FTPB - News

FTPB News n° 8 - 14 September 2007

Since I last contacted you, the press trip we organised for FRIEND in the biotechnology field has been a success. Kate Ambler, FTPB Press Officer, accompanied a delegation of British journalists across three different regions of France (in and around Lille, Strasbourg and Nice) from 4 to 6 July. (FRIEND is a Paris-based organisation grouping seven of France’s metropolitan areas, which is aimed at promoting business links and inward investment.)

The summer is always a quieter period, but we have had several projects to keep us busy through July and August. More particularly, some of our major clients are planning on attending trade shows (in England or Germany) after the summer (usually in September or October), so that we have been asked to prepare press releases and press packs for them.

As a press office, we cover all sectors, so that readers of this newsletter will not be surprised to learn that the industries covered have included breweries (with Corsican company Pietra and its chestnut-flavoured beer); specialist food products (with ARIAKE, a producer of bouillons, sauce and soup bases, as well as natural flavours, which has just opened two factories in Western Europe, after operating out of Japan for many years); and consumer electronics (with ERARD, which designs and manufactures wall mounts for LCD flat screens and other audiovisual integration solutions for the home).

The French Week that I mentioned in the June FTPB Newsletter will not take place in the autumn of 2007 after all. The organisers have decided to postpone it until sometime in 2008, to make it an even better and larger event; FTPB will assist them on the media side of it, in due course.

There is, however, another event I can talk to you about, which you ought to make a note of — and that is the Christmas party of the French Technology Press Bureau. If you did not get invited to the 2006 party, it is not because you were forgotten or ignored — merely because there wasn’t one. Indeed, the press bureau is not always in a position to organise such an event, but we are, this year. It will all happen on Thursday 29^th November from 6:00pm at the London Capital Club, a prestigious venue located a few minutes’ walk from Bank underground station, in the very heart of the City.

You can expect an invitation to reach you by electronic mail at some stage in late September or in the course of October. This promises to be an FTPB email that you will regret deleting without having read it first — for once! Any joke apart, we will be very pleased to have you with us to celebrate another productive year at FTPB.

Last but not least, a word about the FTPB team. Apart from Kate Ambler, Press Officer, Yann Calvez, Project Manager, and myself, we will have Trainee Editorial Assistants who join us, from time to time, for periods of three to nine months on average (see photo).

Anja Brinkmann, who comes from Münster (in northern Germany), has been with us since early July and will leave at the end of September; Anthony Berget, who was previously studying in Aix-en-Provence (in south-eastern France), started with us in early September and will be with us till June 2008. Anja has been a great addition to the press bureau’s truly European team, assisting us in the day-to-day running of our operations, and very effectively so. There is no doubt that Anthony is going to play a similarly positive role with us.

I hope you had a pleasant summer break, whether you went away or not. We know that decidedly mixed weather conditions afflicted much of the country a good deal of the time, and I hope that you and your family were not affected by the terrible floods that hit many parts of Britain.

The next issue of FTPB News will come out in early December and will be the last one of the year. You will hear from us before then in relation to the Christmas party, of course.

Philip Jolly, Managing Director, FTPB

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Brasserie Pietra showcases Corsican beers

Brasserie Pietra is an independent family-run brewery based in Corsica. Its traditional beers are already available in the UK through the Waitrose chain of supermarkets. The company is now looking to further expand into the British market.