I hope this finds you well. I am writing to commend, and express my gratitude to, your wonderful staff at the Bank of England Sports Centre.

As you may be aware, we have held our annual Paul Strank Roofing Charity Gala at this venue for 5 years now, with the latest one on Saturday just past. They have been extremely successful in raising funds for local children’s charities, and we couldn’t have done it without the help and assistance your team give us.

To give you some background, when we were moving venue after our very first Gala, we were snubbed by numerous places due to the fact we were a construction company, and then happened to come across the BOE Sports Centre. When we walked in and met Cathy, the manager at the time, it was like a weight had been lifted from our shoulders. Cathy was fantastic and helped us out immensely and so we stayed there for a second and then a third year. Cathy then left for new pastures, and we had Alastair for one year who was also very good, but he sadly left.

Last year, our 4th at the BOE Sports Centre, we went in to meet the new Events Manager, Katie. To be blunt, we were distraught. Katie was far more concerned about her upcoming wedding and “sexy wedding dress” than about our event. We were panic stricken, thinking it would be a disaster as she knew nothing about our event, your own facilities or pretty much anything of any use to anyone. Then out of nowhere came the wonderful Kay and Ben. On first speaking to them, we immediately relaxed as we knew our event, which is extremely important to us, was back in safe hands.

Last year’s event was brilliant, raising over £70,000 and with all our guests, celebrities, VIPs, acts all having a great night. However, this year your team really excelled and helped us to take the event to a whole new level. The food was sublime, your waiters and bar staff were efficient and polite, and your managing team were slick making our lives so much easier. It is hard to describe just how much of a difference it makes to us, when we are organising everything else in our spare time (the charity work is a sideline from our day-to-day very busy business), to have confidence that the venue and team are true professionals and will support you every step of the way. Not only this, but they took it a step further and found two amazing auction prizes which raised over £2,000 in our auction which is absolutely fantastic!

I am not sure what you have seen of the press and media coverage, but we have thus far been in the Daily Mail online, Daily Express, Hello Magazine, we are due to have a large piece in OK Magazine and that’s not to mention the social media coverage and celebrity interest!

Naturally, we have been approached by numerous other venues up-town like the Dorchester or Hurlingham Club and many more, trying to convince us to move. But we have no intention of moving as we love the venue, love the staff and love Kay and Ben.

People are always quick to complain but slow to compliment, but I just thought you should know just how fantastic your team (Kay & Ben in particular) at the Sports Centre are. We look forward to working with them on future events going forward