Printers' Blog

Sign of the times

2012-01-31T06:36:00.000-08:00

Chris and John drilling new signs for one of our

customers. All printed and ready to install.

November Blues

2011-11-30T07:41:00.000-08:00

Well done to all members of the blue team who were the winning team for November. Tokens are awarded for when a Printer does something beyond what is expected or something out of the ordinary.

Children in Need

2011-11-21T06:48:00.000-08:00

On Friday some of us came to work in our pyjamas to raise money for Children in Need.We looked like our alarm clocks had not gone off and we had rolled straight out of bed and into work!

We raised £47.87.

Celebrate Social Enterprise Day 17th November

2011-11-17T04:50:00.000-08:00

Celebrate Social Enterprise Day 17^th November

(all year long!!)

There are many Social Training Enterprises in Cambridgeshire providing quality supported work experience and training placements for people with disabilities in a real work environment.

At the Print Centre we have a broad range of customers who buy our services and products. I would like to say thank you for your continued support and for all the ‘informal’ marketing you do for us - with your help our customer base continues to grow.

Please tell a friend about the other similar organisations in Cambridgeshire to celebrate Social Enterprise Day.

There is a STEnG (Social Training Enterprise Group) website

www.steng.org.uk.

Also, Gill Riley, the Development Officer can be contacted on 07903192102.

Stuffing for Christmas

2011-11-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

At the end of last week we had "all hands to the pumps" to complete an order with a tight deadline for a Cambridge based charity. We creased, folded and rolled 1,550 greetings cards then put the individual cards with envelopes into in plastic display wallets.

2011-10-20T07:20:00.000-07:00

This morning Adelè has been going through our new price list with a group of Printers. we had a quiz to see who knew how much different types of printing cost and everyone enjoyed trying to find individual items in the price list.

Burwell's Best Kept Secret

2011-10-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

Tina's Window - Once again we are using Tina’s shop window to promote and display our products and services and to tell people about one of Burwell’s best kept secrets – US!

Recent fundraising – thank you Chris, Geoff, Julie and Keith for shaking buckets at the last Fordham Car Boot Sale of 2011 and raising nearly £120.

Thinking of Jim

2011-10-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

Jim Wilcox June 1949 to April 2010

On Saturday we had a get together of family, friends and work colleagues of Jim Wilcox, one of our Support Workers who sadly died last year. We wanted to have something in the Print Centre to remind us of him so we commissioned Rowan Humberstone, another Social Training Enterprise, to produce this beautiful plaque – now on the wall in our entranceway. The plaque weaves together the fact that he was a family man, that he offered a helping hand when he could, his love and vast knowledge of music, his (competitive) passion for fishing and the fact that he worked with us at the Print Centre and that he was previously a fireman.

2 sides to the Open day

2011-09-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday the 14th of September we had our Open day at the Print Centre. The day was a mixture of fun things and serious business! On the fun side we had a great BBQ and a raffle which raised £56 for the Printers' account. Then we had the serious business of presentations of the Printers' certificates for all their hard work. David Martin, one of our Trustees, then let everybody know what had happened throughout the year and presented our Annual Report.

Booty from the Booters

2011-08-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

The car boot sale held in Fordham invites charities to come and collect at the entrance of the sale.
Last Sunday a group of volunteers and staff from Burwell Print got up at the crack of dawn to collect at the car boot sale. People were very generous and we collected the grand total of £565.74. We wore our Burwell Print t-shirts to promote what we do and several people stopped to chat to us about printing. Definitely worth missing a Sunday lie-in!

Thinking outside of the Tapas Box!

2011-08-23T07:13:00.000-07:00

A longstanding customer of the Print Centre asked us if we could produce some display boxes for his Tapas Mussels that he was launching in the UK. While it isn't a job we have ever done before, we like to always have a "can do" attitude and after a little bit of planning and design we set about producing 100 display boxes.

The customer is extremely happy with the end result and we feel we have learnt something new along the way.

Chris O'Neill

Burwell Carnival 2011

2011-07-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

We entered a float in this years carnival, this years theme was wonders of the universe. The float was decorated with a picture of earth painted on each side, we all wore hats with stars on and t-shirts with planets on them, and Steven dressed up as a spaceman.

We all enjoyed the ride around the village waving at the people who lined the route.

We were really pleased when we were awarded the trophy for the best adult float in the parade.

After the parade ended we helped out on a stall selling raffle tickets.

Work experience students welcomed at Burwell Print

2011-06-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

This year we are once again welcoming and supporting students from local schools to gain some work experience with us.

For the next couple of weeks we have Ben from Soham Village College and Matt from the Kings School, Ely.

Training Printers to use the Unibind Machine

2011-05-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

Today we printed 12 copies of a tractor user manual. The customer then telephoned us to ask if we could bind each copy together without putting holes in them. This sounded like an ideal job for the unibind machine. Janet and Peter had not used the machine before so Mel showed them how to operate it. The end result looked great. The customer was very pleased, he said "They look splendid".

We have a new Ringbinder

2011-05-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

Our old ringbinder was getting difficult to use and as we were having more customers wanting ringbinding we have bought a new machine. Although the new one looks very similar it is far easier to use, as the cutting mechanism is electric which makes it more Printer friendly. Today Chris and Elliott are ringbinding 85 prospectuses for Burwell Village College.

