Blog

Welcome to the first ever newsletter from Four Colman Getty!

My introductions to our monthly newsletter always seem to focus on how busy we've been.  This April has been true to form - but it's not just we who have been hard at it.

There has been plenty to occupy our cultural and campaigning landscape in April: the outrage over the proposed cap on charitable donations; the jaw-dropping findings from the Leveson inquiry; speculation about the outcome of the London mayoral election. 

Plus much water-cooler discussion about Homeland, another of those classy TV series that has gripped the nation.

And then there's been our move from Colman Getty in Windmill Street to Four Colman Getty in Leicester Square.

Despite the fact that we've always been serial movers (a new office every five years or so) this move has been our most significant. Not least because, as Four Colman Getty, we are now part of a much larger integrated company with a much wider offer. 

Nan Williams, Four's chief executive, walks on water. She has galvanised her troops - the crack IT team, the resilient (they needed to be) Central Office team - to help us with all the practicalities.

'All' we had to do meantime was work through 25 years of   accumulated 'stuff'.  It was a horror. But now it's behind us and we are happily - very happily - installed in our swish new open-plan first-floor offices overlooking Leicester Square.  (And for those of you who believe that the refurbishment of the Square is never going to be completed, I can report that the end looks in sight.)

Packing crates and recycling haven't been our only activity of the month though.  Last week saw the announcement of the winners of the 2012 Sony World Photography Awards 2012 when American photographer, Mitch Dobrowner, was announced as the winner of the coveted L'Iris d'Or - the 2012 SWPA Photographer of the Year.  All of the winning images and more are on display at Somerset House until 20 May so you've got three weeks to see it.  It's a stunning exhibition of contemporary photography covering a wide range of subjects from photojournalism and documentary to fashion, nature, architecture and sport.

On the campaigning front Amy and her team worked again with the Arts Award team, a client since 2007.  Arts Awards are national qualifications in the arts and their latest project was  the launch of two new awards for younger children.  Michael Rosen lent his support - and even penned a new poem to mark the occasion.

Looking ahead to May, we're eagerly anticipating the opening of the Chelsea Flower Show which runs this year from  22 - 26 May. Because of the drought, we've had lots of media enquiries about water management on site during the run of the show.  Happily the RHS does not use mains water for irrigating plants and gardens at the show because they drilled a borehole there in 2006 during a previous hosepipe ban and  that extracts grey horticultural water for the run of the show. 

More about RHS Chelsea and other Four Colman Getty projects next month.  Meantime, I'm hoping that the rain is going to stop -  my garden is sodden!

Till then all the best

Dotti