thing is to send the two copies to Crawley - right?



______________________________________________________________
Dear Sir Richard and Mr Ridgeway,

Challenge for the Virgin Atlantic Regatta

I write as the representing of V-Flyer.Com - the leading independent guide to all things Virgin Atlantic.

As you will be aware our membership is largely drawn from Virgin Frequent Flyers - over 22% of our membership being Gold with several other V-50s (See http://www.v-flyer.com/advertising.asp) for demographics).

In a spirit of friendship and sportsmanship, the members of v-flyer.com challenge Virgin Atlantic Airways to a yacht racing regatta (subject to the enclosed challenge terms), the winner of which will take away the prize.

We have negotiated the use of two 68Õ racing yachts for the event, and two training days beforehand, with Sir Robin Knox Johnston (Chairman, Clipper Ventures Plc). The yachts recently returned from a round the world race and are currently being refitted ready for the 2007 season. Interestingly, the yachts were built in Shanghai and the project team used Virgin flights for their trips to visit the yard! Jeremy Knight, one of our longstanding members and a sailor with around 40,000 miles of experience, will be organising the regatta. Clipper Ventures will also provide fully qualified and experienced skippers so that the safety of the people taking part will be assured.

I appreciate that you'll need time to think about this but I would respectfully request that you give due consideration to this proposal and respond expeditiously. Obviously Jeremy and I are available to answer any outstanding questions you may have.

I await your reply with interest

Kind Regards

Pete Shaw













Terms of the challenge

1) The regatta will be conducted on a date to be agreed between the competitors in 2007. It will be staged in the Solent, UK.
2) Virgin Atlantic Airways will nominate one person in their team to act as the point of contact. V-flyer.com nominates Jeremy Knight as their point of contact.
3) Each team will be made up of between 12 and 14 sailors (not including the skipper).
4) Each of the competitor teams will have the opportunity for 2 days sail and race training prior to the event, one of which will be the day before the event. In the interests of safety, at least 10 of the final team members must have completed the training.
5) The regatta, and training days, will be conducted in 2 one-design 68Õ racing yachts owned by Clipper Ventures Plc. Clipper Ventures will provide a professionally qualified and experienced skipper for each team.
6) Apart from the provided skipper, only 1 member of each team may have more than 1000 miles of yacht racing experience. The members of the teams must be made up of employees of Virgin Atlantic or members of v-flyer.com respectively. The teams are encouraged to field as many newcomers to the sport of yacht racing as is possible.
7) Racing will be conducted under ISAF rules, modified where relevant by the agreement of the teams and skippers.
8) V-flyer.com will provide a magnum of champagne as a prize.
#138340 by RichardMannion
11 Sep 2006, 11:24
You may want to change the V50 reference as its not the proper term and will mean nothing to them. Proper term is GBTOP's (aka Top fifty flyers)
#138355 by Decker
11 Sep 2006, 12:57
Sorry I have been remiss in not proofing this earlier...

representing - should be representative
capitalisation of V-Flyer should be made consistent throughout
I would consider quoting "leading independent guide to all things Virgin Atlantic." as it isn't strictly grammatical but that may just be me.
several other V-50s would read better as "several others being" then LRoMs new word. I know that was a direct lift of my original so apologies.
"v-flyer.com challenge" "would like to challenge" removes any possible perception of aggression.
" will be organising the regatta" "will organise the regatta" allows the statement to be conditional on their acceptance. If they don't accept you won't be organising it.
Given we want their acceptance and continuing contact to be with Jeremy we should include his contact details.
"1000 miles" add comma for consistency with previous 40,000
"Virgin Atlantic or members " AND members. As in each team member must be one not the other.

Apart from that all good :)
#138459 by honey lamb
11 Sep 2006, 21:51
Oh dear! Sorry I am so late in coming to this. I don't have access during the day unless I am off work - d*mn internet policy [V]

I really have very little to add to what Decker has said. I certainly would drop the "all things" in the description of V-Flyer and the point about "wold like to challenge" is a good one. I would also say "the yachts have returned" - it took me ages to work out that sentence without the "have". Apart from that I really can't better Decker's proofing. [y]
#139001 by Littlejohn
14 Sep 2006, 11:48
Thank you all. I have sent a revised copy to Decker as our guru of detail for a final seal of approval.

Now onto the next topic.
#140999 by Pete
27 Sep 2006, 21:14
Got a response from Virgin today... and it's very positive.

Have forwarded the message onto Jeremy for the next stage (since they're asking about pinning down costs), but it would seem that Steve Ridgeway is very keen to make this happen, and there appear to be a number of people internally at Virgin wanting to be on their team. [y]

Sound like this could be a major event!

Pete
#141004 by Decker
27 Sep 2006, 21:52
Ooh this could be fun :) Well played chaps and chapesses
#141006 by honey lamb
27 Sep 2006, 22:26
Excellent news!!

Looking forward to the next steps
#141012 by mitchja
27 Sep 2006, 22:58
Wow great news [y]

Regards
#141035 by Littlejohn
28 Sep 2006, 09:17
Oops - PM'ed the project team before I read the forum today. Well you heard it from me,....., second!
#141039 by Bazz
28 Sep 2006, 09:45
That is great news Pete, if Steve is keen on the idea chances are it will happen, providing it all adds up at the end of the day!
#141040 by Littlejohn
28 Sep 2006, 09:51
Originally posted by Bazz
providing it all adds up at the end of the day!
Well we have to make it add up, which I hope is not beyond the bounds of reason:D
#141042 by Bazz
28 Sep 2006, 10:10
I am sure we will Jeremy [y] my comment was just reflecting Pete's post where he mentioned VS wanting to "pin down costs"

Looks like a great opportunity, big thank you to Jeremy for conceiving the idea! [^]
Virgin Atlantic

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