The Marketers Forum - UK Marketing Courses CIM, CAM, MRS Qualifications - London and South East England

The Marketers Forum have provided CIM marketing courses in many formats residential, saturday and part time evening, if you would like to find out about our residential weekend in please read on. However If you would like more information on our CIM courses please click here ---->

The 5^th-7^th November 2010 saw The Marketers’ Forum second-ever Residential Weekend take place. Fifty TMF marketing delegates left the hub bub of London for the gentler pace of the Hampshire countryside, to embark on an intense weekend of case study analysis in preparation for their exam at the end of the month.

With a week to read up on their respective case studies, the CIM Professional Certificate, Diploma and Postgraduate Diploma teams arrived at the hotel on Friday evening fully prepared to take on the case study and win.

After a delicious evening buffet in the barn and a night cap at the bar it was early to bed in preparation for a full days work on Saturday.

Hard at work!

With all 3 groups assigned a tutor and split across the hotel into different training rooms, the hard work began. Between 9am and 5pm delegates worked in small teams within their groups, tearing apart, analyzing and making sense of the case study. Punctuated with tea breaks and lunch, the first day was long but ultimately rewarding.  At 5pm prompt, delegates downed pens and sloped off to enjoy 2 hours of leisure time before supper at 7pm. Some made use of the hotel gym, pool and spa facilities, others power napped or took in a movie, whilst a few hit the bar!

An evening feast in the barn was followed by a quiz, testing delegates music, marketing and general knowledge. Fuelled by a few drinks, the quiz enabled everyone to let their hair down and socialize.  Whilst most people hit the hotel bar once the quiz had ended, a studious few went back to their rooms to rest up for the following day. Although not encouraged (!) a fair amount of booze was consumed that night and culminated in a drunken ‘TMF’s got talent’, with delegates (and tutors) outdoing each other with their best party trick.

A fry up the next morning was the best cure for a few sore heads before training began again at 9am. By 3pm it was a wrap and it just remained for a de-brief in the barn, complete with a short video of unseen footage of the previous night’s antics, before delegates boarded the coach back to the station.

The weekend was a resounding success, as some of the comments below will testify. It just remains to be seen now if exams are passed and great results attained! Watch this space!

“I found it very worthwhile to analyse the case study in such detail with everyone in the class.  There were a lot of good debates going on in our group. The hotel amenities were a bonus as well.  I used the Sauna on Saturday evening and it was a lovely way to de-stress after a very long day in a conference room.

The dinners were a great opportunity to network with those in the same level as well as those students doing the diploma and post grad levels.  It was great to get some first-hand information about the other levels, what they enjoyed and what they found challenging.  The quiz was very entertaining as well!”

Rosanna Spataro (CIM Professional Certificate)

“Thanks for a great weekend, very worthwhile and a right laugh also. I hope we weren’t too much of a handful for you!”

Laura Benfield (CIM professional Certificate)

“Weekend was excellent, great fun and very helpful”

Eli Georgieva (CIM Professional Diploma)

“It was both enjoyable and productive, a nice venue, well organised: so, successful all round from my point of view!”

Adam Bowden-Smith (CIM Professional Certificate)

“Thanks for organising a great weekend”

Alycia Wilson  (CIM Postgraduate Diploma)

On Thursday evening The Marketers Forum were lucky enough to host a talk by Dave Cornthwaite, an adventurer, author, documentary maker and motivational speaker.

“Choose comfort or choose ambition. They don’t come in the same box”

At 25 Dave had a well paid, but unfulfilling job as a graphic designer, his own house, a long term girlfriend and a cat… however he gave all of it up in pursuit of a dream. Having always wanted to write, Dave realised he needed ‘stories’ in order to enable his writing. A turn on a longboard in 2005, gave birth to an idea to travel the world, raising awareness for causes he was passionate about, whilst creating material he could write about…

He began planning 2 incredible journeys, which saw him skate the length of Britain from John O’ Groats to Lands End and then in early 2007 he pushed his skateboard Elisa, 5823km across Australia between Perth and Brisbane. Dave became the first person to cover these distances on a skateboard and has a Guinness World Record to mark his achievement, a host of global media coverage and a remarkable book entitled BoardFree, detailing his journey.

Dave’s odyssey across Oz, fuelled his passion for adventure and travel and he threw himself into further experiences, activities and charities. Soon after, he became the face of Aquaskipping, a human-powered hydrofoil and broke the British speed record. This was followed by a kayaking expedition in late 2009 along the Murray, Australia’s longest river, from the source to mouth. Dave has put together a documentary about his experience to raise awareness for environmental and climatic factors affecting the once great river.

Moving on, Dave tried stand-up paddle boarding and crossed Lake Geneva in the summer of 2010, a distance of 86.9km in a record breaking 2 days. Once again, he has captured and documented his journey.

All these adventures have led to Dave dreaming up ‘Expedition 1000′. His aim is to raise a million pounds for charity by “undertaking 25 separate journeys in excess of 1000 miles in distance, each using a different form of non-motorised transport. The project will cover every continent, cross the three major oceans and see Dave reach both poles.”

  You can find out more about ‘Expedition 1000′ by visiting Dave’s website.

Dave’s intention is to inspire people to follow their dreams and think outside the box. Dave closed his talk with TMF by encouraging the audience to make a list of everything they want to achieve in life, be it small or large and then make it happen.

He did.

or connect with him on Facebook (Dave Cornthwaite) or Twitter (@DaveCorn)

Dave is also featured in Sport Magazine this week – more info here.