Any question answered...

Yeah it was crashing

Tender writing - what's the knack? I never really do respond when I see them but was asked directly by a local authority and it's local which would be very welcome (usually I have to travel overnight to jobs). But I just can't get to grips with their way of weighting/percentage answers.

I can do the job to a high standard.
I can do the job at kind of whatever cost they want within reason, well under their proposed budget.
The tender questions are all written by someone who presumably has no experience of the job (wrong phrasing/terminology/odd expectations of what they think the job entails etc - very different from the brief document which is clear and useful).

Any tendererererers here? Any tips?

Ok, “getting stuck at the iCloud login page”. Y’know, crashing.

I do it on newspaper website articles, particularly the newspaper that is famous for errors. I do it just for fun. Sometimes you get an intern replying saying thanks :) my own spelling is horrendous.

Ok, “getting stuck at the iCloud login page”. Y’know, crashing.

Have you tried turning it off and back on again? 🙂

Is fix, no problum.

At first glance I thought tender writing was going to be about poetry :)

This is included with CyclingUK membership.

https://www.cyclinguk.org/insurance

My experience is tech specs are written by engineers. Commercial teams interpret those into tender docs (poorly)

It's not uncommon for tenders to be weighted as much as 70% finance 30 technical quality.

Be willing to ask clarification questions (responses will have to be published to all parties)

Post tender award you can negotiate the hard detail of cost:quality and technical aspects.

Edit:if in doubt stick to the generic "we will comply" we have a policy at work of that being an automatic pass.

Cheers, never sure whether it's welcome or no.

Organising my wedding for May next year. I know it shouldn't come as a surprise, but still shocked at some of the marquee quotes I've received so far. I don't suppose any has any suggestions/recommendations for vibey festival style tents that may be available at less than the £16k I've just been quoted by one company...

Cheers

Tell everyone to bring a tarp.

1 gazebo per 2 guests. Just squeeze them together right?

As soon as you mention 'wedding' their expectations double or triple.

Yeah I was going to add this. We just had our reception in a local pub's function room. I called up, booked and paid for it. Few chats later the manager dropped the "oh, I didn't realise it was for a wedding, we usually charge extra for those". Despite it literally being a room hire, nothing more.

In fairness to these particular operators, they do list prices on their website and, as far as I can tell, they're quoting us the same as they would be a big birthday party etc....

Are you in an expensive area?
(Searches experience for 'cheaper' area of the UK).

we had 60 people at the ivy for less than half that including food, wine and room hire. Don't do it in a tent?

We're looking at 180 people. My assumption had been that not many venues (we'd want to get married in) could be done for less than a marquee and providing our own booze and food. If Marquees are genuinely this ridiculous (got a few other quotes in considerably less than £16k, but still pretty big) then we may well need to look at other options...

Looking to get married in Oxford on a mate's field, so location is free. Is Oxford expensive for marquees? Probably. May balls at the colleges won't be helping, but looking nationwide at marquee prices, not seeing them massively cheaper elsewhere....

Have you tried Barkers Marquees?

No, but from a quick look they appear to be vendors rather than lenders of marquees? I have considered buying a big one second hand and selling on after the wedding, but then I'd be relying on myself/friends to erect the thing and obviously I'd have no insurance etc....

Probably 10 years ago there was an art print in a gallery in Chiswick, which was a picture of a barracuda but in the style of a cutaway drawing to reveal a turbine engine within the body of the fish. I often think about this but have never seen it since. Does this image ring a bell with anyone and does it exist online at all (or even for purchase?)

Ah! My mistake. We used them when I was at The Science Museum.
I went to school with Pat Barker - it's his family's business - they've been doing it for a long time - like over 100 years
I'd assumed that the Museum had rented rather than bought.

ETA - just checked their website - they split the hiring side of the business from the manufacturing side in 2002 -Now Crown Marquees in Oxted - so that kinda makes sense.

Tender writing - what's the knack? I never really do respond when I see them but was asked directly by a local authority and it's local which would be very welcome (usually I have to travel overnight to jobs). But I just can't get to grips with their way of weighting/percentage answers.

I can do the job to a high standard.
I can do the job at kind of whatever cost they want within reason, well under their proposed budget.
The tender questions are all written by someone who presumably has no experience of the job (wrong phrasing/terminology/odd expectations of what they think the job entails etc - very different from the brief document which is clear and useful).

Any tendererererers here? Any tips?

Almost always the tender is released after the organisation has made a choice on who they want to use, and the tender document will have been written in such a way that it favours one tenderer to the extent that (barring a real surprise) they're nailed on to win.

If you've been asked to bid, that might be great - or it might be that the authority want to find a couple of other responses in order to validate the one they've already got from their preferred bidder, as everyone else knows not to waste their time on a foregone conclusion.

Rule of thumb here - if you are engaged with the client before the tender document is released then it's worth some time, if you're only involved afterwards, throw a price at it that you'd be prepared to honour and move on with your life. If it comes in - great, if it doesn't then you didn't piss hours of your time up the wall.