After seven years as Executive Manager, Strategy & Sales at HOSTPLUS, Umberto Mecchi is moving on to a new challenge.

To wish him all the best with his new venture, THE DM GROUP got together bright and early this morning for some breakfast, bubbly and okay maybe just a little blubbering.

It’s understandable because Umby used to work at trademarkDM before he became a valued client, so we go back a long way.

Good luck Umby.

We’ll miss you. 

The inaugural Andy Awards were an important part of our latest quarterly catch-up.

Conceived by and named after a very good-looking art director, only three coveted awards are up for grabs each quarter.

This time the honours went to:

• Emily Pockley for Brief of the Quarter
• David Buttigieg and Nina Ee for Creative of the Quarter
• Our in-house treehuggers for Initiative of the Quarter.

Congratulations to our winners.

But be warned, hanging on to your titles next quarter is not going to be easy. The rest of us ‘can come up with that stuff too’.

THE DM GROUP quarterly catch-up is a time for all of us to get together, talk about the work we’ve done and have more than a few drinks.

Now you’d assume a quarterly catch-up happens quarterly but it’s actually been 12 months since our previous catch-up.

That meant some of our more enthusiastic colleagues had 12 months of pent-up PowerPoint slides to get out of their system.

So to keep things moving, we had a strict five-minute time limit with the option to buy an extra minute with a shot.

While there are plenty in THE DM GROUP who love a chin wag, none more so than digital planning director, Craig Hockley.

Craig decided to buy two extra minutes before he even started speaking and ended up having to down a third shot by the end of his presentation.

See, we said he’d fit in.

Because if he doesn’t sing his ‘Got me stuff’ song before he leaves home, he inevitably ends up forgetting something important.

Like his glasses.

Which he found very inconvenient today as he went about his usual senior art director business.

That’s why our ever helpful, handyman/production manager David Findlay made him a new pair.

Isn’t it amazing what you can do with just some pipe cleaners and duct tape?

One thing’s for sure, Craig will be singing every morning from now on.

We met Wayne Sullivan in November last year when he came down from Queensland to join our valued client HOSTPLUS as national marketing programs manager.

We’re delighted to hear that Wayne has now been appointed executive manager, marketing.

Is it too soon to say ‘we knew him when…’?

Congratulations on your new role, Wayne. We’re looking forward to continuing to do great work with you.

It’s been a dry summer in Melbourne.

But when the skies opened this afternoon we saw some interesting sights out the window.

Not that we spend a lot of time gazing out the window during work hours, of course.

Bravo to the three guys we spotted swimming – yes, swimming – down the flooded street at one point.

Rather you than us.

Today Kylie and Kristin, our intrepid Senior Account Manager and Account Manager at trademarkDM, spent the morning with the GSK Vaccines division. This was a great chance to meet the brand managers and their teams and to hear their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges for 2010 and beyond.

Getting in amongst the discussions has got them raring to tackle the next 12 month’s worth of projects. Thanks for inviting us, Mike!