Wednesday 23 May 2012

A lot can happen in a short space of time!






 The last time I sent a blog, we were working hard at letting you see how we produced our engraved items, and the process of collating artwork and sand blasting. The blog received a lovely response and I can remember wondering what I would do in the next blog.

Every weekend we sit down and have a chat about what the next step for us is going to be, and I can recall chatting about Theo Paphitis and his #SBS Winners Party and how some of my Twitter friends were getting excited about the prospect of attending this almighty occasion. I looked at the calender and it yelled " two weeks to go" It was a Saturday afternoon and I sat down and started thinking about my #SBS Tweet. What  could  I say, what would grab his attention, and what would make us stand out from the rest? I wrote a few things down and decided that I would make my choice on the following evening.

The evening arrived and I typed out my #SBS tweet and pressed *tweet* and read it out after to my husband David. He seemed impressed with it anyhow, so I was pleased with that feedback. As usual, Sunday evenings are hectic, baths for boys, ironing and packed lunches for school kept me busy. That evening was a busy one and when I sat down to catch up on Twitter everyone was asleep. I hit the "Connect" button and saw CONGRATULATIONS everywhere. It was 9.37pm on 11th March 2012 and I could see my tweet retweeted by Theo, the very last one to be picked! I stood up, sat down and stood up again and felt my legs give way so plumped for the sitting down option and refreshed the button. Yes, it was us. I charged upstairs, whacked the light on and thrust the laptop in front of David and yelled we b***dy well won! He gave a half smile, yawned and said "well done" and went back to sleep. Meanwhile I was up and downstairs searching for mobile phone and house phone to call my Mother in Spain. She has no idea about #SBS but was yelling well done, as Mothers always do when their kids do well! After telling her about it in depth, and marching around the kitchen to calm down, I do have to own up to having a little sob. Just reading all of the tweets that were zooming in on my timeline was a feeling that I can only describe as enthralling and surreal. By 7.30am the next day I had 527 tweets of congratulations to read and so many new followers it took a whole day to follow everyone back.

The #SBS event day arrived, we left Wales at 8am and headed towards Birmingham. It was only when we hit the motorway at Worcester that the enormity of the event hit me and my heart rate went up. I spotted the Chrome car and knew we had arrived at the right place. The welcome from the Ryman's staff was wonderful and really made us feel welcome. We popped our badges on and jumped into the lift to where everyone was  waiting. So many people, so many badges and we spent the next couple of hours badge searching, saying hello to other winners and trying to remain calm . I met Nicola from Wood and Willow at last! We had tweeted each other the night before and now we were standing in front of each other for real! I also met Miki from Wine Glass Charms, and I think we screeched at each other for a good 30 seconds before coming up for breath. My Batman introduced himself, the one and only Phil from Working Metals. He was our winner for the World Book Day Challenge and it was so wonderful to see him too. I remember standing in a circle of fellow #SBS Winners, Sharon from TransK9, Sarah from Hi Tiny Gems, Stacey from SAS_Stacey and thinking "is this really happening"? The man himself quietly walked into the room and you could see everyone turn and stare at the BBC Dragon who had made this all possible with the help of Mr Kypros Kyprianou from Ryman's who had kindly sponsored the whole event. What I hadn't seen was the tweet from Kypros earlier that very morning saying that it felt like he was going to a Cup Final. Gives you some idea as to how important this event was to him. Nice to read and nice to know how much he supports #SBS. A true supporter to all of the #SBS Winners.

What followed was an amazing rousing speech from Kypros who introduced Theo Paphitis, and the music (that I do have to play every Sunday now) started up and up he jumped onto the stage and held us captivated for way longer than he had planned. The #SBS website launch was announced by Chris from MetalFrog and we all were given the run though of how we now all had our very own #SBS website. Amazing work, and exciting for us all to see. The Q+A came and went, and then we had our pictures taken with Theo. So many businesses, and he smiled, chatted, and happily had his picture taken with every single one of us. To say that he made us all feel important was a major understatement.

We eventually had to concede that it was all winding down so we said our goodbyes to everyone and David had cleverly booked us into a beautiful Hotel in Droitwich Spa for the weekend as my reward for getting us the #SBS win.

What a weekend, what memories to hold onto, being chosen as one of many amazing winners throughout the UK by a businessman like Theo Paphitis, and to experience a day like that, is something that Welsh Royal Crystal will remember for a long long time to come.

Mind you, what happened next was another exciting moment for Welsh Royal Crystal!





2 comments:

  1. What a fabulous blog Kim!! You've described it so well & it totally sums up winning #SBS. What a fabulous day we had & what an inspirational man Mr Paphitis is. Can't wait to read about what happened next :) xx

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  2. A wonderful blog read & I plan to join you in the celebration of the next #SBS Event... Just have to win it first!!

    Ali x (Ali's Craft Studio)

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