- Christmas hasn’t started until ‘The Calcot’ puts on its lights. 
Every year there’s a huge fuss around Christmas lights in Reading, from mavericks upsetting neighbours to the official ‘lighting up’.  But for anyone coming into Reading from Junction 12, along the A4, the first big sign that Christmas is upon us is the lights on the Best Western Calcot Hotel.

This year they’ll be turned on as follows:
Date:    Friday November 16, 2007
Time:    4.30 pm (16:30)
Place:   Calcot Hotel, Bath Road Reading, RG31 7QN
Map:     http://www.calcothotel.co.uk/book.asp

Press photographers and reporters are invited to join us for mince pies and a drink as key staff line up for a photo as the lights illuminate.

This year at their Christmas events alone the hotel will :
- serve over 7,000 party goers with freshly prepared food, selected at the table
- prepare over 250 turkeys, 400 duck legs and 2400 sirloin steaks
- play over 4,4000 songs
- wash up over 30,000 plates
- open over 4,000 bottles of wine
- pour over 3000 pints of beer and lager
- prepare an additional 1,000 rooms to accommodate the extra stayovers
Contact:
Alison Buckley or Claire Thompson
Zed PR
+44 (0) 118 969 8966
Calcot@zedpr.co.uk

The Best Western Calcot Hotel (Reading, England) is a more than a hotel - it’s a Reading ‘institution’. Known locally as ‘The Calcot’, its friendly, long standing team offer one of the warmest and most welcoming stays in the area, along with a selection of weekend events.

It boasts the only purpose built ‘ballroom’ in the area, meaning that events held in its ballroom require no separate provision or ‘room shuffling’ to create a dance area. And its food is freshly prepared - guests at its many events choose on the night and at the table.

Just off Junction 12 of the M4 motorway (about an hour’s drive from central London, 45 minutes from Heathrow Airport), it’s business facilities include meeting rooms, conference facilities and Wi-Fi access.

The modern bar area makes a great meeting place, and on Friday nights and Sunday lunchtimes it’s restaurant boasts a carvery, reknowned locally as one of the best.

For further information call Claire Thompson or Zara Shirwan: + 44 (0) 118 969 8966 e: calcot@zedpr.co.uk 

- Active teenager diagnosed with scoliosis at thirteen following months of pain
- Booked in for major surgery by consultant
- Finds ‘another way’ to manage the condition through exercise and avoids operation

A 14 year old Warwickshire teenager, is hoping to have avoided major back surgery by practising a daily exercise routine prescribed by a ground-breaking Suffolk clinic, Scoliosis SOS. Sarah* (name has been changed) has a condition known as scoliosis, excessive curvature of the spine, a condition that affects more than two percent of the population.

With her lower back pain passed off in earlier years as ‘growing pains’, when she was twelve, Sarah’s* dance teacher suggested that she seek medical advice as one of Sarah’s* shoulder blades was higher than the other. Following an appointment with an osteopath (a former surgeon), who did try to help, but wasn’t able to give enough information about how the condition was likely to progress, Sarah’s* condition began to deteriorate, with the pain getting worse as her spine became more curved.

Sarah* leads a very active life and is a member of an athletics club where she runs, does long jump and hurdles twice a week and has also enjoyed performing in ballet shows since the age of two.  Unfortunately Sarah* has been unable to compete recently as she has been too busy going for consultations and treatments up and down the country.

(more…)

Francesca began suffering from asthma at twelve – later the cause was found to be the rotation of her ribcage, pressing onto her lungs due to scoliosis.  Arriving at boarding school, the initial medical picked up a ‘rib hump’ in both her and her sister.  Both were sent to Oxford for further scans and then diagnosed with scoliosis. She was then recommended a back brace which covered her upper body from shoulder to top of her thighs and which she would have to wear for 23 hours a day. Francesca refused.

Nothing came of the consultation as Francesca wasn’t experiencing any back pain and, with a relatively minor spinal curvature of seventeen degrees, there was no need to operate.  Still active and enjoying her sports, Francesca didn’t give her back another thought until she began sixth form.

By age seventeen, hockey lessons were bringing on bouts of severe lower back pain.  Advised by the doctor, ‘if it hurts, don’t do it,’ Francesca was doing increasingly less physical activity to avoid the agony which occasionally consigned her to bed for the entire day. Taking painkillers, on medical advice, she avoided any activity which would ‘jog’ her back, including riding, banana boating and using a trampoline.

(more…)