Treasure Hunt Day for all the Family

Well its nearly here, after months of planning and collaborating and getting to know more people our Day for All The Family is tomorrow!

Take a look at the leaflet on this link http://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/herefordshire/20-August-2010.html

And listen to the radio on Friday morning BBC Hereford and Worcester - Tony Fisher's programme. Apparently, our pre-recorded and subsequently edited piece will go out between 9.00am and 10.00am. Caroline Forster from the Change4Life team and I met Julie, the researcher on a windy day earlier in the week (Monday) and told her all about our hopes for the day and why we were doing it.

We've got some great prizes - working on a first, second and third out of the hat process we have a family ticket for the Mappa Mundi exhibition in the cathedral together with 4 books from the Usborne "Make it" series. We have a cash prize equivalent to the number of treasure hunt booklets we sell tomorrow and we have 3 free Trails to give away. There will be goodie bags for all the kids that complete the Treasure Hunts and lots of balloons around too.

So, come and find us on the Cathedral Close between 10.00am and 2.00pm tomorrow - do either our easy, medium or hard Trail and the draw will take place at 3.45pm. The easy Trail is suitable for the smaller children who have to find the Normans. The medium and hard Trails are suitable for 7 years and upwards. The medium one is a murder mystery which takes around 1 and a bit hours and is centred around the city and the hard one takes about 2 hours and is a spy Trail which goes all the way out to Bartonsham Dairy and back along the river.

Hopefully those new to our Trails will get a taste for them and try one of the others in our catalogue of nearly 30!

End of the Week...

..... and another busy day in the Treasure Trails Herefordshire & Worcestershire office.....

Newsletter has been sent out to 322 subscribers!
Retail order has been packaged up and sent out to Harvington Hall (its a restock which is especially exciting).
Bespoke Trail request has been responded to and a meeting set up for next week.
Decision taken on advertising with Ideasforkids - we will!
Stock take done and an additional 100+ Trails ordered from the printer, hopefully getting here in time for next week's shows
Preparation done for next week's shows - the boxes of equipment were a mess since the last show we did at Xmas
Telephone conversation with Bewdley TIC - hopefully they are going to order a stock of local Trails, but no decision yet
Office tidied up for the weekend and writing this blog is the last thing on my Friday to do list!


Newsletter says....
Happy Bank Holiday

As I write this letter the sun is shining and the long range forecast for the bank holiday weekend is good. Three days of rest and recreation for many of you hopefully ~ what are you going to do with them? We are at the University of the Great Outdoors being held in the beautiful grounds of Hampton Court near Leominster and have set up a Treasure Trail around the site, which we'd love you to come and do.

However, you spend your time at the weekend, we hope you have fun and get out and about in the fresh air!

Trail Experiences
Our new Treasure Trails neighbour in Gloucestershire has been writing Trails and we've had the opportunity to test two of them. Cheltenham and Bristol Waterfront - both really interesting towns and some wonderfully cryptic clues to find. I did the Cheltenham one in the rain on my own and the Bristol one with a friend in glorious sunshine, and thoroughly enjoyed both which just shows you can have a great time whatever the weather! Guess which one I liked the best though!

Everyone has a tale to tell and we'd love to hear yours.......the first five of you to let us know what your day was like when you did one of our Trails, will have your story posted on our blog and we will send you a thank you voucher worth £5.00.

Click to read the Treasure Trails Blog





Shows and Fairs

Next Wednesday, 28th we will be at the Spring Gardening Show at Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire in aid of the Red Cross. A must for all enthusiasts of gardening and the outdoors, this popular event features more than 80 quality stalls. As well as being able to roam the castle and grounds, including the magnificent arboretum, visitors can buy plants for the garden, the terrace, the conservatory, the pond, the woodland garden and the wildflower meadow oh, and a Treasure Trail or two!

On Saturday and Sunday of the bank holiday we will be at The University of the Great Outdoors at Hampton Court, Herefordshire. If you are looking for fun, adventure, excitement or just something different, this two day festival is the event for you. The wide choice of taster sessions gives you the opportunity to try out a range of activities gathered together in the spectacular gardens at Hampton Court. This is your chance to try a brand new ‘extreme' sport on the Brush Ramp, the only one of its kind in the world (at the moment). Ride your board down a ramp of rotating brushes, with Pro Riders who will demonstrate this new sport and help you learn the moves. This year, there will also be a demonstration by the English Blind Football Team, a prelude to the World Blind Football Championships in August 2010. Look out for our Treasure Trails' Bee Trail set around the grounds of the Festival.

