We had a great few days in Norwich a couple of weeks ago at the annual Treasure Trails conference. We travelled up on the Wednesday and met up with friends old and new from the Treasure Trails family - the conference proper didn't start until Thursday, but as we had to go from one side of the country to the other, it made sense to travel the day before. That evening, we had dinner at Yellows - Delia Smith's diner at the Norwich football ground. I was expecting a gourmet dinner at diner prices.... but I was disappointed. The menu was burgers and the like and I had chose a Cincinnati Chilli with 5 sides...... as I am writing this blog, I am struggling to remember the sides! I think one was red onion and one was sour cream, but not sure now and can't remember what the others were. I also ordered a side of homemade coleslaw which was £2.50 and delicious - the only thing on the whole plate that I really enjoyed, pity it was only a tablespoon full.
Anyway, onto the next day - we had a delicious breakfast and then I drove 4 of the others into town to do a specially written Norwich Treasure Trail. The five of us (some more experienced Trailers than others) set off with high hopes for a great exploring experience. I had never been to Norwich before, and of course doing a Trail is a fabulous way to see the sights! The Trail was fun and we found out lots of stuff about Norwich - we each had our booklet which was good because we chatted about some of the clues and how good they were and talked about different ways to use a plaque to write a good clue and I was able to write notes into my Trail booklet to bring home and crib from! The photo is of my fellow Trail detectives debating the merits of the clue on the post box!
After the Trail, we sat and had a coffee together before heading back to the hotel for the lunch and the start of the conference. Interestingly, the bill came to 12.31 which is less than the average Trail family spends whilst doing their Trail but every little helps with local economy.
Back at the hotel, we were ready to hear the words of wisdom from Steve, the MD of Treasure Trails and his HQ team. I won't reveal all the plans here, but suffice to say there are lots of new products coming up including the recently launched Personalised Trails and the soon to be launched Techno Trails - both of which are very exciting and will without a doubt enhance the Treasure Trails customers' experiences.
Dinner Thursday night was in the hotel and we sat on a table with our lovely Treasure Trails neighbours - Rachel and Stephen from TT Gloucestershire, Claire and Paul from TT Warwickshire and West Midlands and Sue and Ivan from TT Staffordshire.... we are so lucky with our TT neighbours and are really looking forward to the day when we have TT Shropshire, TT Powys and TT South Wales in position.
Friday after a full day of presentations and workshops, we retired again to the bar and then followed up with the Gala Dinner....and a chance for some traditional TT games and quizzes! We learnt some interesting stuff about HQ staff as well as people on our table.... we had a bungy jumper, a kite fanatic, a broken elbow story, a claim to fame by being live on the Richard and Judy Show and some other very tall tales indeed.
Roll on next year's conference... but in the meantime, we have an April date for our second regional meeting - this time in Warwickshire.
