PR and Comms Christmas Drinks

So, it’s a Thursday night just before Christmas. You’re a PR in London. What you gonna do?

 PR and Comms Network Christmas drinks.

You know it makes sense.

Hopefully see lots of you at Carbon Bar, near Marble Arch tube, tomorrow [Thursday 13th Dec].

PR and Comms Network Christmas Drinks!

With the long dark nights drawing in, the office discussions of what the bonus is going to be like or the various emails going back and forth asking whether ‘the party’ is going to be any good, one can’t escape ( or even hide from) the simple fact that it will soon be Christmas.

So how better to enjoy this festive period than with us, here at the PR and Comms Network!

We’ve organised our Christmas, PR and Comms Network drinks at the Carbon Bar in Marble Arch on the 13th December.

If you’d like some more information and would like to attend, come and say hello at the event page on Facebook.

Boozy lunch?

I feel badly betrayed.

By PR.

Well, 99% of the time that’s not true, but when it comes to the vision of a boozy Friday lunch, I feel aggrieved. Really, ask the average man in the street what a PR does ona  Friday, and they’ll tell you it’s a long lunch leading into a long Friday evening.

 But no-one I know gets to do this. Instead friday afternoon means coverage and status reports. It means preparing for the coming week. it means reading the new PR Week. It never means beer, wine, or lingering banter. After all, that doesn’t service clients.

Is this reputation actually some invention of the old timers? Similar to the golden age the Daily Mail harks back to? When people left their doors unlocked, children were safe playing several streets away, and presumably PRs went on the Friday lash? Do let me know if anyone has ever experienced this vision of past glories.

In sickness and health?

How many of you skived of Monday and took a long weekend yesterday? As most of my peer group are relatively new to the workplace and still eager to impress managers and account leads, sick days in PR are fairly unusual. However, I don’t think wanting to impress is the only reason that PR colleagues don’t take as many days off as say general office staff/admin support.

In a recent story in the Scotsman, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said that Two out of five people who had had sick days in the last year put them down to alcohol misuse. Apparently up to 14 million working days are lost each year due to alcohol related problems in Britain. (By Alcohol related problems, I assume them mean something more medical than losing your phone and sleeping on your couch for the evening.)

Now maybe this is just PR but I have never known anyone I work with not to turn up because they were out the night before. In PR, that would be considered very bad form indeed.

Do PR’s not take as many days off as colleagues in other industries because they can handle their drink? Now that would be an interesting survey.

PR Networking

A very interesting article in Times2 this week discussing the merits of networking which made some very big claims. 

• 75% of US executives land new positions through contacts

• The Legal profession gains a fifth of its new business through networking

• The Business Network International has 4700 local groups.

The value of networking is [of course] all old news to graduate PRs who have been to one of our drinks evenings but the article provided the ideal opportunity for a shameless plus of our next event on September 6^th. See here for details.

Oh and contrary to the Times article, we believe that networking in the truest sense doesn’t require a time limit per person, you don’t have to make a new business contact and you certainly don’t need to have a stack of business cards to attend. If Bill Clinton has kept notes on everyone he has met since University, well good for him. We just fancy a few drinks after work.

We look forward to meeting you.

(and just to prove we don’t take ourselves too seriously, we thought we’d put a ridiculous picture of us up.)

 

 

 

PR and Comms – Let’s party like its 1999 (members)!

What: PR and Comms Network Drinks

Where: Bar Polski – Holborn

When: 6^th September, 6.30pm.

 

You can find more information here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4196982194&ref=mf

With the summer finally here to refresh jaded PROs and a new wave of PR graduates arriving fresh faced, we figured it was time we organised the next PR and Comms drinks to make the most of the sunshine.

Our first drink back in February was a small affair; to be honest it could easily have been Alain and myself regaling each other, and few others, with a great [?] line in banter

Since then the group, the drinks, and the blog have gone from strength to strength and by the time we get to the 6^th of Februarys for the next drink we’ll have crossed the 2000 members mark.

Ultimately, we set the group up because we wanted to meet interesting PR and Comms people and have a few pints after work. If you feel the same then please do pop along and invite anyone else you think might be interested.

Look forward to meeting you in September.

Alain and Alex

PR and Comms Drinks- Round 3

Returning to the place of its birth, PR and Comms headed to Bar Polski in Holborn, but would it be third time lucky? With over 700 members on the Facebook group, and healthy interest in the blog, thanks to our two star PR profiles, (Tom and Miriam) a good turnout was anticipated Rather disappointingly the weather didn’t match our enthusiasm and a dull grey Thursday in May hardly set the scene! Undeterred, however, the industry’s finest grabbed their drinks from the bar and headed for the ‘patio’.

There was a good showing from a number of different agencies and newcomers from Firefly, Burston Marstellar, Spreckley Partners and PWK were joined by seasonsed PR and Comms networkers from Geronimo, Fishburn Hedges, Edelman, Weber Shandwick, 77 and Biss Lancaster. Also new to the drinks were a number of freelancers and a few potential PR’s who had heard about the drinks via Facebook and came to see what all the fuss was about.

With the polite introductions out of the way, it wasn’t long before the buzz of conversation ensued and plans for world domination soon began to flow, aided nicely by the Polish Beer.

A good nights work and a few sore heads the next day – Bring on the next one!

And the winner is….

The news everyone is pinned to their screens waiting for this afternoon isn’t anything to do with Blair and some resignation nonsense, but who will be the lucky 600th member of the PR and Comms Facebook group.

Ok, so there are hardly big cash prizes up for grabs, [just the glory in fact], but we’re pretty pleased at just how many people have ‘got’ the idea, and joined up. Drinks are next Thursday (17th), and we’re hoping to see as many of you as possible there, new and old members.

Drop us a line at prandcommsnetwork@gmail.com if you would like some more details.

Are you a PR Darling?

PR degree or not, one thing the industry can universally agree upon is that your usefulness (and therefore pay packet) depends heavily on who you know, where you met them and whether they can help you. Networking has been for far too long solely focused on journalist ‘schmoozing’. Although knowledge of who writes the relevant columns for your client is essential, graduates coming into the industry can hardly be expected to pitch up to the various business editors on the national newspapers and get the cheque book out!

More than anything they don’t have the time to waste, and neither do you – Those media lists won’t build themselves!

When we were setting up the PR and Communications Network on Facebook we wanted to quash the stereotype that all PR’s were after an airkissing night out, something we apparently share with – http://www.prdarlings.com/. I’m unconvinced about the offer of a free tee-shirt, however! We don’t offer free items of clothing, we can’t promise love [although some of us live in hope!]…. But we’d love to see you at the PR and Comms drinks at Bar Polski on May 17th.

The Champagne Lifestyle? Drinks 1 & 2 – A Review

Held at Bar Polski (Holborn) and The Ship and Shovel (Charing Cross), our first two drinks have been pleasantly successful evenings with around 50-60 people attending from a wide range of PR disciplines and backgrounds.

Described by one eager Graduate trainee as “Freshers’ Week for PR’s”, the drinks have worked well, because everyone is at roughly the same stage of their career with similar stories to share and often similar frustrations. “If I have to do one more forward features list…” and “how do they expect me to live on this money….” were regular conversation starters!

Held after work the drinks have forged a few friendships, organised a few lunches and for certain lucky individuals even created a few dates. Perhaps the best thing about the PR and Comms drinks so far, is that the people that have attended the events haven’t been the usual ‘networking’ types. No one is looking to ‘work the room’ or play the business card game.

It’s just lots of people, working in similar job, in the same industry having a few drinks after work.

Long may it continue!

[Check out what other people had to say too, here and here.]