Letter of Challenge

OK, to make sure everyone is on the same hymn sheet, Clipper Ventures have given their OK for us to approach VS. The deal is:
1) There will be 2 training days, one of which will be the day before the regatta. Then there will be regatta day itself.
2) VF Gets the boat for the 'incidental costs' which is a skipper for the 3 days - apx £40/head by each of the crew. This budget to stay internal please as it may change. For example we may elect to get some crew shirts (the feindish opposition are bound to have them). I also envisage the combined 'crew fund' buying a prize for the event.
3) VS get the boat at nearly 50% discount. Overall, this means we will be jointly paying about 33% of the normal cost of such an event - ie it would normally be about £21k, and we are getting it for £6k. Not a bad deal.

But before all that becomes relevant we need VS to accept the challenge. I think it right that we do this by letter (to crawley?) to both SRB and SR. So we need to make them an offer their egos cannot turn down! Follows is a rough draft. Please fire comments and suggestions back. I will then try to finalise it for approval.

Lets see if we can get it out this week.

Jeremy

Dear Sir Richard and Mr Ridgeway,

Challenge for the Virgin Atlantic Regatta

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.

I 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.

We trust you will rise to the challenge and look forward to seeing your team on the start line! Please confirm your acceptance at your soonest convenience.

Yours sincerely


Jeremy Knight
On behalf of the members of v-flyer.com

___________Page Break_____________

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.

[Nottingham Nick]

Not knowing the first thing about these things, it looks good to me. [:I][8D]

Shouldn't we say something about how V-Flyer / Clipper Ventures accept that Virgin Atlantic are welcome to use the event for publicity and / or PR purposes, or is that taken as read?

Nick

[mitchja]

Go Jeremy [y]

I really do hope we could pull something like this off.

Regards

[Decker]

I wonder if it might be better for Pete to submit a covering letter and the regatta to be presented as a proposal separately? Please note I'm not dissing the original suggestion just providing an alternative.

Dear Sir Richard and Mr Ridgeway

I write as the duly authorised representative of V-Flyer.Com - the leading independant 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 an attempt to inject a little fun and excitement into the day to day running of the site, the moderators of V-Flyer have decided to challenge Virgin Atlantic to a Regatta - organised via the good auspices of one of our more senior site members Mr Jeremy Knight.

The details are outlined in the attached schedule but I am sure that you will agree that this is a unique publicity opportunity - Virgin Atlantic have the only dedicated independant aviation forum in the industry and the chance to draw attention to this whilst benefitting from the attendant press coverage would seem too good to be ignored.

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 I am available to answer any outstanding questions you may have.

I await your reply with interest

Kind Regards

Pete Shaw

[honey lamb]

I like the covering letter composed by Decker (or may I call you Andrew?) While Jeremy's letter is good as a challenge, it doesn't contextualise V-Flyer but presumes a knowledge of it. Now, while I believe that SRB and SR are well aware of V-Flyer, we cannot presume it and therefore a letter such as proposed is necessary. Equally Pete, as site owner, needs to nail his colours to the mast - if you'll pardon the expression - and indicate that it is all OK by him and we're not seen as a renegade breakaway group!!

Ahem! Decker, it's independent [|:)]

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by honey lamb

Ahem! Decker, it's independent [|:)]

LOL.... [oo][oo][oo]

Welcome, Christine. [y][y]

[honey lamb]

Originally posted by Nottingham Nick

Originally posted by honey lamb

Ahem! Decker, it's independent [|:)]

LOL.... [oo][oo][oo]

Welcome, Christine. [y][y]

Thank you, Nick [:X]

[Decker]

Christine

Fair cop! I do the same with Grammar too - and God knows I never spell check (Sorry Nick).

Of course you may call me Andrew - as I remarked to MarkJ at the RBS - my friends call me Andrew :- you may call me Decker.... It's a weird one - Francesca gets annoyed by the fact that I use Forum names in RL - I assume it is a Grammar School hangover.

[preiffer]

You mean to say Decker was your nickname at school?


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

[Decker]

It was "Bummer" actually. All to do with towels and showers and being large without being tumescent.

TMI yet?

[honey lamb]

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]

You really don't mean that, do you? [:0]

[preiffer]

To be fair, personally, I think I'd prefer "peewee" to "bummer" [:w]


Having said that, that photo's quite scary really - add some Just for Men, and we've got a lookalike in our midst... [}:)]



Ooops - just realised. SORRY Jeremy... Thread handed back [:#][:I]

[Nottingham Nick]

This is judgement on you, Mr Knight.
Your own shiny new forum, and the first thread is waaaaaay OT already. ;);)[}:)]

[Decker]

Originally posted by preiffer
To be fair, personally, I think I'd prefer "peewee" to "bummer" [:w]

Can't say I enjoyed the sobriquet. Suspect the person who originally labelled me thusly was closet.

[preiffer]

Damn you, Decker - I just had to look that up [n][ii]


[:p]

[honey lamb]

And all because I asked Decker if I may call him Andrew!! [:p]

Bloody disgusting behaviour.

I like the idea of pete sending the letter - he is the site owner after all. I also like much of peewee's proposal (espec the site context which they may well not know), but also want to keep the challenge part - it winds up the testosterone. Let me see if I can pull together a joint effort.

We need to be a little careful on the PR side. You probably are not aware that what Clipper actually does is sell PR opportunities (It actually isn't a sailing business believe it or not), so they would get quite uncomfortable with giving this away for free. So I think we have to play it down a little at the moment. Once they are interested I can broach the subject so that they can use the event for modest publicity (A piece on their website for example). But I have to avoid them blowing it into a fully fledged corp entertainment day, getting trade press in, etc. The other thing we need to keep in mind is that we are independunt from VS - if they blow it up too much we risk malikifx coming back at us with non-independunce accusations.

I think you will find Bummer was my headmaster at prep school actually. And if you want to know why it's decker, I think you will need to ask him about his moody organ.

Originally posted by Decker
Please note I'm not dissing the original suggestion just providing an alternative.

Please, please let's not worry about upsetting each other. I put the letter up for suggestions and improvement. Life is too short to worry about sensitivities.

[Decker]

Interesting - you think someone is intelligent and well read... [:p]

Originally posted by Decker
Interesting - you think someone is intelligent and well read... [:p]

Yes, but I am not sure who yet......

[honey lamb]

independunce

*Deep sigh*
I correct one wrong spelling of independent and then I get this [:w]

Sorry, I couldn't resist it!

[honey lamb]

LOL!!

Sounds like a great back up plan Richard [y]. Thanks

Can one of the mods split these three "prize" posts into a separate thread. Then we can keep this one to the project team discussing the challenge letter. Thanks in advance