Author Topic: The Boardroom  (Read 7856 times)

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Offline Twynkle

The Boardroom
« on: Dec 28, 2009, 08:41 PM »
The Boardroom

At the time, finding this very fine room seemed as if I might well have been
overstepping the mark as a passenger from Deck 5!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/watch_keeper/4222585221/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/watch_keeper/4222585191/in/set-72157621874100381/
and one from AndyF's collection - with thanks!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/andyfitzsimmons/2900380868/in/set-72157607607484302/

I wonder - was it used just for meetings?

Online cunardqueen

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #1 on: Dec 28, 2009, 09:16 PM »
Quote
I wonder - was it used just for meetings?
Rosie

Over the years the odd cocktail party or two have been held there, and very swish they were as well !! I recall John Duffy has hosted somke of his parties in the boardroom.
Also on some trips the duty free booze was held there for passengers to collect, but that always to my mind seemed a very last minute poorly organised affair.
And on the farewell uk trips a couple of farewell lunches were held there 
As well as many other functions etc it seemed to be a multi purpose room.
On the World cruises wasnt it used a lounge for the full world cruise passengers
 

I have over the years some great memories of that room :-X
« Last Edit: Jan 27, 2019, 07:58 PM by Lynda Bradford »
From the moment you first glimpsed the Queen,
 you just knew you were in for a very special time ahead.!

Offline highlander0108

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #2 on: Dec 28, 2009, 09:39 PM »
Was this the room off the portside exit to the Boat deck from the A Stair?  I snuck into there and checked it out and have photos somewhere. 

Another question....who are those people?  :o ;D ;)  That had to have been from the big hair 80's.
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Offline Louis De Sousa

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Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #3 on: Dec 28, 2009, 10:09 PM »
When the ship entered service this room was known as The London Gallery.In 1972 it became the Reading Room it stayed like that until 1983.Then it was turned into the Computer Learning and Video Center.After the 1987 Refit it became the Boardroom and Business Center.During the World Cruise the room is devoted to members of the Samuel Cunard Key Club.In the aft end of the room there is an entrance into the Queens Grill Galley.

Louis

Online Isabelle Prondzynski

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #4 on: Dec 28, 2009, 10:19 PM »
In 2008, the Boardroom had a fine big desk and wifi for the use of passengers... it did not seem to be used much though. As far as I know, there were no restrictions on who could use it -- it just did not seem to be a very warm and welcoming place for most of the time...

Malcolm told us that, during World Cruises, there was a secretariat and quite a few facilities based in the Boardroom for the full world cruise passengers. This seems like a very good way of using the room in a meaningful way!

https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,543.msg6721.html#msg6721
https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,543.msg11425.html#msg11425
« Last Edit: Dec 28, 2009, 10:28 PM by Isabelle Prondzynski »

Offline Twynkle

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #5 on: Dec 28, 2009, 10:25 PM »
Quote
Was this the room off the portside exit to the Boat deck from the A Stair?
Ken - yes, portside of the Boat Deck - but I thought it was further forward!

Perhaps it was used by VIPs...
HRH Queen Elizabeth ll and Prince Philip?
Directors of The Cunard Line etc
For formal dining, maybe - 'specially as Louis says
it was adjacent to the Queen's Grill galley!

(wishing now that I'd enquired about using it as a reading room!)



« Last Edit: Dec 30, 2009, 11:04 PM by Twynkle »

Online Rob Lightbody

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Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #6 on: Dec 28, 2009, 10:54 PM »
Right from the late 60s, QE2 was advertised as a venue for business meetings, conferences etc.  I think there was two sides to this  - (1) posh executives travelling on board, and wanting to do business and (2) in-port business.  If you read the original promotional stuff - e.g. the VADS documents - you'll find gems such as this

Quote from: VADS
Just aft of the Queen's Room is the Conference Room designed by Dennis Lennon & Partners. It has five ship-toshore Press telephone booths for use while the ship is in port and comfortable working facilities for business groups, who it is hoped will use the QE2 much as they do luxury hotels.

Quote from: VADS
The multi-purpose auditorium has a seating capacity of 530 and will be used as a church, conference hall, theatre and cinema.

I think the 1987-on boardroom was trying to maintain this concept of the ship as more than just a plaything for holidaymakers.  In the original post-87 incarnation, it was properly posh with proper leather board room chairs like you'd get in any senior executive's office in London or New York. 

