Spanish Chamber of Commerce in the United Kingdom

Tag: #AngloSpanishcommunity

INTERNATIONAL WINE & SPIRITS TASTING 2015

On Wednesday 23rd September the Spanish Chamber was proud to take part in the 7th edition of the International Wine & Spirits Tasting. This annual event is organised by several Chambers of Commerce in London. The event’s main goal is to broaden attendees’ network by providing members from the different chambers and related organisations with the opportunity to access an international audience. For this edition, the Wine Tasting counted on one new addition: the Belgium Chamber of Commerce whom joined participants from the previous edition: Argentina, Austria, Canada, France, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

As the name of the event states, the evening was driven around the wide variety of wines & spirits from diverse regions of the 13 countries that were represented in the event. This time we had a record number of attendees, over 300 guests gathered at the magnificent Church House Conference Centre, located steps away from Westminster Abbey, to taste a selection of wine, beer and spirit varieties from around the world. Delegates from all the companies walked their way around the different country stations and dispersed themselves throughout the Assembly Hall where the event was held.

This year the event counted with almost 300 attendees.

On this occasion, the Spanish Chamber had two sponsors, one for the wine and one that provided the attendees with the best “Manchego cheese” in the world. Representatives from Codorníu Raventós had the opportunity to showcase their products to a great and varied audience. During the event there were many curious individuals and lovers of the Spanish gastronomy that stopped by the Spanish stand to taste the wines presented, Viña Pomal Centenario Reserva 2009 and Ánima de Raimat 2014 and the fabulous Anna Blanc de Blancs cava while getting some guidance through the tasting. Codorníu Raventós has 450 years of history behind it and eight wineries in the most important appellations within Spain, as well as two outside Spain – in California and Argentina. This expansion has made Codorníu Group one of the most prestigious winemaking companies in the world.

Cristina Oyarzun from Codorniu at the Spanish Chamber stand

Moreover, akey aspect of the event is the importance of the UK wine & spirits market. Great Britain is one of the main worldwide wine markets, in numbers; it is the sixth biggest market in the world regarding the buying and selling volume.

This fact was reflected on the wide variety of products that were presented during the event. We could taste a great selection of white, red, and sparkling wines, aside from the Tongerlo Blond beer imported from Belgium to a Mexican spirit called “Sotol”, without forgetting the sweet ice Canadian wine that was surprising once again.

Attendees were able to travel around the world with their senses: one minute they were in Austria, trying raspberry wine, next they jumped to Japan where they were indulged with sake, only to cross to the other side of the hemisphere to enjoy the popular Canadian iced wine.

The attendees had the chance to enjoy more than 40 different kinds of wines & spirits from around the world

We would like to express our gratitude to members and colleagues from the other Chambers for their hard work and effort to produce such a magnificent event. Big thanks to Church House for hosting the event, as well for all the support and immaculate work to make such a delightful evening possible!

Please click here to access the complete gallery of pictures for this event.

If you missed this event or just want to find out about other activities that the Spanish Chamber is organising in the coming weeks, we encourage you to keep an eye on our UPCOMING EVENTS section within our website or subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

15/10/2015
Executive Coaching: Maximise Your Potential

On Wednesday 11^thFebruary we held the seminar “Executive Coaching: Corporate Health Strategy” in collaboration with Melioora, member of the Chamber.

Igor Urra, Secretary General of the Spanish Chamber, welcomed attendees on behalf of our institution and introduced Eloy M. Rodríguez; the speaker for this session, who after a long multinational career in ITC technology, decided to give a radical change in his professional life. He became a Certified Executive Coach and launched Melioora, an innovative company to help managers and experienced professionals get sustainable success based on Enterprise Health.

Eloy M. Rodríguez, co-founder of Melioora, during his presentation.

Eloy introduced the session comparing companies to people. In his words, a human’s health is determined by social, physical and mental well-being; whereas for companies the factors to measure the “wellbeing” of an organisation are organised in pairs, and are as follows: market – clients, finance – progress, and people – emotions.

Nowadays, most corporate effort are made in the first two categories, breaking the balance and leaving people and emotions unattended. Thus, he explained that coaching helps maximise the potential of leaders, professionals and teams. In fact, the speaker mentioned that, according to an article published on the Harvard Business Review, up to 30 per cent of a company’s financial results are determined by the climate of the organisation. Therefore, it is highly important to focus on this side of the company to enhance its performance.

Attendees completing a self-awareness form, one of the activities they were requested to do at the workshop.

During the second part of the seminar, attendees enjoyed first-hand experience with a practical exercise. They were given a form and asked to think of a professional barrier they had. After answering several questions individually, participants could feel that they were more aware of the problem and were able to establish little steps to improve their situation.

Later on, everyone in the room was engaged in a group exercise where they had to complete a task with their eyes closed and following very precise directions. The purpose of this activity was to raise awareness on how being familiar with one’s team members and the way they work has a positive impact towards obtaining a common goal.

Participants had the opportunity to network after the workshop.

