Born optimist Liz Sheppard-Jones gives the first of an occasional series of views from Croydon’s new conference bureau.
Give
a dog a bad name, the saying goes, and my colleagues and I sometimes
feel like that dog; a scruffy, neglected mutt badmouthed by everyone
then kicked into a kennel corner and labelled dangerous if we dare to
emit a tiny growl of protest. Everyone, obviously, knows that Croydon is
pants. Why do we live there? Why work there? Why bother? Clearly our
collective self-esteem must have bypassed the basement and just carried
on down.
Smooth people’s way and there’s plenty that lose
interest, and let’s be honest, post-Olympic London is an easy sell. The
city of glamour and success, throne of Jessica and Mo, pinnacle of
paralympian awesomeness, who doesn’t want a piece of it now? But
esprit de corps is an interesting thing, it thrives in adversity. Way
down South, our new conference team is thriving too.
So we’re
looking at 2013 and deciding that since it’s bound to be lucky for some,
we’ll make it lucky for us. Preparations are well in hand for our big
showpiece at International Confex in March and there’s new clients
a-plenty in the pipeline. The challenge we face is leaving the blocks,
getting our prospects here, over that hump, past the C-word and into
Croydon Town Centre to check out our conference venues and facilities.
Get that nailed, and the game changes.
We’re not apologetic –
we’re Croydon. We’re short on dreaming spires, though we do have some
pretty cool modern buildings and rather unfashionable old ones. Castles
and moats don’t feature strongly, but the river Wandle has just been
re-suced in the Town Centre 40 years after developers inexplicably
decided to channel it underground. Now there’s a metaphor for us, the
buried stream rising once again and glinting in the sunlight.
Let’s hear it for the underdogs, and we’ll keep you posted about Destination Croydon in 2013.
Any comments? Email conferencenews@mashmedia.net