Towards the end, like many spaces on the ship, the 'prestige' had gone, and it was a bit lost - the same way the whole concept of the shopping arcade was lost in the late 90s and noughties when they dummed down all the shops.

Here are my pics from last year, which you've reminded me I never put on flickr before now!









https://www.flickr.com/photos/lightbody/4223706824/in/set-72157606892663721/
Passionate about QE2's service life for 40 years and creator of this website.  I have worked in IT for 28 years and created my personal QE2 website in 1994.

Offline Andrew W

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #7 on: Dec 28, 2009, 11:08 PM »
A book I read about Aquitania said that the nail was finally put in her coffin when a grand piano fell through a floor during a Cunard Board meeting that was being held on board. I wonder if this "board" room was ever used by Cunard Directors for that purpose ?

Offline Louis De Sousa

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Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #8 on: Dec 28, 2009, 11:43 PM »

In 1997 a fire broke out in the QG Galley.I was in the Fire Party we used the Boardroom to enter the Galley through the back.

Louis

Online Michael Gallagher

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #9 on: Dec 30, 2009, 11:16 AM »
The room was very underused really but as Myles said we held several of the lunches in there on the Round Britain as the food was cooked in the QG Kitchen.

Cunard shore staff would also use the room for meetings. AND IT WAS IN THIS ROOM THE PAPERWORK TO CLOSE THE SALE DEAL ON 27 NOVEMBER 2008 WAS SIGNED.

The big leather chairs you refer too Rob were sent down to the Conference Room on Two Deck aft in 1999 when the room was done out in its final 'look' which I have to say I preferred.

Anyone could use the room from April - December. It was the 'concierge' lounge during the World Cruises.




richc1977

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Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #10 on: Dec 30, 2009, 11:29 AM »
There is a panoramic photo pf the Boardroom in my website's virtual tour.

http://maritime.elettra.co.uk/qe2/

Open up the Virtual Tour from the link at the top and select the Boat Deck.  Then locate the room roughly mid-ships on the portside - click on the text label.

The door was open that day so I just strolled in and took the photos I needed!

Online Rob Lightbody

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Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #11 on: Dec 30, 2009, 05:59 PM »
The big leather chairs you refer too Rob were sent down to the Conference Room on Two Deck aft in 1999 when the room was done out in its final 'look' which I have to say I preferred.

There's a conference room on two deck aft????
Passionate about QE2's service life for 40 years and creator of this website.  I have worked in IT for 28 years and created my personal QE2 website in 1994.

Offline Stowaway2k

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #12 on: Dec 30, 2009, 06:47 PM »
The boardroom was also a gym at one time.
This was in 2004, work to the 7-Deck gym was incomplete after the refit/drydocking that also saw the addition of the Funnel Bar.  Some gym equipment; weights and cardo machines, were installed in the boardroom.  It was a bit cramped, but it was nice that the cardio machines were placed to face out the windows onto the boat deck.
I should have taken some photos...

And speaking of the 2-Deck conference center, one of the "secrets" of QE2 was the Business Center on 2-Deck, a much more pleasant and relaxing place to use the computers, when it was open, than the regular Computer Center.


Online cunardqueen

Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #13 on: Dec 31, 2009, 07:43 PM »
Quote
Cunard shore staff would also use the room for meetings. AND IT WAS IN THIS ROOM THE PAPERWORK TO CLOSE THE SALE DEAL ON 27 NOVEMBER 2008 WAS SIGNED.

Oh my goodness and prey do tell who all was there :-X, was everyone bound and gagged and how on earth was it all kept so secret, are we allowed to ask such questions?? was it a port day or a sea day, In fact it would be interesting to hear as much as could be told about the event and when the sale turned from being an idea to reality.
From the moment you first glimpsed the Queen,
 you just knew you were in for a very special time ahead.!

Pat Curry

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Re: The Boardroom
« Reply #14 on: Jan 03, 2010, 07:01 PM »
The Boardroom is on the Boat Deck and it is the mirror image of the Queen’s Grill Lounge (QGL) in both location, size and doorway except the former is port side and the latter starboard. Entry to the QGL was of course restricted to QG passengers, though no check was ever carried out. But because of the Boardroom’s proximity to the QGL it was little used. QG passengers didn’t need it ... they had their own private lounge, and few other passengers felt they had the right to use it, although it was available to all passengers on normal cruises. 
Look at http://www.chriscunard.com/decks-QE2.htm to see its location.  The ‘blank’ space forward is the QG galley store and Chef de Cuisine’s 'office' and the larger ‘blank’ space is the QC galley proper.

