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Calvin Ayre opens ‘most impressive building on the island’ deemed a modern green facility

The impressive five-story, Canada Place located in St. John’s, Antigua, is not only home to the Ayre Group’s various pioneering technological companies but serves as a beacon of inspiration for its employees and Antigua on a whole. Dubbed “The Greenest Multi-complex in the Caribbean,” Canada Place is a highly sought-after office facility, capable of housing several companies and up to 600 persons. As the Ayre Group navigates this COVID-19 new normal, with gradual resumption of work from office, building occupants found it easy to return to this environmentally friendly, state-of-the-art facility. This article serves as a fitting throwback to the building’s official opening in 2019. The article was written by Latrishka Thomas and published in the Antiguan Observer on November 25, 2019.

“This is now easily the most impressive building on the island, hands down. There is no other office complex on the island that could actually challenge Canada Place,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne said Friday of the newly opened Canada Place.

Business mogul Calvin Ayre on Friday, opened his global headquarters, which he said “shall be home for various pioneering technologies that, it is hoped, will make a significant impact on the economy of Antigua & Barbuda.

“In this regard, we have been steadily increasing our employment of Antiguan and Barbudan nationals and expect that our employment levels should approach 600 during 2020.”

The five-storey building, which is located close to Woods Malls, is a modern green facility.

Local media relations representative for the Calvin Ayre Group, Anika Potter, described one of the major features in Canada Place as being “our solar farm which is actually our car-park for our employees so they have covered parking and that I believe, transmits over 500 kilowatts of energy, so technically our building should be able to function solely on the solar farm, on solar energy”.

She said another key feature is “the fifth floor which is our employee lounge. It houses our indoor cafeteria, our outside eating area, a games room, our library for our staff to just be able to relax and just unwind.”

The media representative also revealed that there are many other amenities within the complex that promote energy efficiency.

“The building in and of itself is massive and when I say massive, I don’t necessarily just mean in size. I mean in all of the amenities, all of our kitchenettes are equipped with coffee machines and bottle less water coolers. 

“So, what we’ve done, instead of just using the regular water cooler with a bottle we do filtered water through a UV system and that is what our employees use to drink so we don’t deal with water bottles. We are trying to have the building be able to operate on its own as well as minimizing our carbon footprint,” she continued.

And, according to Ayre, “greater reliance on renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, will redound to the benefit of humanity. I, therefore, fully endorse the government’s policy of seeking to transition from the use of fossil fuels to green energy. This magnificent complex is a symbol of this commitment to a pollution-free Antigua.”

In addition, the building, a “US $40 million investment into the Antiguan economy,” is equipped with a day care and gym which Ayre said is meant to ensure that all of the employees feel appreciated.

“We tried to create an environment where basically the employees feel valued. And I think in the presentation I made earlier (Friday evening) one of the statements that I made was about the fact that, unlike just about every other building I’ve seen in my life, the executive suites aren’t on the top floor.”

Prime Minister Browne, in addressing attendees during Friday’s opening ceremony, praised Ayre saying that “unlike other exploiters we have a true partner in Calvin Ayre who is conjointly with the government and people of Antigua and Barbuda to ensure the advancement of this beautiful twin island state”.

Calvin Ayre is a Canadian entrepreneur based in Antigua and Barbuda who founded the Ayre Group and Bodog entertainment brand and also manages other business entities on the island.

In 2000, Ayre launched online gambling company, Bodog, the success of which made him a billionaire and in Ayre’s speech on Friday he credited the success to “small but solid steps” saying that “the initial step taken by me in 2006 when I started business operations in Antigua has had several giant steps added to bring us to where we are today”.

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Ayre Group pioneers ‘social distancing’ policy to combat COVID-19

There is no doubt that the onslaught of the novel Coronavirus pandemic gravely disrupted how businesses operate. In this article, we take a look at how the Ayre Group implemented their Work-From-Home policy, as a solution to the high level of lay-offs that some companies faced. Orville Williams of the Antigua Observer tells the story originally published on March 18, 2020.

More than 100 employees of the Ayre Group have been told to work from home as the company – headed by the Canadian billionaire Calvin Ayre – implements strategies to fend off the coronavirus.

The firm – headquartered at Canada Place in Woods – is taking the lead in the private sector, by enforcing a group-wide social-distancing, work-from-home policy, amid COVID-19’s global spread.

