ChUG 2007 - Birmingham & BACD Play host to Chaser's 10th Birthday

2007 is a remarkable year for Velvet Software in more ways than one.

It is ten years to the month since the original Chaser BUREAU system was created - it was November 1997 that Tim Clark visited Joanna Aspin, then Conference Bureau Manager, at Conference Bristol. Today Joanna provides training on Velvet Software's products in addition to consultancy for destinations and training courses for BACD. Conference Bristol is now Destination Bristol and the new office is managed by Helen Davies.

In the past twelve months Velvet Software have launched a new "Web 2.0" version of ConferenceBOOKINGS, version 13 of Chaser BUREAU and are about to launch their new on-line delegate registration system.

Representatives from over twenty destinations travelled to Birmingham for the day meeting which was split into three sessions with lunch served at the BACD offices.

Three products, three sessions - the day was separated into three sessions:

• Morning: Chaser BUREAU
• Afternoon 1: reg.istrations.com
• Afternoon 2: ConferenceBOOKINGS.co.uk

Each sessions started with a presentation of the past year's development, an explanation of the latest release and a presentation of the forthcoming versions of each system. Group brainstorming sessions followed each presentation during which groups of around eight users discussed their own ideas and added to those presented by Simon Hawkins and Tim Clark during the presentations.

"A successful and enjoyable day" - much positive feedback was gained from the sessions. In particular Kerrie Hudson from Yorkshire South commented, "I'd not been to a ChUG meeting before and wasn't sure what to expect. It was really great - I learned so much and found it really interesting speaking with people from other destinations who use the same systems.".

Chaser version 13 is available for immediate download - the ConferenceBOOKINGS system will be updated in February 2008 with the new on-line payment module and the new on-line registration system will launch in January 2008.