For anybody who thought printing was finished IPEX would have
changed their mind, the big difference this year was the amount of
overseas visitors, we were told that for the first time some 65% of
people visiting were overseas visitors with EU visitors
being a minority. Indian sub continent, Chinese and other SE Asian
visitors forming the largest contingent and suspect the also the
largest purchasers.
We were able to recruit a number of people
(well they took membership forms) but we did have a lot of members
who were very pleased to see the union present and we were able to
help members with information about training and learning, there
were a number of members who had, had no contact with the union
since the amalgamation, so we were able to help them with contact
details etc.
The BA dispute also played a part, given
the large number of overseas visitors, so a lot of people spoke to
us,not surprisingly the ones who were outwardly critical
were generally UK based company directors or owners who didn’t
require air travel to attend.
What was clear was that people consider
training in the U.K. to be amongst the best in the world and we
were able to help many people with answers to their training needs,
and it was clear that large numbers were looking at sending their
employees to the U.K. to train.Clearly many
visitors attended primarily to explore training provision rather
than simply to view the equipment. This illustrates the validity of
the international pillar of the union and the need to grow the
international union.
I would like to give you an idea of
some of the things we heard about, I was speaking to a member who
was working on a Computer-to-Plate stand and he was telling me that
they had been told they had to sell 6 machines to cover the cost of
having the stand at IPEX, the day I spoke to him they had sold 17
in 2 hours, the Hewlett Packard stand apparently cost £4.5 million.
The IpexDaily headline on the last day was “Beginning of recovery”
Heidelberg sold some 140 presses for the U.K. on the last day
alone, HP sold in excess of 100 Indigo presses with Xerox and Canon
also making impressive sales, the advancement of digital
kit was a major theme which seemed to dominate the show and fully
occupied at least a three of the major halls.
We also took part in the PrintIT awards,
whose aim was to get school children interested in the printing
industry and I have to say it was a great success,
however, there appeared to be an uneven distribution of
competing schools, a main nucleus of schools from around the South
East with only a couple from the North. So we have asked for
information on the competition with the idea that if we can promote
it in schools, we can also promote the union.
Geoff Southern and Martin Redgrave both
delivered 2 seminar presentations each, these events although
publicised in IPEX Daily were not that well attended, however,
neither were many of the other seminars, we did at least draw in
enough people to go ahead with the presentations whereas many
speakers did not have any audience therefore didn’t proceed. One
seminar that was well attended was a Seminar on Paper Procurement
and the Environment.
Was it Worth
Doing- Absolutely, clearly it will have been
costly to Unite but having that presence was paramount. Our stand
was very well presented with large signage and relevant
illustrations, it was certainly well received by our members and
even previous members i.e. retired or people whose careers have
taken them in other directions. As IPEX is largely an employers
event we didn’t get people flocking around us but many UK visitors
did stop and view from a distance without approaching, reactions
like these we believe go some way to justifying our presence as it
demonstrates to many employers the union is still around albeit
under a different format.
How Could we Achieve Greater
Exposure to the Widest Audience- We connected and
networked with several other exhibitors notably Proskills, Leeds
City College and The Printers Charity. In the event of exhibiting
at the next IPEX or other event, perhaps we should talk with our
similar aim colleagues about potentially developing/occupying an
improved style of stand that keeps our organisations separate but
our collective interest may enable us to demand a more focal
presence on a differing style of stand i.e. a circular design split
into segments at a heavier footfall part of the show.
An even wider opportunity to network came
when we were joined by Steve Walsh from Uni-Global,
a global federation for skills and services, gathering national
and regional trade unions. Uni-Global is formed as the result of
the merge of four organizations, three of which are directly linked
to the GPM sector - MEI (Media and Entertainment International),
IGF (International Graphical Federation) and CI (Communications
International)
Interesting Characters
Cyril Cannon, Cyril is currently writing a
book which is set to be published by St Bride in 2011, the book is
called “The Compositor in London; the rise and fall of a Labour
Aristocracy”
Sue Shaw, Sue runs “The Type Archive”
which is located at 100 Hackford Rd., which is between Clapham Rd.,
and Brixton Rd., they are currently installing a 1906 Wharfedale
Press and are looking for contributions sueshaw@freeuk.com
Guy Millward, Guy is the pre-press manager
at Torbay County Council and he was saying that nobody that worked
there was a member of the union and that no training had ever been
offered to the people that worked there, all the contact details
have been passed to Brendan Parkinson.
Steven Langford, Steven is the technical
consultant (and possibly the owner) of a company called COMULTI
Printforms Ltd. And he was asking if we had any printers unemployed
that could run continuous stationary machines, the company is based
in Limasol, Cyprus comulti@logos.cy.net
Learning Organiser Team
Geoff Southern, Martin Redgrave,
Brendan Parkinson, Ian Scott
