The feature has to close on Monday February 28, so you have the week after the Collins Stewart London Boat Show to get material in to us. If you want to get it in earlier, that would be much better for us.

Let us have 100 words and a high resolution image and we’ll try to tell the industry what you’ll have on show at BBEx.

You can use the same information in your letters out to your own clients inviting them to come and see you and the rest of the industry at BBEx...

BBEx events sales manager Kate Didymus says the show will be a sell-out, but bookings are still coming in; the latest was that of Seatriever International - as recently seen on Dragon’s Den – which will show its Waterbuoy emergency floatation device.

If you want to book space, call NOW and we’ll try to get you in. But space is getting tight...

The seminar/workshop schedule for the event is looking good. And with the Health and Safety Executive planning visits to boatyards this year, we’re working on a series of briefings for managers, supervisors and contractors involved in painting, spraying and GRP lay up.

Part of this seminar programme may well include a workshop or two on using advanced composites, so keep watching BB and these regular NewsUpdates for more information.

Above all, make sure you get a briefing at BBEx before you get a visit from the HSE...

After the Peters Plc crash last year there was a lot of talk around the industry on how best to protect client deposits and stage payments. So we’ve got Tim Reynolds (Dyer Burdett & Co) and Nigel John (company secretary of the British Marine Federation [BMF]) putting together a seminar on credit given/credit received, financial security and consumers money and successful trading in a challenging market environment

Training is always a touchy subject – it’s worth its weight in gold. But it can cost a lot of gold in the first place. So we’ve got a session on how you can get the grants to slash your training costs. It can be done, they tell us...

The environment is getting ever larger in our lives, so we’ve taken some action. First, we’ve added an Environment Award to our Boating Business awards to be presented at BBEx. And we’ve got the BMF involved, with Brian Clarke, the BMF’s environment executive, helping us judge the award. Clarke will give a BBEx seminar on how the average leisure marine company can take positive action to become more environmentally aware.

Finally, Jonno Barrett of Kudos Software has some intriguing thoughts on how you can steal a few ideas from the e-tailers. It’s not all about price, he says. His seminar is titled Pinching the E-commerce Clothes, so come along and see what a traditinal business can learn from the web traders. The fightback starts here, says Barrett.

BBEx Awards/FREE drinks
We also want nominations for our BBEx/MTA awards to be presented at the Tuesday evening FREE drinks/awards party in the BIC. See our Monday night NewsUpdate next week for more details.

That next NewsUpdate will also  tell you which companies are in as sponsors for the event - for example, English Braids has just signed up to sponsor the Environment Award and boats.com has also signed to sponsor the Web Awards. And it will have details of the promotions we are running to persuade the trade to come to the BIC.

You can contact Kate Didymus, BBEx event sales manager, on 01329 820488. BB advertisement manager Lorraine Curtis can be found on 01329 820477 and BB editor Peter Nash can be reached on 01892 545696 or 07796 173606.