René Dee

René was recruited by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1991 to reposition their Westminster London exhibition and conference halls to achieve greater commercial success. As Managing Director of the Society's commercial subsidiary, Horticultural Halls Ltd., he carried out extensive upgrades and marketing initiatives that led to the newly branded, Royal Horticultural Halls & Conference Centre, becoming recognised as one of London's leading multi-purpose business tourism venues. He was involved in the leisure and business tourism sectors for over 40 years, and held positions as Deputy Chairman of the British Venues Association, as a Visit London 'Business Tourism Champion', and as a member of the Central London Partnership's Tourism Advisory Group between 1991 and 2008. In 2003, he founded and ran The Westminster Collection, a marketing collective of what became over 50 leading business tourism venues in the City of Westminster until 2011. Its members included iconic historical royal palaces, bijou hotels, intimate private members' clubs, and superb meeting, banqueting and exhibition facilities in extraordinary buildings. It was during this time and while he was working at the RHS that he decided to research and write the extraordinary event and social history of the RHS Halls, and the events that had taken place in them during a 100-year period since the first Hall was built in 1904. This had never been researched or recorded before and was then still largely unknown, His research was undertaken over a 10-year period and it took 2 years to produce the book, richly illuminated with rare documents trawled from some RHS Archives, but also from many other sources nationally and internationally, including Ebay that proved surprisingly fruitful! Since having had the book published, René has worked on another and completely different book that has yet to be completed, and an Exhibition of his Swiss Grandfather's Life & Works of over 200 watercolour paintings representing Swiss, French and Italian heritage from as early as 1914-1946. These have never been publicly displayed before in the UK, and will be at the Royal Watercolour Society's Bankside Gallery 12-17 July 2022. A joint work of poems, PARALLELS, is being published by The Conrad Press in September 2021.