Dateline Monday 14th October 2024

Good morning it’s just another manic Monday I hope you are well and that you had a great weekend. Regular readers of my Monday Morning e mail will know that I go on about the weather, well on THIS Monday morning apart from saying it’s got a bit chilly and it’s chucking it down with rain right now in London W10 I won’t mention the weather that slot goes to Florida.

Did you see the news reel footage of the devastating power of mother nature the power of the winds rain and tornadoes due to Hurricane Milton that were captured for the world to see on X, Instagram and Facebook, thankfully Clementine and her C Florida Hospitality team are all safe and well, a bit of minor damage to their homes, the centre of the storm just grazed their location.

This week the Jewish community is observing yet another festival this week, (at this time of year Jewish festivals are a bit like London Buses one waits months for a festival then several turn up one after the other) this time it is the festival of Sukkot. As I ever I have googled Sukkot to try to give you an idea of what it is all about.

Succot also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, is a Torah-commanded holiday celebrated for seven days. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals on which Israelites were commanded to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem. Succot’s modern observance is characterized by festive meals in a sukkah, a temporary wood and leaf covered hut, celebrating the Exodus from Egypt. The names used in the Torah are "Festival of Ingathering" (or "Harvest Festival") This corresponds to the double significance of Succot. The one mentioned in the Book of Exodus is agricultural in nature—"Festival of Ingathering at the year's end" (Exodus 34:22)—and marks the end of the harvest time and thus of the agricultural year in the Land of Israel. The more elaborate religious significance from the Book of Leviticus is that of commemorating the Exodus and the dependence of the Israelites on the will of God (Leviticus 23:42–43). The holiday lasts seven days in the Land of Israel and eight outside Israel.

The Hebrew word sukkoṯ 'booth' or 'tabernacle' which is a walled structure covered with s'chach (plant material, such as overgrowth or palm leaves). A sukkah is the name of the temporary dwelling in which farmers would live during harvesting, reinforcing agricultural significance of the holiday introduced in the Book of Exodus. As stated in Leviticus, it is also reminiscent of the type of fragile dwellings in which the Israelites dwelled during their 40 years of travel in the desert after the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. Throughout the holiday, meals are eaten inside the succah and many people sleep there as well. So now you know all about Succot.

Sir Kier has been in office 100 days I guess they must have been the most challenging days of his life, bless him, well he wanted the job. Details and speculation about what the Labour Government’s forthcoming Budget due on 30th October will announce is all over the Press, the only certain thing is that it will financially hurt a lot of people. Another “OH DEAR” this time The Transport Secretary criticises a company planning to make a billion pound investment in a government initiative.

Alex Salmon the ex-leader of the Scottish National Party suddenly died over the weekend end, he was 69 years old, he was giving a speech in North Macedonia when he passed away, clearly it was the way a politician would want to go but by todays standard he was “young”.

Is the “mood music” coming out of Ukraine heading towards some kind of peace negotiation ahead of another harsh winter?

It’s soap box time

Today is ONE YEAR and 14 days that Israeli babies, toddles, children, teens, women, men, seniors and other nationalities have been held hostage in the Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza,

The news is all about Beirut, Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel. The interesting thing is that Iran is orchestrating all of this from Tehran, what is Iran’s problem they have no land border with Israel?

Hezbollah seems to have finally managed to inflict serious damage and casualties’ on an Israeli military position they have managed to do some minor damage and hurt a number of civilians in various locations seems like out of the hundreds of rockets an missiles they send over sech day one or two get through the defences.  

Off the soap box now

Finally if you observed Yom Kippur on Saturday (Shabbat) I hope you fasted well, if you are celebrating Sukkot this week I wish you your family and friend a chag sameyach, a joyful festival 

That is about it from a David point of view for this week at least.

 MM and Company news update

Florida

Clem, Nora and the team at C Florida Hospitality DMC have told us that Palm Beach, Florida, has a new hotel the newest addition to the Iconic Luxury Hotels collection – The Palm House. The hotel is a sister property to the amazing Chewton Glen hotel in Hampshire so as you can imagine this new hotel is awesome.

IBTM Barcelona 19th – 21st November 2024

It’s never too early to tell you that the following MM and Company represented DMCs have told us that they will be at IBTM :-

Hello Islands DMC Mauritius Stand M24

The J Team DMC Japan

TRAVCO DMC Dubai Abu Dhabi and Oman

Mi Malta DMC team of Doug and Erika will be on the Malta stand B60

The MM and Company DMC news is a bit thin on the ground as the DMCs we are proud to represent are full on delivering outstanding events after all now is the conference season.      

And that is about it, you are now totally up to date, wishing you a terrific week ahead.