FFC December 1st Editors’ Christmas Lunch 2023

2023 has been a remarkable year for First Friday Club, with 18 successful events hosted throughout the year, uniting UK industry leaders and the media to provide a platform for discussing stories and products poised to shape the future of the industrial sector. As always, we wrap up the year by inviting the editors that have supported us throughout the year to a special Christmas lunch where we can celebrate the year and discuss our plans for next year. 

This year our Christmas event was hosted at BobBob Ricard City in London, a beautiful venue, and the perfect place to round off the year and host our Bobblies Award Ceremony recognising the journalists who have supported us by attending the most briefings throughout the year.  

Tom Spencer, MD at Cadence led the event by discussing the success of 2023 for both First Friday Club and the Industry as a whole, he also noted the importance of our special INWED event in May where the team assembled a fantastic panel of influential women within the engineering sector to discuss Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) and the reality of being a woman in the workplace. It is an event we are extremely proud of, and we hope to host more unique events in 2024. Tom then mentioned the potential for an FFC “on tour” event next year.  

Afterwards Tom moved onto the main event. The Bobblies. Launched in 2022 to recognise the editors who most supported the briefings, the Bobbleheads trophies have fast become the must have adornment on any fireplace! The tradition continued this year and was extended to recognise the journalist who had created a special piece of coverage for the INWED event in May.  

The first four awards were presented to those that had attended the most briefings throughout the year and so congratulations to Richard Barrett who was recognised for the first time as well as Charlotte Stonestreet, editor CDA, Tony Sacks, editor Drives & Controls and Greg Horsley, editor PC&T who also received Bobbleheads in 2022.  

Greg Horsley said: “Thanks again Neil and team for another fabulous event! Great fun, great venue, great food and great company. I shall treasure my Bobbly and think of it when I’m clay shooting!! I hope you and all the Cadence team have a wonderful Christmas and I look forward to working with you and all the great companies we have presenting next year.” and Richard Barrett commented “Always good to participate in this long-running series of excellent briefings and presentations about the latest innovations, technologies and trends in industry, manufacturing and engineering, given by experts from leading companies and organisations in their sectors.“ Our final award was for the coverage created for the INWED event which was given to Sophia Bell, group editor, DPA, PBSI & Connectivity who wrote a fantastic piece we felt had to be celebrated. After receiving her award Sophia said, “Thank you for the lovely lunch and for all the wonderful events you’ve hosted throughout the year – I am thrilled with my mini-me!”  

The event concluded with a delicious three course meal and a final thank you from Cadence to the editors. 2024 holds a lot of new activities for the club. Including themed briefings, like the one we held at Dr Johnson’s House in 2023.