At the end of the session, attendees took the opportunity to ask Eloy about Melioora’s methodology and exchanged their views on the topic. After the Q&A, participants continued networking while enjoying some breakfast.

If you want to find out about other activities that the Spanish Chamber is organising, we encourage you to keep an eye on our UPCOMING EVENTS section within our website. Furthermore, you can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter in order to receive updates on our events!

16/02/2015
WELCOME BACK FROM THE SUMMER DRINKS

On Thursday 4^th September, The Spanish Chamber welcomed their members back from summertime with a special drinks reception. For this, the Chamber teamed up with Beefeater 24, kind sponsor of the event and their new global partner, Hackett.

This time we were reunited at the magnificent Hackett flagship store at the heart of Regent’s Street. This boutique shop could be considered a masterpiece for its combinations of British style and gentleman’s fashion. With three floors and a wide variety of genuine men clothing and accessories, attendees had the store for themselves to walk around and discover Hackett’s new trends for autumn 2014.

The main part of the event took place at the upper floor of Hackett’s flagship store.

The main event was set on the 2^nd floor, where Hackett in collaboration with Beefeater 24 has allocated a great bar that is open and available for clients to enjoy Beefeater 24 delicious tasteful creations all year round. So guests did! They were welcomed on arrival with a selected variety of gin cocktails prepared by master bartenders and served by waiters who kindly explained each drink to all who were interested, detailing ingredients and the mixture of the bespoke drinks along with the techniques they use to make them. Everybody had the chance to indulge themselves by trying the three different cocktails designed for the night: a classic Gin tonic with a citrus twist, a juicy Lemon Gin and a bittersweet Rosy Lee.

Beefeater 24 was presented in three different varieties.

One of the highlights of the evening was the speech of Beefeater 24’s Master Distiller, Desmond Payne, who was kindly introduced by the Secretary General of the Chamber, Igor Urra, and thanked everybody who was able to join the Chamber and contribute to make the most out of the evening.

Desmond Payne has been making gin for over 40 years. At Beefeater 24 London Distillery, currently located in the Kennington area, he acts as the guardian of James Burrough’s original gin recipe, developed in the 1820s which still remains strong and key to the success of the brand nowadays.

On the Left, the Master Distiller of Beefeater during his intervention. On the right, our Secretary General, Mr. Igor Urra.

After Mr. Payne’s speech, people mingled and some of our guests took the opportunity to get some professional tailoring and fashion advice by Hackett staff members who guided them through the new trends. Besides that, guests of the Spanish Chamber were also provided with an exclusive 15% discount in any purchases on the night and had the chance to take the flavours of the night home bottled in miniatures of Beefeater 24.

The Hackett staff kindly showing some unique products to attendees.

We would like to express our gratitude to members and colleagues from the Spanish Chamber who attended and especially to Beefeater 24 team and Hackett for their hard work, effort and aim to produce such a magnificent event.

If you missed this event or just want to find out about other activities that the Spanish Chamber is organising in the coming weeks, we encourage you to keep an eye on our UPCOMING EVENTS section within our website or subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

17/09/2014
ELEVATOR PITCH – XVIII EDITION

On Tuesday 25^th February we held the XVIII edition of our Elevator Pitch. On this occasion our member MeliáWhite House Hotel kindly hosted the event. The hotel is located within a prestigious area minutes away from Regent’s Park with great connections thanks to its proximity to Great Portland Street station.

The Elevator Pitch focuses on expanding the professional network of the attending companies and provides an excellent opportunity to explore synergies and avenues of collaboration among them. For the XVIII edition there were a total of 17 companies from the following sectors: : Accounting, Translation, Communication, Language services, Training, Coaching, Fashion, Food, Events, Marketing, Legal Services, Business Suppliers, Real Estate and Foreign Direct Investment.

The format allows participants to get to know each other’s line of business in more detail.

For those of you that have never attended one or do not know how it works, there are just a couple of things you need to know regarding this format: usually there are up to 16 participant companies, and only one representative per company is allowed. However, it is possible to have up to two companies from the same business sector. Therefore, attendees are able to meet a wide variety of companies from different sectors and the best part is that everyone gest to take back to the office the business card of each participant.

The event was chaired by our Secretary General, Igor Urra, and our Head of Foreign Trade and Business Development, Rubén Fernández, who started the event explaining the dynamics of this activity to the participants. Then, they gave the floor to each attendee, which had 2 minutes to give a concise introduction about their company’s main line of activity and services they provided. After this first round, there was a second one in which the participants could ask questions to each other.

One of the participants introducing her company’s line of business during the first round of the event.

Afterwards, everyone had the opportunity to chat and continue networking over a delicious breakfast that the venue served for everyone.

We would very much like to thank all the attendees to this event for having taking part of the XVIII edition of the Elevator Pitch. Special thanks to Meliá White House Hotel for their support with the organisation of this event.

If you missed this event or simply want to know what we are up to next, have a look at the UPCOMING EVENTS section on our website or subscribe to our electronic newsletter for weekly updates.

27/02/2014

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