The coronavirus had had a significant socio-economic impact worldwide since its inception and has escalated drastically, affecting both the public and private sector. In severe cases across the world, employees have been placed on unpaid, leave had their contracts suspended and even been laid off, as businesses struggle to cope with the impact of the virus.

The Ayre Group, however, is striving to both adhere to international health regulations and support its staff during the crisis. In a media release yesterday, the group explained that the policy will allow employees to work remotely – given their duties enable them to do so – in “protecting the health and well-being of the employees operating in the building”.

The company’s media relations specialist, Jamilla Kirwan, explained how the decision was made.

“We have the capabilities, within our group, to work from home. I know that not many companies have that kind of option and so, I’m sure that many people are trying to figure out how they’re going to manage staffing, children being home and that sort of thing.

“A lot of our work, obviously, is electronic. You know, we’re on emails (and) if we need a meeting, we do video-conferencing and so, we’re basically just encouraging anyone who has that kind of capability to do the same,” she explained.

Kirwan said the company had had a “coronavirus-free” bill of health among the employees and was actively practicing social distancing to keep it that way.”

“We have not had any cases of anyone experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, however, we feel that one of the ways we could help to mitigate the spread of the virus is to teach people how to do social distancing.”

“With our over-100 employees, we thought this would be the best way to assist with the social side of things – having our people stay home, stay with their families and limit the amount of people coming into their homes,” she said.

Additionally, the group announced that one of its subsidiaries – the Bodog Beach Club – will be temporarily closed until further notice, also to regulate the spread of the virus.

This temporary closure will not affect staff financially, however, as “all employees within the Ayre Group, including: Bodog Beach Club, Calvin Air Helicopters and the Calvin Ayre Foundation, will continue to be paid during the period of social-distancing.”

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Calvin Ayre feels insulted by All Inclusive Resorts

In the following article, Special Economic Envoy to Antigua and Barbuda, Ambassador Calvin Ayre discusses plans for his upcoming wellness resort retreat and the exceptional experience it will offer. This article, that appeared on the Antigua Newsroom online portal, was published on June 15, 2020.

Billionaire Antiguan businessman Calvin Ayre says he is opposed to the “all inclusive” model of tourism in Antigua & Barbuda.

Ayre was at the time speaking about his US$ 100 million investment in a wellness resort retreat at Valley Church Beach which he says will not be all inclusive because he disagrees with that model.

“It will have everything and more but it absolutely won’t be all inclusive,” Ayre told a radio interview alongside Prime Minister Gaston Browne on Saturday.

“I am fundamentally against all inclusives at every level, I think they are horrible experiences and I think they are bad for Antigua,” Ayre said.

He added, “I find them insulting as an Antiguan when I try to go use one of them and they say no to me.”

Speaking of his own resort the businessman said, “what I would like to do there is create a wellness community…the idea would be to bring people in here and introduce them to Antigua and have a fully functioning wellness retreat resort.”

He said once completed it will be the best in the Caribbean.

“The way I am anticipating doing it is going to be much more extreme on the medical wellness side of it more than anything that’s in the region. It will be unique in the whole region,” Ayre the Chairman of the Ayre Group said.

Apart from the resort the billionaire says he wants to bring other investments into Antigua & Barbuda in the future.

“Unfortunately, some of my plans are immature so I can’t get into them right now but I do want to be part of creating some of the solutions to make the problems from the pandemic,” he said.

Ayre said COVID-19 has given Antigua & Barbuda and opportunity to diversify the economy.

“I think on the tourism side the low-end tourism is not going to come back all that quickly and this is an opportunity to reset Antigua with no risk because the risk is upon us already by the pandemic.”

Prime Minister Gaston Browne says he accepts the recommendation to diversify not only tourism but other sectors.

“And that is something our government is actively pursuing.”

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Calvin Ayre: 2020 is Bitcoin’s Year of Enterprise Adoption & Kick Ass Utility

After Bitcoin was restored to its original protocol, Bitcoin SV unleashed limitless possibilities. In this article, Calvin Ayre talks about what’s in store for Bitcoin SV and how harnessing the power of BSV will allow businesses to reap the economic benefits from using this scalable, public blockchain as a universal data ledger. This article was originally published on CoinGeek on January 1, 2020.

For Bitcoin, if 2019 was the Year of Scaling, 2020 is the Year of Enterprise Adoption and Kick Ass Utility.

