Blog posts of '2017' 'September'

Well I say, what a great weekend. Saturday which was just a good day that I managed to get lots of little jobs done around the house and my daughters new car plus some eBay work finished off with a few of us going up to a place in London called the Munich Cricket Cllub. This took me back to the days when we visited DRUPA in Dusseldorf. DRUPA is the biggest printing exhibition in the world and happens currently every four years. Apart from the vast array of new printing machinery on view the main highlight (for me anyway) was what we referred to as the Oompah tent. An enourmouse marquee in a square in the centre of the exhibition where very buxom ladies served beer in litre steins and pork knuckle by the 1000's and the Oompah band played loud and long. I dont ever recall them doing Waterloo before!

Waterloo from Roger Oxford on Vimeo.

Sunday was a real treat, I ended up at Duxford Aerodrome for the annual Battle of Britain airshow where so many old warbirds have been so lovingly restored and kept flying so that video clips like this one can still be taken.

Lancaster from Roger Oxford on Vimeo.

Truly amazing sights and sounds. Waterloo by Abba being played by an Oompah band and the incredible sound of 4 Merlin engines singing in harmony.

Even without the airshow Duxford is a wonderful place to visit and the aircraft etc on display are really awe inspiring.

I just hope next weekend can live up to this one.

I've ridden my bike in some fairly gruelling conditions before but never have I struggled to only average 10mph between Calais and Boulogne. That was thanks to the effects of Storm Aileen. For quite some time actually starting our chariry bike ride on the bikes was seriously in question, all sorts of contingency plans were being put into place to get 106 riders and their bikes from Calais to Le Touquet by train as constant wind speeds of 28-40mph and gusts of up to 65mph were forecast for the coast road to our destination on te first day.

Because everyone really wants to do the whole ride we decided that so long as we kept together in small groups and were wary of the conditions we would give it a go, anyway how bad can a little bit of wind make it!! Brutal doesn't even come close, on a route that I have done a few times before always being able to average 15mph plus even without the aid of any peloton, storm Aileen made 10mph in a group a real struggle. The point was really rammed home when at the top of the climb pictured above there is a normally glorious descent that makes the climb worth every pedal stroke. But on Wednesday the wind was so strong and against you that to achieve a speed in double figures down hill you actually needed to pedal quite hard. The overall effect was that the 25 miles between Calais and Boulogne was actually just one long 25 mile climb with varying degrees of difficulty from hard to almost impossible. Even though we turned inland a bit from Boulogne to Le Touquet for the last 20 miles, a 45 mile ride that should have taken just under 3 hours actually took almost 5.

The physical effort that day 1 of the ride extracted from everyone affected day 2 and a relatively easy 100 miles (if thats even possible) was made to seem like double that. It was just simply a matter of survival and when the hotel in Amiens came into view it was one of the loveliest most welcome sights I have ever experienced. A very good nights sleep and an enjoyable breakfast later and suddenly all is right with the world again and with the usual exception of being rather saddle sore I was looking forward to completing the last 108 miles of the ride. Probably mainly psychological but I felt much stronger on the last day of the ride and enjoyed those last miles. As we ended up in Reims it seemed only fitting to have a little glass to celebrate the achievement and also the considerable money raised for an excellent cause.

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I came across a very interesting survey recently regarding branded clothing, the main points being:

• 91% of those questioned used branded clothing.
• 46% of that was for Exhibitions.
• 42% for Brand Awareness.
• 35% for Staff Uniforms.
• 27% for Promotions.
• 26% for Give-aways.
• 18% for Staff Fun Days.
• 17% for Conferences.
• 14% for Charity Events.

Firstly the headline figure that 91% of the companies that responded use some form of corporate clothing, that is certainly a higher figure than I imagined it would be. What wasn't a surprise was the percentage of T Shirts and Polo Shirts in comparison to other garments although I can't help thinking that branded baseball caps should have been in there somewhere and reasonably high up on the list too. 

Also of interest is the breakdown of what prompted the purchase of the garments in the first place. We certainly have experience producing garments for Charity events, Staff Uniforms and Conferences. We would also agree that quality is almost always the most important factor with price coming behind that. With that in mind we nearly always advise DTG printing for T Shirts and embroidery for Polo Shirts. The variety of fabrics that can be Direct To Garment printed is growing all the time and as printing speeds become ever faster, DTG that was normally used for short runs is more and more competitive on longer runs as well.

All of this is pretty good news for those companies that want to provide branded clothing to their staff and have some give-aways at exhibitions as the price per garment is coming down and the quality is going up.

Why not click through here to see what you can get these days.

Well the truth is, not a lot. As my children are both grown up and doing their own things paying the ridiculously inflated prices to do anything during the school holidays is a total anathema to my soul. As business naturally quietens down during August it is a chance to catch up on accounts work and look at new ideas to grow. Sorting out some teething problems with new customer branded websites is happening and looks like being quite exciting in the very near future. In actual fact as soon as I get back from my charity bike ride I think we will start rolling them out on a regular basis. 

My business partner has been away which meant that the last week and a bit of August was quite busy for me personally but at least boredom was not a problem. Now we are into September suddenly the level of ecquiries etc starts to take off and we brace ourselves for a good end to the year. It does seem that 2017 has flown past but that could just be that I'm getting older and each year goes quicker anyway. 

I need to stop blogging and start to prepare my bike for 250 miles of trying to keep up with the group I'm hoping to ride with. Only 9 more days to go, aaarrrrggggghhhhh!!