In 1968, a Dutch businessman called Piet Derksen bought woodland near Reuver so that workers and customers of his 17 sporting goods shops could relax in small tents. The park, De Lommerbergen, worked well and tents were replaced by bungalows. In 1987, Center Parcs opened its first UK resort at Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. The brewer Scottish and Newcastle liked this idea and they would buy the company.
In 2001 Scottish and Newcastle sold the Center Parcs UK to venture capitalists Mid Ocean. In 2003 they sold the sites in Europe to France-based Pierre & Vacances (P&V), and German investment group DBCP. The companies have the same name but are not the same company.
In December 2003 Mid Ocean sold the UK resorts to Arbor Ltd for £285 million. Arbor put the company on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market. In May 2006 Center Parcs UK was sold to Blackstone Group, and change into a private company. Blackstone changed the name of the European sites to Center Parcs.
In June 2015, it was announced that Blackstone had agreed to sell the company to Canadian-based Brookfield Properties Corporation, for £2.4bn.
The first Center Parcs holiday village in the United Kingdom was opened in July 1987. It was near Ollerton and Boughton in Nottinghamshire and named Sherwood Forest. Two years later a second village was added, at Elveden Forest, near Brandon, Suffolk.
The third park opened in 1994, on the site of Longleat Safari Park near Warminster, Wiltshire. This village has less lodges than Elveden Forest and Sherwood Forest because it is very hilly.
In 1997, the Rank Organisation had opened a holiday village near Penrith, Cumbria. They called it Oasis Lakeland Holiday Village. When Center Parcs UK bought it they changed the name to "Center Parcs Oasis Whinfell Forest". The middle of the village is under a roof, and there is no country club like at Elveden Forest and Sherwood Forest. Center Parcs have changed many Whinfell Forest lodges. They have also added new lodges like the ones at the other parks.
In April 2002, the central plaza and sports centre at Elveden Forest was destroyed by a fire. Nobody was badly injured but one man had to be treated because he inhaled smoke. In the summer of 2003, Elveden Forest reopened. Whilst it was closed, the village was rebuilt in a slightly different design. Some lodges were extended and a spa was built.
The chief executive, Martin Dalby, said that the company might add a fifth village. In December 2004, Center Parcs said that it had found a place for it near a town called Woburn, Bedfordshire. The estimated project cost ten years before construction was about £160 million. New lodges, buildings, a pool, a spa and restaurants were built. It was thought that the project would take between three and four years to complete. In September 2007 the company were allowed to build. In 2012 they got £250 million of investment to build the new resort. It would be called Woburn Forest. It is the smallest Center Parcs UK village and opened in spring 2014.
In 2008, Martin Dalby, the chief executive of Center Parcs UK, said that the new village would be the last village the company built in the UK and that if a sixth village was built it would probably be placed in Ireland.
The sixth village was announced in September 2015. County Longford Forest will be in Ireland and is going to open in the summer of 2019.
Each village has different lodge types. These can have between one and four bedrooms. Sherwood Forest has just built a lodge with 6 bedrooms. They can hold up to 12 people. Some big lodges have a games room and hot tub. Lodges are usually in small groups and are quite private. Elveden Forest doesn't have any lodges with one bedroom. It has Lakeside Apartments instead, for one to two people.
In 2007, Center Parcs began updating all of its lodges. All the beds were replaced. A new kind of 'Woodland Lodge' replaced the old simple lodges to become the least expensive place to stay. The Executive Lodges were also upgraded.
Guests can book and take part in a large amount to do at the villages.
Silatech
Silatech (Arabic: صلتک) is a private, international and non-governmental organization in Qatar, founded by Moza bint Nasser in 2008, mother of the current Emir of Qatar. The current CEO of this organization is Sabah Ismail AlHaidoos. Silatech try to create new job for young people (18 to 30 years old) in Arab world by teaching them. By 2016, Silatech has created over than 200,000 jobs for Arab people and Silatech is active in 16 countries. The Founding partners of Silatech include Cisco, Gallup, and ImagineNations.
Ballast
A Ballast is a large resistor that regulates the amount of electrical current in a circuit. Most ballasts are used for fluorescent lamps to regulate the current thru it, which might rise to a dangerous level and burn it out.
Ballast is also crushed stone used in railway tracks. See ballast tamper.
Frank Holder
Frank Holder (2 April 1925 – 29 October 2017) was a Guyanese jazz singer and percussionist. He was a member of bands led by Leslie George "Jiver" Hutchinson, John Dankworth and Joe Harriott. Holder recorded early in his career for the major record companies Parlophone, Decca and London Records. He was best known for his work in the early 1950s with The Dankworth Seven. He was born in Georgetown, Guyana.
Holder died in Georgetown on 29 October 2017 of congestive heart failure at the age of 92.
Kit Harington
Christopher Catesby "Kit" Harington (born 26 December 1986) is an English actor. He played Jon Snow in the Home Box Office television series "Game of Thrones". He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2016. Harington was born in London. His role is praised for the series.
Ufa
Ufa (, ) is the capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia. A fortress was built on the site in 1574, and the city was founded in 1586. As of 2010, the city has a population of 1,062,319 people.
Nancy Friday
Nancy Colbert Friday (August 27, 1933 – November 5, 2017) was an American author who wrote on the topics of female sexuality and liberation. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her best known works are "My Secret Garden" and "Forbidden Flowers".
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s she was a frequent guest on television and radio programs such as "Politically Incorrect", "Oprah", "Larry King Live", "Good Morning America", and NPR’s "Talk of the Nation".
Friday died on November 5, 2017 of complications from Alzheimer's disease in Manhattan, New York at the age of 84.
Paradise Papers
The Paradise Papers are a set of 13.4 million documents relating to offshore investment. Among those whose financial affairs are mentioned are Queen Elizabeth II, and the last two US Secretaries of Commerce: Penny Pritzker and Wilbur Ross. The documents were made public by the "International Consortium of Investigative Journalists" in collaboration with "Süddeutsche Zeitung". These same two organizations had earlier published the Panama Papers in 2016 from the 2.6 terabytes of data sent by John Doe.
The papers include records from an offshore law firm Appleby, although the company has released a statement stating there has been "no evidence of wrongdoing".
People mentioned in the list are: Queen Elizabeth II, Bono, former Prime Ministers of Canada: Jean Chrétien,
Paul Martin, and Brian Mulroney, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, economic advisor Gary Cohn, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, son-in-law of Vladimir Putin, Madonna, Paul Allen, President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Carlos Slim, Chancellor of Austria Alfred Gusenbauer, Prince Charles, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister of Japan Yukio Hatoyama, President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Shakira, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz, and sons of Prime Minister of Turkey Binali Yıldırım.