Waitrose Cheque Presentation

2011-04-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Janet, Alex, Vaughan and Mel went to Cambridge. The visit had two purposes.

Firstly, as a result of Sarah Bevan nominating Burwell Print we were one of the organisations that Waitrose in Fitzroy Street collected for. We met with the store manager who presented us with a cheque for £125.00. A big thank you Waitrose and their customers.

We then went to Rowan's private view of their Photography Exhibition. Several of Rowan's students have been doing a photography course and the exhibition was the result of weeks of learning and experimenting with photography. We printed the photographs at the Print Centre so it was great to see them on the wall in the Rowan gallery. Janet thought the exhibition was "very good and great to look around Rowan's studios".

Get set for summer!

2011-04-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Jen and John looking at our window display at Tina's shop in Burwell, and the theme this month is 'Get set for summer'. Many thanks to Steven, Sarah and Vaughan for putting this together.

2011-04-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

We have all been working very hard today to complete a fast turnaround job - 38 hoodies for students from City of Ely Community College who are going to New York at the weekend. Here Usman is quality checking, folding and packing the hoodies ready for collection.

Another job well done at very short notice!

2011-03-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Elaine Ellis at the Strategic Health Authority contacted us on Monday of this week to ask if we could print more than 12,000 sheets and then collate into 200 delegate packs for a conference on Thursday of this week! We checked to make sure this was achievable and thankfully we were able to fit this job into our work schedule on Wednesday! We’re not always able to do this BUT it’s always worth asking.

All hands on deck!

2011-03-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Today we all had to work as a team to get 1800 flyers printed and posted out 1st class. We spent the day labelling, stuffing and stamping!

VoiceAbility Parliament

2011-03-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

Today we went to represent Burwell Print at the VoiceAbility Parliament Day in Ely, topic of the month was work.

Everyone overcome their nerves to talk in front of a large group, telling them about what we do and why they love coming to work and it's not just to get paid!

We enjoyed a good lunch and sported new lime green Burwell Print t shirts for the day.

Well done to you all

Darwin Nurseries came to tea

2011-03-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

Workers from Darwin Nurseries visited us this afternoon. They delivered plants and leaflets which we will be taking to the VoiceAbility Parliament meeting tomorrow for them. We persuaded them to stop for a while and have a cup of tea with us.

Green team take this months bonus!

2011-03-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to the green team who won this months performance bonus .Steven, Chris, Mark, Alex and Tracy all worked extremely hard to take the lead by 5 tokens! In second place were blue, third was the red team and last but not least was yellow team!

Congratulations to you all for your hard work during what has been a very busy time at Burwell Print.

Vikki Turner

Customer Feedback

2011-02-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

Burwell Print has been taking part in the Best of - Give Us Some Love!

Feedback we have been given includes :-

A very friendly personal service, producing high quality professional printing. C.M.

I have used the Print Centre for both business and personal use and have always had a good experience - Well Done. S.R.

We have been coming here for years and always found people helpful and prepared to go the extra mile. E.E.

Big Thank you to all our 200+customers who continue to support us.

Sue

Burwell Print Centre's Away Day

2011-02-08T03:43:00.000-08:00

On Saturday 29th January 2011 Burwell Day Centre played host to Burwell Print Centre's Away Day! Printers, Staff, Volunteers and Trustees met together to share ideas and contribute to the future plans for the Print Centre. The day was valued and enjoyed all round with motivation and excitement flowing from us all.

Melissa Waites who attends the Print Centre said

"It seems to me that Printers come to learn new skills so that they can get another job in the future but when we get here we don't want to leave!"

Watch this space for more feedback from the Away Day.....

Vikki Turner

Printing hundreds of Mugs!

2011-02-03T03:47:00.000-08:00

We have just finished this order for 100 mugs and we are preparing them for the the Courier. Now it is straight on to the next order for 110!

Frustration takes over at lunchtime!

2011-01-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

Lucy recently brought in some of her board games from home. This lunchtime Lucy, Steven and Alex enjoyed a game of Frustration.

Clunching

2011-01-26T06:01:00.000-08:00

Busy finishing Clunch!

Preparing for the Away day

2011-01-13T04:23:00.000-08:00

This morning we had a meeting to discuss the Print Centre's Away Day. Julie Poole, who will be supporting the Printers at the Away day, came in to talk about what the day is and how Printers will be involved. The idea behind the Away Day to have time away from the Print Centre building, to talk about where we are at and where we would like to be in the future and discuss the sort of work we do, how we work, and in what areas we can improve, for everyone who uses or works at the Print Centre.

Printers create their own mugs

2011-01-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

Printers are learning to use the mug printing machine. Each Printer has designed their own mug and personlised it using pictures of their favourite things. Ashley's mug has pictures of dogs, John has vintage cars and Frances has a picture of Tom Jones!

We Love Social Enterprise mugs

2011-01-07T02:08:00.000-08:00

We have recently printed 120 mugs for the Social Enterprise East of England - We Love Social Enterprise campaign. Mel worked with Printers to get them finished in less than a week. Well done team!