The Start of spring

It has been a great week not only because the work has continued to roll in but also because it seems spring is here, everyone seems to have extra energy and also seem to be happier and more active when the sun is out. The week started well with a great meeting with Sarah from RES Software to discuss an e-marketing campaign....we are tasked with designing templates for use in ongoing campaigns. I also had  a nice trip up to London to meet with Emma from Stand Marketing, Stand have acquired one of my clients and we hope we’ll be able to continue to work with them on their projects, the meeting went very well and I am very positive we’ll be able to help them out.

Print on demand is growing in its pace and uptake, we are working on a demo for Cognito, Newbury Building Society, Jones Robinson and making final updates to Micro Focus...which is being used already. We are very pleased with the level of work Davis Tate are giving us and I am looking forward to an update meeting there next week.

This week there was a great event at Sheepdrove on behalf of the WBEBP – “The S Word” encourages young people to enjoy cooking with local, seasonal produce. Over 150 student from across West Berkshire have taken part in this year’s competition and the standard of cooking was exceptional – I got to catch up with lots of clients and meet a few new ones – I would really recommend to anyone interested in helping our young people get a head start to engage with the EBP ....tell them I told you.

On Thursday with had our FSC and PEFC environmental standard audit.....it went very well and was completed in a few short hours....mainly due to the efforts and time put into this by Andreen....a very well done to her and all the team for helping us continue with these great standards.

Today saw 15 students from Newbury college paying us a visit, these guys are studying interactive media and wanted to see the entire print production process, they got to see everything from initial design, Plate making, Print both Litho and digital and then how the jobs are finished – they were a great bunch and I hope they enjoyed their time here – This afternoon I am giving a talk with Andrew Hooper from Newbury College at the Basingstoke Keeping Business Local Expo – this will be about Google Analytics, how to use it and what it can do for your businesses. If this is something you’d like to see then pop along or give me a shout for a one to one session.

7 Days a week ;D

Yep...Friday already I hear you gasp – it’s the weekend and it’s time to decide if I’ll work Saturday or Sunday......or both?  Last weekend was rugby packed with a great performance from England Under 21’s on Friday night and a win for England on Sunday (not much more to say about that). This weekend may see England complete the grand slam so let’s keep our fingers crossed that they play a little better than last week. On Tuesday I spent the day training on Social media and business, I got a couple of good tips and will be updating our own website while offering advice to my clients. I also went to the Watermill Theatre on Wednesday night to see Relatively Speaking which was a very funny play, great cast of only four with super word play and delivery....keep an eye out for upcoming shows as this is a fantastic venue and the quality of production is second to none.

It’s been a little hectic here over the last week but we are pleased that Mark Slade will be joining our web team on Monday and that we have managed to secure (almost) a great Sales / Account manager as well. I am sure that most of you must be seeing a boost in sales as the markets seem very buoyant right now and it looks like we could be in for a super few months – the sales push here is still going well, we are hitting targets every week and are pleased with the progress. It’s been good that we have been adding new clients every week and that a lot of new business is coming by way of word of mouth and recommendations. We have more work in from Basildon Park, Thermo Fisher, Mission Hair, JETS, Benchmark and many more, these cover web, print and design. We are also working on costs for a new Client using more Thermo Chromic varnish ideas; I will fill you in once we are on the case.

Don’t forget you can see pictures of our team on both our Face Book page and our website and with this in mind I will do two things for Comic Relief – the first thing is if our Facebook page gets 100 fans before the end of April I will send £250.00 to Comic Relief........and the next thing?

We have over the last week or so been banging on about QR codes, these great items can be used to hold quite a bit of info and to show how easy they are to make I have attached one below – in this QR is a number, if you get a QR reader for you phone scan it...email me the number, I will then send £1 to comic relief – don’t tell too many people because my limit will be £250 and that is £1 per email address J

Looking forward to hearing from you .......have fun and be lucky.

Good Luck to England and Scotland.......

This weekend (tonight) Newbury Rugby Club is host to the England V Scotland under 20’s rugby game – the good and the great of Newbury should turn out in the thousands to see this game and I’d imagine it’s going to be a good one. I myself am then off to Twickenham on Sunday to watch the RBS Six Nations England V Scotland game......I hope we win as it would be a great set up for the Ireland game next week. Newbury is lucky to have such a great facility for Rugby which is a great place to host any event. On another sporty note two teams from Apple Print entered the Newbury Pancake Race – One team managed a second place finish while the other finished last....they did have a 74 year old running who looked as good as someone half her age, much more training before next years....and if anyone wants to help us then drop me a line.

After last week’s slow down on litho print this week has been flat out for both Litho and digital – the digital has been running nearly 11 hours a day every day and the litho almost the same, the pre-press team have had their work cut out as supplying such productive machines is a constant battle and it’s a must we avoid downtime. We have been working on print for many businesses such as Wagtech, Mary Hare, Thermo Fisher, Swift, ECEX and many more – we also produced some posters for Mondale, an events company which utilised the latest in QR code technology.....a great way to show integrated digital media from your traditional print.

Web and design work is flying as per last week – We are hoping to pick up two major projects next week so fingers crossed. We have just finished off and have had sign off on a new design for the Newbury and district Agriculture Society’s newsletter, I showed Swift their final folder design this afternoon and have had sign off and there are loads more early next week. To help with the increase in business we have a new starter in the Shape of a web programmer/ developer joining us in a week’s time, he has a massive back ground in technical web development giving a solid grounding in both .asp and PHP. We are really pleased as this will be a massive boost to our ability to react to our clients needs.

And finally, we have arranged to be the Main sponsor for this year’s Crafty Craft race...you can see the current website here but can expect to see this updated in the next two weeks. We are very pleased and hope to be having a craft entered ourselves. Until next week....have fun.

The week of web...

A few people have had some fun at my expense this week (you know who you are) – I get an iPad and Apple announces a new one a few days later. Still not to worry as it’s a super device which after a week of playing I can recommend, it’s a handy business tool which is great for Twitter, face book, email and web. I have used it this week to show clients soft copies of their designs and emailers and show off a little bit. The creative team have told me I need to get a few more.....maybe when the iPad 2 comes out I can pass the original on J

Print wise this week it has got a bit slower than in recent weeks, gives time for well needed maintenance and cleaning – Never seen the print room so tidy.....you could ride a bike through it. The guys have been catching up on training and development of our less experienced members of the team – digital print has still been flat out thanks to Stryker, ESA, Davis Tate and many more – we have had the sign off on the Micro Focus POD to test in beta today so that should be up and running in the next week with a great split of Litho and Digital.

It’s been great for web this week (just need more staff now) with the go ahead from Auto Link Executive Cars for their update – a great meeting with Richard from ECEX about updating their web site, new layout and SEO with a marketing campaign, Jon from Classic Comic Store would like some updates to his admin so we are working on this as well. I really believe the customer service we give on Web projects keeps people coming back, it’s so important to us you are happy and get what you need from your site.

Last but not least Rebecca, Michelle and Matt have been working on finishing up some design projects and starting new ones. The Sheepdrove wedding brochure had a few tweaks and the Ad for the Wedding Magazine was signed off.....a new Conference style was created and I will have them posted to our news section early next week, Michelle has had quite a few designs for Baxter to finish off and BT have a few brochure we are working on...more on this next week.

Right now me and my team, John, Nathan and Jack are off to Micro Focus to take down some banners we are replacing.(They are a top team)