On Bank Holiday Monday, we will be The Dilwyn Show - a first for us. Called a Grand Day out for All the Family, the show is at Fields Place Meadow and promises to be a fun day with a horse and dog show as well as numerous stalls. We'd love to see you there especially as the proceeds go to local charities including the Acorn Children's Hospice and Leominster's Riding for the Disabled.


We hope to see you at one of the above shows, but in the meantime, have a relaxed and happy Bank Holiday!
David & Amanda

Variety

What I love about managing the Treasure Trails license for Herefordshire and Worcestershire is the sheer variety of every day!

Today is a good example.... I have worked on the challenge pages for a personalised Trail we are putting together for a hen party coming to the area in May.

I have written up all the testimonials we received over the last week into our new website and captured the names and email addresses into our customer database.

I have also written up our April newsletter ready to send out to our customers! I have cleared a high proportion of emails and as a result of re-reading the one from Business Link I have signed up to go to a half day seminar on Marketing.

I have tweeted of course!

I have welcomed a new Treasure Trails colleague and got to know them a little bit better - they are managing the Lancashire and Greater Merseyside area.

I have discussed our plans for adding Twitter and other contact information to page 7 of the Trail booklets now we have the new Text Line in place!

I have processed all the orders that came in over the weekend.

I have embarked on amending our Kingsland Trail so that it can be published and I am about to do a stock take in time for our show next week at Eastnor Castle.

Phew, after that lot, I think I'll have a rest, make a cup of tea and get the washing in!!

Bespoke Trails

Bespoke Trails are an exciting part of the Treasure Trails product portfolio. By their very nature every single one is different and we seem to have successfully got several tailor made Trails to design over the next few weeks.....

We are close to delivering the Bee Trail for the University of the Great Outdoors which has the visitors to Hampton Court looking all around the grounds for Bees which we are hoping will be delivered in the next couple of days from the supplier.

We have designed a Bird Trail for a local camp site, which will be used exclusively by them throughout the summer.

We are commissioned by our local church to produce a Village Challenge for the second year running which will incorporate not only a Trail of some sort round the village but also a puzzle, a treasure collection and a tie breaker as well.

We are working on an event for the NHS Change4Life initiative and in association with Hereford Cathedral which will involve local Trails and be held during the summer holidays - probably on a Friday - look out for details on here and in the local press.

And we hope to provide a Strawberry Trail for the Worcester Strawberry Festival - we are just waiting for the go ahead from them.

Love this part of the job.... being creative! Perhaps I should do a graphic design course!

And another week ends

I can't believe how fast time flies - I must be having fun! Actually, I am in no doubt - I am having fun!!

The week started with a meeting in our local church with the Church Events Committee - a formidable group of ladies, chaired by a sole gentleman, who determine the events that will fund raise for the church. Last year they asked us to run a treasure hunt for them and it seems they want something similar again this year! We are delighted to be asked and presented some ideas on Monday all of which they seemed very excited about! Just need to work out how to do a treasure hunt round a very small village that has already had treasure hunted round it before! Think we will most likely come up with a hunt, a game and a puzzle and then the ubiquitous limerick as the tie breaker!

Spent some of the week liaising with the Change4Life lady to get the adverts just right on our Trails - they have sponsored 5 of our Hereford Trails which we are delighted about. Next steps are to put together an organised event with them!

Later in the week we met up with two representatives from the Worcestershire branch of The Prince's Trust fund raising committee and had a fab lunch with them at The Glasshouse in Worcester. Great food and good company. Viv and John had some thoughts and ideas about how we could market Treasure Trails and we hope to work with Viv and HotelShopUK in the future using the Trails as promotional incentives. Probably not until early next year, but watch this space! Viv also offered me some telesales training and I think I will take her up on it!

Have prepared for the stand we are on at Crufts - it is a stand run by rgtperrybarr.co.uk/ who are giving us a tiny space on it and so, I've sorted out 90 Trails for them together with a poster and a crib sheet. The plan is that I will sell on Day One and then leave them to it for the remaining days. Hope the Trails go down well with all those doggy people! Stand number is in Hall 4 Stand 76 - come and say hi.

Today, I've been in creative mode - twittering as usual but have also written two draft press releases, both of which will be pasted in here just as soon as they are agreed to by the other interested parties - Change4Life and the Kings Head Hotel, Ross-on-Wye.

The desk is tidy, but the floor and the sofa are littered with stuff and so the next job on the To Do List is to get them cleared and the whole office looking tidy ready to start the next week!