As I pointed out last year, Bitcoin was hijacked by protocol developers early on in its existence, which stunted its growth and potential over the last decade. Bitcoin was finally freed from its captors a little over a year ago on November 15th 2018, with the emergence of BSV as the name and ticker symbol for the original Bitcoin protocol. Since Bitcoin Independence Day, we have seen an explosion of growth on BSV and it is just getting (re)started in 2020.

Genesis will restore Bitcoin’s true potential

After the Genesis Hard Fork locks in on February 4th, the original Bitcoin protocol will finally be mostly restored and back on track to being “Set in Stone” just like Satoshi Nakamoto intended. Restoring the miners at the center of Bitcoin’s economic incentive model just like Satoshi’s design always envisioned, and removing protocol developers from dictating rules of the network will restore the true potential of Bitcoin in 2020. A stable Bitcoin protocol is exactly what Enterprises want to see before they spend millions of dollars building on it.

In 2020, more Enterprises will start to realize the economic benefits of harnessing the power of a scalable public blockchain as a universal data ledger for their businesses. We will see several Enterprise use cases roll out as the year progresses on Bitcoin SV. This increase in application development on BSV will drive more and more transactions on-chain. Since Bitcoin Independence Day, BSV has generated significantly more daily transactions than BTC. BSV is currently neck and neck with ETH (and on some days surpassing ETH) for daily transaction volume heading into 2020. By the end of Q1, BSV will be the undisputed highest daily transaction blockchain, massively surpassing all others.

Source: Bitinfocharts

Smart investors will see BSV is the real Bitcoin

As Enterprise usage on BSV increases, the utility value of the token will increase and the price will start to reflect its true value. BSV is considerably undervalued at the moment. The illusions and false narratives of the other chains have started to unravel, we will start to see more and more smart investors in the space realize that BSV is the real bitcoin. This will trigger a shift out of the altcoins, including especially BTC, BCH and ETH, into BSV. There will also be an influx of new savvy investors flocking to Bitcoin SV startups in addition to investing in the token itself, in 2020.

The market cap migration already started on a small scale in early 2019, it was cooled off by the coordinated delisting attacks. But with exchange regulation on the horizon, we will see this migration pattern from the altcoins back into Bitcoin accelerate in 2020. BSV is the only scalable distributed blockchain solution capable of supporting a global enterprise platform. By the end of the year, I think the price of BSV will be higher than any other token including BTC.

Miners to increase BSV hashing power diversity

Application development, transaction volume and market cap won’t be the only things migrating to the Bitcoin SV blockchain in 2020, miners will as well. New and established bitcoin miners will continue to increase the diversity of hashing power on Bitcoin SV throughout the year. This trend started in the second half of 2019 (after the Quasar protocol upgrade) and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. The increased competition in the bitcoin mining space will spur benefits to the entire BSV ecosystem as professional mining operations look to innovate and specialize. The inclusion of ‘miner id’ will allow for customized specialty mining business models to evolve.

Source: coin.dance

As transaction volume continues to increase on Bitcoin SV from Enterprise usage, so too will revenue from transaction fees making it the only viable option for miners looking to turn a profit after the halving. As one of the biggest bitcoin miners on the planet, I understand the importance of additional revenue streams required to make that side of my business sustainable long term. That means unlimited block size caps and lots of microtransactions paid for by micropayments. Bitcoin miners will move to the chain that has the most revenue potential for their proof of work. Bitcoin SV is the only chain in town.

The BSV blockchain will also see variable rate mining for the first time in Bitcoin’s history. This will allow the miners to lower the amount they charge per byte of data (and thus per transaction) for high volume customers which will further increase demand for on-chain transactions. New features will also enable miners to dynamically peg their fees to fiat currency prices (rather than only satoshis per byte), to give enterprise users the price certainty they want for budget planning purposes. This type of fiat currency pricing is exactly what publicly traded companies and other big enterprises need to start increasing their use of the Bitcoin ledger for applications, price stability and future clarity.

Teranode is coming

The Genesis upgrade is not the only big scaling development for BSV in 2020. The Teranode Project will also roll out later in 2020; it is an enterprise-class version of the Bitcoin SV Node software, re-building the Bitcoin code from the ground up using a micro-services architecture approach to create better functionality for big business users. Developed by nChain, the global leading research, development and advisory firm for blockchain technology, Teranode will insure Bitcoin SV will scale to massive use as global adoption increases.

