Last month we held the inaugural Internet Retailing/Beringer Tame eCommerce Charity Pub Quiz and after a tough evening in which we realised that competition on the High Street had nothing on the cut-through environment in the cellars of Adam Street members’ club, House of Fraser emerged as a clear, unequivocal and very pleased winning team. In addition to the pleasure of trouncing some of the leading retail lights – Amazon, MyDeco, Arcadia, M&S, Whitestuff and Google amongst others – the team secured a £500 cheque from Patrick towards their chosen charity, the Royal Marsden.
Patrick Tame and Peter Callaway
“House of Fraser have a target of £1 million for The Royal Marsden Hospital which is our charity of the year” said Peter Callaway, Director of E-commerce at House of Fraser. “This is specifically to help rebuild the teenage cancer wing after the terrible fire earlier in the year.
“You don’t reach £1 million all in one go; it’s events like this and others which everyone in the Company and our customers can take part in which allows us to reach that goal.”
“This was a great way of raising money for charity and allowing some hard working online marketers let off a bit of steam at what is a very busy time of year for most of us. “ said organizer Patrick Tame.
“Whilst raising money was at the forefront of everyone’s minds it didn’t take long for the competitive spirit to go into overdrive as answer sheets were hidden from view and the noise in the room turned from a jovial bar to frenzied whispering, it was a close run battle with House of Fraser finally nipping ahead in the last round to scoop victory” Tame continued.
Patrick of course has failed to mention either his moustache (gamely sported in aid of Movember) nor his attempt at Karaoke (there is some photographic evidence). Someone who shall be nameless (ok, it was me) captured a few moments of Michael Ross singing ‘All By Myself’ – available by kind permission here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BomQo6ktjmw. Do ensure that your sound is moderated before unleashing this on your offices! Interesting to note that it was so competitive that many tables (MyDeco, Amazon, M&S) didn’t even look up as they cogitated the bonus round…
The victorious House of Fraser team: Becky Olie, Dan Seymour, Colette Wilson and Peter Callaway (L-R)
Kind readers have already enquired in their dozens how the Internet Retailing team fared. In the interests of supporting the sector we decided not to build on our early lead and to let the retailers take the glory (cough). Google joined us in this noble endeavour to “support” the results table and together we propped it up nobly. It would be mean to point out that Google indeed came last since it was only one point behind the Internet Retailing NoStars, so I will not mention that at all.
So much fun was had by all that we’ve agreed to run another Pub Quiz in the run-up to next Christmas. Meanwhile, our thanks go to the teams for their good spirit and contribution, but mostly to Patrick and his team for turning an off the cuff comment into a well-organised, fun event, with a great charity donation too.
