The 9th LSE meet BBC protest and my birthday

[alanfinal]

And just picking out one more,I met Linc Williams from Nic Vape USA for a few hours after the e cig summit,in which time he pledged some gifts for our raffle,meant to be for December,but got stuck at customs,but here for January

[super7]

First off, sorry to hear what happened to you Phil. And the fact that I did not say goodbye to you as I left, can you please PM me your number and I will give you a call on Monday (there is something on my mind, that I need to tell you).
Second it was great to meet all of you, and I hope to catch up with you all the next time.
Ta.

Doug

[Chrissie]

Really pleased you had such a good birthday alanfinal

But so sorry to hear about what happened to you philmepowers

[alanfinal]

More I think of it,more I realize I'm not going to forget 20 vapers and an MEP + secretary singing happy birthday to me in the street

[seniorphil]

So sorry to hear of philmepowers experience on Saturday. After all his hard work organising Alans b'day as well.
Well done to everyone who showed. Special thanks to alanfinal Blownupdolly and philmepowers .
I think in future the venue definetly needs to be visited. I've booked hundreds of pub do's, and pubs cannot be judged on the internet. I think at least 2 of us should call in to sus the place out. Phil's money was taken by a member of staff, and as the management aren't interested, they don't deserve our custom. They came across as quite slack when they crammed us all in one corner to free up tables that were never used again that evening. Will everybody please review the bar on Tripadvisor, Timeout, Allinlondon, etc. Future punters need to know about this shower.
On a brighter note, it was great to see everyone.

Phil.

[alanfinal]

You cant really tell what a pubs like till you use it and we are not exactly spoiled for choice when we are up to full strength,although I understand what your saying Phil,more to the point I think we need to make sure the last person/people out checks round for a couple of mins as we lost a mod in December and a wallet in January,we carry a lot of gear which makes mislaying stuff easy.

[seniorphil]

On both those occasions I have been amongst the last out and we have checked to make sure that was nothing left lying around, you can only check so much. What happened to Phil was because of a dishonest member of barstaff. As with us being the last out of the pub there was only staff left in there to steal his cash, this wouldn't of shown up on a visit to the pub. However you would of found out if the pub valued our custom and the cleanliness, food and drink quality/prices. When I've contacted pubs, 40+ people isn't a problem.
All I was saying is with 6,000 pubs in London, we can do better than closing our eyes and sticking a pin in the map. There are a lot of people weren't happy with that pub, for lots of reasons, location, cleanliness, food, staff.
I had offered to check it out.

[mart166]

Any excuse to go in a pub seniorphil



MP

[reggy666]

That realy sucks what happened philmepowers
i also feel your pain not being able to get a kebab afterwards :/

[Village idiot formerly tjlumle]

Sorry I didn't make the meet but had a messy weekend all the same oh and happy birthday Alan

[Village idiot formerly tjlumle]

Also sorry to hear what happened to you Phil

[alanfinal]

Jan 13, 2014 17:06:53 GMT seniorphil said:

On both those occasions I have been amongst the last out and we have checked to make sure that was nothing left lying around, you can only check so much. What happened to Phil was because of a dishonest member of barstaff. As with us being the last out of the pub there was only staff left in there to steal his cash, this wouldn't of shown up on a visit to the pub. However you would of found out if the pub valued our custom and the cleanliness, food and drink quality/prices. When I've contacted pubs, 40+ people isn't a problem.
All I was saying is with 6,000 pubs in London, we can do better than closing our eyes and sticking a pin in the map. There are a lot of people weren't happy with that pub, for lots of reasons, location, cleanliness, food, staff.
I had offered to check it out.

Well we had a week left to find a venue after the one I had double booked by mistake,I spend weeks researching them,e mailing them,phoning them and looking at a lot of aspects,before coming to a decision,40+ people is never a problem till you tell them your vapers or they want a £500-1500 guaranteed bar spend,How do you think it feels to have everything organized and to be able to get back to my job, car meets and all the other aspects of my life only to get a phone call telling me we are double booked sorry,add to that the travelling members who have to get to trains as easily as possible,disabled access if possible,we need our own section or venue within a pub,the days of mixing in with the regulars went when we grew to the numbers we have now,my lists go from 25+ pubs too down too 2-3,then you still have a lot to consider,nobody closes their eyes and sticks a pin in a map,by all rights the one in Kings cross had a large area no bar spend and disabled facilities and there was not time to find another + Mark had spent a good few occasions talking to them forwarded me the e mails and whoever was in charge seemed perfectly happy to have us and seemed a nice bloke,though yes it didn't turn out like that on the night,no point in checking it out with no time for an alternative,if it had not been for the BBC event I would have normally moved it a week and used the one I wanted the following week,nobody could have foretold a thieving member of bar staff,the biggest numpty was the bloke that forgot to write us into the book.

[seniorphil]

There was a lot of negative feedback on the pub, but as you've decided to single mine out
Not 1 week- 19 days nearly 3 weeks from 23rd until the do.

[mart166]

Lets just forget it and move on to next meeting, talking over and over again will not turn back the clock, start another thread alan for next meeting.

MP

[Blownupdolly]

Just throwing an idea into the hat. Why does it have to be a pub? I did suggest contacting something like a British Legion club, who often have function rooms etc. OK, they might not be classy enough for some, but there must be hundreds of other types of clubs throughout London who would jump at the chance for extra revenue, and often in these places the beer is cheaper.