Blockchain developers currently working on dead end tech elsewhere, will continue to migrate off what I call the “hobby platforms” on to BSV because it scales. Developers will begin to experience their own FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and will start racing to build their existing projects on the stable Bitcoin SV protocol before someone steals their big idea or use case.

Regardless of what others want you to believe, the blockchain protocol wars are over, the other chains are dead men walking. In the end, there will only be Bitcoin SV, don’t take my word for it, take my proof of work.

We have an exciting time ahead in 2020. I look forward to seeing all of you in London February 20-21 for the CoinGeek Conference which is expected to be the world’s largest ever Bitcoin conference focusing on application development on top of a public blockchain, so don’t miss it. Happy New Year!

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To boost brand value, choose branded content, not internet ads

Calvin Ayre talks about building brand value through quality, branded content instead of online advertising. Bodog and its associated brands, BodogFight, BodogMusic, Calvin Ayre WildCard Poker are testaments to the effectiveness of branded content. This article was originally published on CalvinAyre.com on December 11, 2010.

According to a new survey conducted by Adweek Media and Harris Interactive, almost two-thirds (63%) of Americans claim to ignore internet advertising. In terms of the type of internet ads that garner the most scorn (and the least amount of eyeballs), banner ads were routinely ignored by 43% of responders, while 20% said they pay the least amount of attention to search engine advertising.

Those figures look even worse when compared with other forms of media advertising, such as television ads (ignored by 14%), radio (7%) and newspapers (6%). The 9% who claim that they don’t ignore any of these forms of advertising presumably (a) have way too much free time on their hands, or (b) have their eyelids forcibly held open like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.

The data in this survey highlights the folly of any company attempting to build brand value predominantly via online advertising. Seriously, the only people getting rich off this arrangement are the companies who get paid to host the ads. Not for nothing do people say ‘content is king’. The branded content I’ve created over the years for the Bodog Brand and its associated entertainment properties – BodogFight, BodogMusic, Calvin Ayre WildCard Poker — not only made a significantly greater impression on viewers than a plain old banner or pop-up ad, it continues to resonate years after its initial release, and will continue to do so for however long digital media exists.

Quality editorial content is another high-value method of building your brand. My appearances on VH1’s Fabulous Life and MTV Cribs got loads of play upon their initial release, and continue to get the brand message across every time someone bangs my name into a search engine. Of course, it helps that the Bodog Brand’s message is universal, eternal and not subject to the whims of marketing gurus.

On that note, be sure to catch my upcoming appearance in the January issue of Playboy magazine, (available late December 2010 — just ahead of the NFL playoffs). Score!

 

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The Bombay Manifesto – Redux

Calvin Ayre looks back at his 1997 Bombay Manifesto, where he talks about the foundational principles that lead the Bodog Group of Companies to success. This article was originally published on CalvinAyre.com on November 17, 2009.

During an email conversation a couple of weeks ago one of our senior staff members had asked me if I had a copy of “The Bombay Manifesto” kicking around. It took some serious digging on my part but I did eventually find it. Anyway, I thought it might be kind of fun to share that document with you now, on my blog. Keep in mind that this article was written back in a time when the Internet was still young, the World Wide Web was still very new…and I had recently switched from Tanqueray to Bombay Sapphire gin.

But I digress.

I started what became the Bodog Group of Companies in the early 1990s. At this time the world was just feeling its way through the thorny issue of what a website really is. Hyperlinks were a fringe concept restricted to a few abstract thinkers and sci-fi writers. I, however, was convinced that the Internet and more specifically the Web in the case of this article would be significant forces in a global societal change that was already under way. The Bodog Group was no exception.

We were so much ahead of the curve that we had no online references to go by. Everything we did we had to invent from scratch using real world examples. At this time the technical guys were making all the decisions, but I thought this was backwards. I remember thinking that the end users would be average Joes, so it was really they that should be driving the design of the user interfaces, not highly skilled, and in many cases, highly intelligent technology professionals.

I did not really qualify for the “average Joe” title, but I did have a background that I thought would make me more qualified to design user interfaces than many others in the industry. While I was going to University, instead of getting a summer job I bought an old 5-ton truck with an insulated box and a refrigeration unit. I fixed this truck up, took it over to the local fruit orchards, loaded it full of whatever was in season and headed out on a 20-hour drive to the prairies to sell fruit on the side of the road in small towns. This was my first business.