On the World Cruise (WC) the Boardroom was restricted to World Cruise Club Members who had to show their special card to the ‘concierge’ on duty. On the 2007 WC that person was Carmel Rogers, normally the librarian and the producer of the fabulous Crew (Talent) Show.  The Boardroom was a lounge with coffee and newspapers etc., and Carmel ensuring that the WC Club members had any help they needed on and off the ship.

On that Cruise we were working on the Singapore to S’ton leg. Cruise Director was Martin Moss and his assistant was Warren Smith who had been the ballroom dancing instructor in 1997 and worked his way up. Warren is now a CD and they’re both, I believe still working on QM2 and/or QV.

They had recently started to put on a daily 45 min TV show called QE2TV. New each day, it was screened from 8am and repeated all day until about 6pm on ship’s TV.  Martin and Warren plugged the day’s events referred to in the daily programme, and punctuated the show with jokes (corny, of course, but it was good QE2 fun). Usually they had a crew member or a lecturer as that day’s guest. The show was recorded at 6pm on the previous evening in the (by then) disused doctor’s surgery room, port side on the little-used aft Two Deck lobby. (see Isabel’s pic looking forward – reply#16).  In typical Cunard style, Entertainments department only owned one elderly camera which was used to record the daytime lectures, which were also screened all day long (but not the professionals at the evening  entertainment for contractual reasons). At that time the cameraman was Kacey (an ebullient American from Hawaii, whose off-picture guffaws -he was behind the camera- made QE2TV more interesting). He was the video operator (he ran the tapes/DVDs for the daily TV schedules and filmed the aforesaid lectures using that same camera).  The video room was where? Three Deck I think.  Somewhere midships in the middle service area opposite cabins.  Louis do you remember? Anyway, QE2TV was very popular with the passengers, many of whom thought it was transmitted live. Few knew the recording location. 

On the opposite (stbd) side of the aft Two Deck lobby is a room which is the mirror image of the surgery. 

I had seen it used on quite a few occasions by local immigration officers from the next country to be visited (who boarded the ship in the previous country and lived on board, sometimes for days. A specific example was dep Singapore Weds 21 Mar 2007  arr Cochin India Sun 25 Mar 2007).  Peeping in when the door was open, I’d say there were ten Indian officials sitting at the trestle tables (shown in ‘Flagship’s’ pics in Reply #17 above) checking and stamping all passenger and crew passports for days). 

When the ship was en route from Walvis Bay to Las Palmas on or about Sat 14 April 2007, the most intriguing use of this room took place. A Ship’s Head of Department meeting was suddenly called (with Ship’s Master, Staff Captain, Captain’s Secretary, Chief Engineer, Cruise Dir, Hotel Manager, Chief Purser, Crew Purser and Exec Chef).  This meeting was short notice, unscheduled and not on the Operation Orders of the day.  I know this because I was in a  morning meeting with Exec Chef Karl Wrinkler, discussing the work schedule we still had left to do.  The phone rang in his office and he said he had to attend a meeting “now”.

I don’t know how often that happened or why, but later that same day we were told (by Martin) told the ship was full and the purser urgently needed our cabins, no reason given. We had to disembark at the next port, Las Palmas on the Tuesday, rather than S’ton and we would be flown to Madrid, hotelled there for a couple of days on full board and bar and flown home/taxis etc all, at Cunard’s expense (unlike Cunard).  Several other lecturers had to do the same. 

We had to return to the ship on Sat 21 April to get our heavy gear from the stores. We learned that our cabin requisition had been unplanned and that they had been needed for some Senior Cunard management and ‘guests’ for embarkation at Las Palmas for “discrete meetings” and that their presence had to be kept from the ears the passengers.  It couldn’t be kept from the crew, however, who had by now  thought up many a reason for these VIPs who went everywhere on the ship.  Selling on or a major refit were theories.  But Cunard kept their plans as tight as the location of D-Day. No one on board learned their dreadful secret.

Just two months later on 18 June 2007, when Cunard made that first shock announcement that the ship had been purchased for $100 million by Istithmar, a subsidiary of investment company Dubai World, whose property development company is Nakheel, we put two and two together  and the reasons for that sudden meeting and the cabin requisitions became horribly clear.