Hi,

Mike and I attended the Caravan Show at the NEC last week and had a cracking time.

We spent alot of time looking at all the Tourers and Motor Homes we are being asked to Insure and we spoke with a variety of people.

The sales staff were suggesting a good sales rate for the show – not sure if they were telling the truth but if theye were then the recession has not effected the Caravan market yet then!

I was happy that we did not attend in a professional capacity with a stand etc as these shows are very expensive and we can put that investment to much better use by improving our systems and rates etc.

We will be adding some photos shortly of the day so watch this space!

Richard

Hi, hope all our readers are well and looking forward to the weekend.

I do hope you all enjoy our meet the Team pages, I think it is great for you to see whom you are dealing with on a daily basis, although my picture is a bit scary!

We have been to the always excellent NEC Caravan Show this week to have a look round, we will be posting some reports in the near future. It does appear that sales are better than expected having spoken to many of the sales pople there. For those who went, did you find it as tiring as I did with so much to look around?

Anyway, as I say much more on this to come! I personally am looking forward to the delivery of our new washing machine tomorrow!

Thanks

Mike

Hello there, this is Alan from the IT department here at Cover4. We’ve been getting a few questions regarding our RSS feed and how to get it working, so here is a guide to RSS and how to get our news direct to your reader.

RSS is a technology designed to make it easy for users to retrieve the latest news from many websites in one location. This could be a desktop application or another website (known as a Syndication Website).

To add our news feed to your RSS reader of choice, visit the home page and click on any subscribe link (including the one at the bottom of this post. This will bring up a page with a list of the news items and an options panel at the top.

Click on the options box at the top that contains ‘Live Bookmarks’, this should display a list of RSS readers (though far from all of them). Select the application or website you use as your RSS reader. If your RSS reader does not appear in the list and is a desktop application, select ‘Choose application…’ and the website will ask you to find the application you use as your RSS reader.

If you use a syndication website (such as Google Reader) that isn’t listed on the menu then you will have to go to your syndication website and log in. Somewhere on the website should be a button saying something along the lines of ‘Add a Subscription’, click this button. Copy and Paste the following URL into the box that appears and it will add our news feed to your reader.

http://news.cover4caravans.co.uk/index.php/feed

Hopefully, that will allow you to receive up to date news from our website.

If you do not currently have a RSS reader but would like to try one, here are a few suggested RSS Readers that are free to use.

Google Reader – Very good clean RSS reader, allows you to select packages of related news feeds to get you started. Has keyboard shortcuts to make accessing your news easier and quicker (e.g. ‘J’ to move down the list, ‘K’ to move up the list)

Bloglines – Another very good RSS reader, has a few features that Google doesn’t have but seems to be missing the keyboard shortcuts.

Both of these site also have applications for the iPhone as well as a mobile version of the website for other phones that support an internet connection.

The advantage of a desktop reader is you can connect briefly at a cafe or other WiFi spot on your laptop to update the news and then read it wherever you want without needing a connection. Google Reader has a ‘Read Offline’ mode that is a little tricky to setup but for a full featured desktop RSS reader, try FeedDemon.

Thank you for your time and good surfing.

Alan Osborne

Well the weekend flew by as usual.

Decided to take dad to see Dagenham & Redbridge F.C. instead of Watford in the F.A. Cup. We saw a great game at “The Daggers”. The football was good and the atmosphere and the way you are looked after is just great. Much better than visiting Vicarage Road!

So Daggers won and Watford lost – balancing my feelings out nicely for the weekend!

Half term starts this week, my wife does not drive so if the weather is poor she may have avery long week at home.

Not helped by me going away Wednesday to visit the NEC Caravan Show, conducting a staff interview on the way and then meeting our insurers, IGI, at the show. The good news is that we are off out in the evening and a few beers  – well deserved after a long day at the show!

Tomorrow, 17th, finds me celebrating my 36th Birthday and I wonder where the time has gone – the kids keep getting older just like the rest of us really!

Any how, need to get on now and see the visitors we have coming in today – specialists in Motor Fleet Insurance – should be very beneficial to our commercial team!

Enjoy the week – mild weather apparently!

Richard