In the countless hours I spent selling fruit for a number of summers while going to university, I got an opportunity to really get inside the consumers head by selling products as basic as peaches and cherries. The reality is that all purchase decisions are basically handled the same. These same lessons, ingrained in my brain so many years ago, were pulled back out in designing our websites. I believe that the basic principles of design that we pioneered are a big reason for the success of the BoDog.com group today. Our websites are designed from start to finish with the end user experience in mind, and we have easy, and prompted (we ask for it), feedback systems in place to let the end users have direct input into the evolution of our web site.

This process is also driven by a philosophy that every person in our organization, and every point of contact (web, etc), are all inextricably part of the customer service we offer. By the end of the 1990’s we had a very good website design and were responsible for many of the innovations that are considered mainstays for any company in our industry. While sitting in my office one evening in Costa Rica I got to thinking about all we had learned over the years. I thought I would codify some of this knowledge to use as a training tool for our team.

Since I was sipping on an ice cold Bombay Gin Martini at the time, the document was somewhat imperially titled “The Bombay Manifesto”. This email was then forwarded to the entire company at the time. I got on with my affairs and forgot entirely about even doing this until talking to some of the developers at our spring Bodog bonus party and one of them mentioned The Bombay Manifesto. I got a bit of a laugh out of this since I clearly remember writing it. I asked if anyone had a copy of it and sure enough they all said they still did and still referred to it once in awhile.

The next day I got it forwarded to me in its original form with the date and time still attached. Though our thinking has certainly evolved since I did this up but here’s a copy of the original “Bombay Manifesto” as it appeared on our website, over 4 years after I originally wrote it. It’s in its original form, with all of the spelling and grammar mistakes included.

Here’s a copy of the original “Bombay Manifesto” as it appeared on our website, over 4 years after I originally wrote it.

The Bombay Manifesto

Saturday, December 23, 1997 7:08 PM

I am sitting here in the back of the call center, admiring how well things are running these days compared to the past… quietly sipping on an ice-cold Bombay martini (I cleaned out the one store that carries my favorite brand of gin a few days ago) and started thinking of our websites. I have been dumping a lot of advice over the last little bit due to changes in webdev and customer service and recently have been thinking of putting some basic principles down that are working well for us that everyone can take advantage of. Anyways…here is my opinion on why our website is so good in general principles (note this is customized for our industry and not in order cause I am too lazy now that I have most of my first drink polished off):

  1. End user psychological profiling drives everything. We need to be in their heads so we can simultaneously give them what they want while getting them to do what we want.
  2. Speed is always important.
  3. The less clicks the better…any way you can remove steps – do it. Lowest possible barrier to entry always.
  4. Never let the users be more than one click away from customer service. We have a customer service email link on every page in the same spot.
  5. Use graphics to excite the players to get them to do things we want, but once they start doing what we want… keep the process the definitive utilitarian maximization…clean and fast. When you do use graphics…use the right amount (see 2. above!).
  6. Do not make anyone think if you can design it so they do not have to…keep it simple.
  7. Outsource the management of any content you can since this is not our core business. Our embedded research links gives us the best info available to our players at almost no management cost to us.
  8. Use pop-ups properly…they can be a huge advantage for sophisticated users or a huge pain in the ass if not done properly. Avoid multiple replication of the same pages in different windows and make sure the pop-ups are named properly so users can manage them.
  9. Make sure the repeat users do not have to suffer through something just cause the newbies will like it.
  10. Do not collect useless information…just to “let” someone do business with us. Again…lowest possible barrier to entry.
  11. Put the “meat” of the site out front…let them drill for the insignificant stuff.
  12. No dead-ends…if there’s nothing there, don’t let them in.
  13. If you have a link on the site…make sure it works.
  14. If you change the site…make sure the site copy (the information) is still accurate.
  15. The first level of customer service is the web site (actually being able to easily and simply use the product is the ultimate customer service) itself… the users will only call in because the system or site design is not good enough. Improve the site using customer “advice”.

I gotta go refill my glass, so anyone else that can think of anything I didn’t touch on can add to this and someone can actually do up a more formal web site manifesto from this that can be used as a training aid for the entire team. Anyway…gotta go fill my glass. 🙂

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