The British Council’s eTwinning project turns five this year – happy birthday! To celebrate, S&F has helped the British Council put together a Design a Card competition and invited all its UK schools registered on the scheme to take part. It goes live today at www.etwinning-competition.com.

Chris Gates with a very sharp knife

Spark & Fuse were called in at the eleventh hour to set up four cooking demos for the Tesco Football Roadshow taking place throughout June. Masterchef finalist, Chris Gates, was drafted to head up the cooking demo and S&F caterer extraordinaire Ngaire Monk was put in charge of prepping and whipping everyone else into shape. Meanwhile the girls in the office were left to bag mobile sink units before they were snapped up by Glastonbury and The Big Chill. The team triumphed at the first two demos in Bolton and Coventry (on stage assistance courtesy of Frank Worthington and Dion Dublin) and head for the Emirates next week.

The S&F office closed for the day so all the staff could jet off to Scotland to celebrate Juliette ‘Fuse’ Unite’s wedding over the bank holiday weekend.  Juliette looked absolutely delicious and made a graceful and dignified bride – a few tears were shed as she glided down (or is it up?) the aisle. As you would expect from an event planner, the day was of course, especially unique and went without a hitch. Everyone at Spark & Fuse wishes them both much happiness together. And we welcome Juliette’s new husband to a lifetime of spreadsheets, timelines and counting postal entries…

Gordon Brown and Fiona Phillips

To mark the announcement of  this year’s greatest competition – the general election – we’ve launched our own, slightly less politically-correct competition. For your chance to win a £25 Amazon voucher, plus £25 donation to your favourite charity, all you have to do is write a caption for this photo of the current PM with Fiona Phillips taken at the Tesco Magazine Mum of the Year Awards 2010.  The prize will be awarded to the wittiest and most original entry. The closing date for the receipt of entries is, naturally, 10pm on Thursday 6th May 2010 – just send your entry as a comment below.

The dull (but necessary) stuff …
This competition is open to residents of the UK only, aged 18 and over, excluding anyone professionally connected with the competition. Only one entry per person and per email address. The winner will be notified by email within 28 days of closing date. In the event that the winner cannot be contacted within a further 14 days, the promoter reserves the right to withdraw prize entitlement and award the prize to a reserve selected at the same time as the original.   For full terms and conditions, please email bright.sparks@sparkandfuse.com.

This retro style SMEG fridge could be yours!

Spark & Fuse has set up yet another great prize for Channel 4’s online Come Dine With Me competition. You could win a coveted SMEG 50’s retro style Union Jack refrigerator, a Magimix kettle and see-through Vision Toaster (no more burnt toast!) plus a year’s supply of delicious Duerr’s jam. Take a look at  www.channel4.com/dine for details of how to enter.

If you’d like to sponsor the brave warriors click here

Jane Gates was chosen as the Overall Winner by the judging panel which included Sarah Brown. Jane founded Sebastian’s Action Trust in memory of her nine-year old son, whose dying wish was to set up a holiday home for terminally ill children. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, came to the award ceremony and presented Jane with her award.

The other deserving mums were Lynsey Findlay – Selfless Mum of the Year; Dianne Preston – Caring Mum of the Year; Maria Angel – Community Mum of the Year; Sabina Iqbal – Charitable Mum of the Year; Grace Idowu – Compassionate Mum of the Year; Nikki Dawson – Positive Mum of the Year, Sheryl Carty – Supportive Mum of the Year; Jackie Smith – Real Radio Mum of the Year and Tana Ramsay was this year’s Celebrity Mum of the Year.

Read their stories at http://www.tesco.com/todayattesco/lifestyle_and_fashion/mum_of_the_year_2010.shtml.

Celebrity presenters included Linda Robson, Jessie Wallace and Lucy Benjamin, Bruno Tonioli, Natasha Kaplinsky, Jo Joyner, Patsy Palmer, Jean Christophe Novelli and Mick Hucknell.