All this is backed by the new look BBEx website with the latest information at www.bbex.co.uk Plus a series of banner advertisements on the IBI daily newsletter and advertisements in Boat News.

One interesting idea this year is the introduction of a free drink coupon in the BBEx issue of Boating Business.

We distributed BBEx visitor invitations and the latest BBEx newsletter to over 6000 people in our database. The object of this promotion is to get exhibitors offering tickets to BBEx to their own customers.

Each exhibitor automatically gets 20 tickets and the latest newsletter offers more tickets if they’re needed. According to BBEx conference and events organiser, Katherine Skinner, they’ve sent out an extra 3,135 tickets so far.

There are other little promotions devices, such as mailing labels with BBEx logo and dates to stick on outgoing post. And the local PR campaign breaks later this month.

And we’ve tied up some good sponsorship deals with companies such as Marathon Leisure, Marine Mart, Mastervolt, Marine South West, GTI Outdoor, Dyer Burdett, English Braids and boats.com all becoming involved with the 2008 BBEx.

Nominations wanted
It’s time to vote for the people you feel have made a difference in this industry. We have a range of awards to be presented at the FREE party on the Tuesday evening at BBEx.

You can email your nominations to awards@bbex.co.uk, making sure you tell us who you are, who you are nominating for what award and why you are nominating them – in 150 words maximum.

This year we have two more awards to present. That’s in addition to our joint BBEx/MTA awards for the Scott Deverell Young Business Person of the Year, the Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the Retailer of the Year and the BB Lifetime Achievement Award. So that’s six awards in all.

The two new awards are our Web Design Award and our Environment Award. The first of these is being sponsored by boats.com and the second is being sponsored by English Braids.

The full range of awards starts with the BBEx/MTA Scott Deverell Young Business Person of the Year award for the person aged 40 or under who has, as an employee, done the most for his/her company in building sales or initiating new sales methods of working or enhancing customer service. Previous winners include Paul Botterill of Barton, Andy Sims of Cooney Marine and Zeb Elliott, then of Halyard.

The BBEx/MTA Young Entrepreneur of the Year award is for the person(s) aged 40 or under who has set up their own successful business. Previous winners include Clive and Mark Johnson of Tacktick and Neil Chapman of Boatshed.

The BBEx/MTA Retailer of the Year award is for the person or company that has done the most business or developed new business methods or set new standards for customer service. Previous winners include BHG Marine and Norfolk Marine.

The Boating Business Lifetime Achievement Award is for the person who has made a difference over their years of working in the UK leisure marine industry – not necessarily one of the ‘names’ in the industry – just someone who has been around and made their presence felt. The winner of our inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award last year was David Coleman of Barton Marine. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house...

Our new BBEx/MTA Website Award is to recognise the website that has made the job of buying online easier, whether that’s from technical development or from the design of the site. The award is being sponsored by boats.com and MD Ian Atkins will be on the judging panel.

Finally, our last new award is the BBEx/MTA Environment Award, which is being sponsored by English Braids. Brian Clarke, the BMF’s environment executive, has drawn up the parameters and will sit on the judging panel.

The award will recognise a company which is actively implementing sound environmental management practices within their business, such as an Environment Management System, waste reduction/recycling strategies or identifying and solving issues related to their carbon footprint. Any submission needs to identify strategies that have been in place for at least two years and will need to describe the initiative undertaken, its benefits for the company and the benefits for the environment.

We already have some nominations in for the Young Business Person of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement Award. So get nominating - email your choices now to awards@bbex.co.uk