Mick George Ltd is known for being one of the leading suppliers to the construction industry. Operating in East Anglia and the East Midlands, the company focus on delivering their professional and cost effective services to clients from a variety of sectors, including commercial, trade and residential. The Construction
The audience at the sold-out event was treated to an epic display of awe-inspiring disciplines, including the Ship’s Anchor and Chain Drag, the Giant Log Lift, and the Stones of Strength, which tested the ultimate in stamina, strength and skill of the athletes taking part, many of whom consume
Sometimes, we can all do with a good laugh. The beauty of humour is that it’s universal – anything can be funny; it just depends on how it’s done. If you think of stand-up comics through the ages, it’s the delivery of the material that sets them apart from someone
Raising a glass of codswallop to glass. In the USA, September is Glass Recycling Month. Jane Embury, marketing director at advanced glazing system supplier Wrightstyle, takes a look at the wonders of glass – and suggests that we should also have a glass recycling month. As a building material, glass
The latest research from Co-operative Insurance has revealed that more than 2.5 million households in the UK – over half (66%) – have been the victim of green fingered thieves in their gardens at least once. Nowadays, it’s not just a few stems of your prized roses that may be
Structural steelwork contractor William Hare has secured a supply chain deal with British Steel. The partnership agreement will ensure that steel produced in Scunthorpe will be used in the construction of The Scalpel and 100 Bishopsgate, two projects that William Hare is working on currently. The Scalpel is a 36
Choosing the Right Paint for Your Business Properties When it comes to running a business, there’s plenty to keep you occupied. Keeping your workforce happy, winning new customers and balancing the books all take up lots of time and energy, but it’s important to remember that maintaining your business building
The UK’s coal generation in the first quarter of 2016 has fallen by about 50% on the same period in 2015 which is a record low for the industry, according to the latest official figures. In the first three months of the year, coal fired plants generated 14.6TWh of electricity,
In this day and age, providing a physical service is no longer considered to be quite enough. Regardless of industry, it is increasingly the case that organisations can be seen to value partnerships as of near-equal import to other areas of service provision. Why, you might ask? Most specifically, this
In today’s society, items big and small are finding themselves imported and exported round the world at an alarming rate of speed and efficiency. A lot of the time, consumers and businesses are left feeling angry due to the unintentional state a product arrives in. If the item is of
Mick George Ltd is known for being one of the leading suppliers to the construction industry. Operating in East Anglia and the East Midlands, the company focus on delivering their professional and cost effective services to clients from a variety of sectors, including commercial, trade and residential. The Construction and Waste Management company has been looking into different ways to raise money for their charities of the year. As a part of this, Mick George Ltd has come up with the ‘Challenge Yourself’ scheme which has been levelled at all of the company’s employees, with management and directors included in order to see how much can be raised over the course of the year. Going above and beyond, and truly embracing the idea of the challenge is Mick George’s Finance Director, Jon Stump, who embarking on the epic challenge of a trek across Costa Rica. Jon will carry out a coast-to-coast expedition, travelling from the east Caribbean side of the island to the west Pacific side. Joining him on this daunting mission is a team of 19 other people including the former England Rugby Captain LewiS Moody MBE. This momentous journey will see the team travel a total of 300 km over the course of 8 days in order to raise money for a collection of charities. The journey will involve walking, kayaking, mountain biking and rafting across the massive distance while enduring changeable weather conditions including extreme heat and humidity, cold fog and sudden downpours that will take the team through the wilderness of Costa Rica. As if the expedition wasn’t challenging enough, Jon has also set a fundraising target of £12,000, to be split between a number of organisations such as Macmillan Cancer Support, the British Heart Foundation, and the Lewis Moody Foundation. As part of the trip, the Lewis Moody Foundation has a separate fundraising target of £75,000 which will go towards helping those diagnosed with brain tumors and the award-winning HeadSmart campaign.
The audience at the sold-out event was treated to an epic display of awe-inspiring disciplines, including the Ship’s Anchor and Chain Drag, the Giant Log Lift, and the Stones of Strength, which tested the ultimate in stamina, strength and skill of the athletes taking part, many of whom consume up to 10,000 calories a day during competitions. Laurence Shahlaei, from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, took the title of UK’s Strongest Man and the XIV CNP Trophy for the first time, beating Tom Stoltman from Scotland and Pa O’Dwyer from Ireland who placed second and third respectively. Laurence, aged 34, won by just two points in a nail-biting battle to the finish having suffered an injury to his quad muscle in the penultimate event. Commenting on his Facebook page, Laurence said: “Pleased with a solid performance placing first in seven of the last nine events after taking it easy on day one … Happy to be going home with another title to my name (UK’s strongest man 2017). Few days taking it easy then upping my game for the next big show.” In addition to the UK’s Strongest Man, the winner of the Ultimate Strongman Master World Championship, sponsored by Blackbox Document Solutions, was announced as Žydrūnas Savickas from Lithuania. The event included the phenomenal Hanson Truck Pull, which saw contestants hauling 13.2 tonnes of metal more than 20 metres. Alan Betteridge, Director at Rudridge, who are sponsors of the weekend, said: “Congratulations to Laurence and Žydrūnas on their well-deserved victories. “Once again the event was a huge success and made for incredible viewing. The sheer power of the contestants and their tenacity for completing some of the toughest and most challenging tasks imaginable really is incredible.”
Sometimes, we can all do with a good laugh. The beauty of humour is that it’s universal – anything can be funny; it just depends on how it’s done. If you think of stand-up comics through the ages, it’s the delivery of the material that sets them apart from someone telling a boring story. And so it is with print advertising. Take plumbing and heating service, for instance. How can you inject some humour into something as mundane as blocked drain services or central heating engineers? You’d be surprised. We have 7 perfect examples that may well make you laugh out loud. Special Brew: This irreverent spoof advert for Carlsberg Special Brew was created by the Viz comic. Given the alarming rise in homelessness in recent years, it’s safe to say that it would still cause many sharp intakes of breath now. Still funny, though. Heil Hvac: Air conditioning and social commentary may not be obvious companions, but this vintage advertisement for a firm of US air conditioning installers from 1977 certainly catches the eye, and not in a good way! Das Neue Handwerk Whether you like it or not, builders’ bums and plumbers’ cracks are a common sight these days and form the butt (!) of many a joke. This ingenious camouflage t-shirt shows a photo of German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a slogan that translates as ‘more attractive than you think’. Whoever said Germans don’t have a sense of humour? Care Heating Cooling Another old American advert for a central heating company entices husbands to look after their wives, with the little ditty ‘Show her you care, fix the air’. Professional Plumbing This cute vintage enamel is sure to bring a smile to many a qualified plumber. And perhaps gives a little reminder to householders that choosing a professional plumber is worth paying extra for? Budget Rod Whoever thought to introduce ’Budget Rod’ into an otherwise unremarkable advertising poster for a local plumbing and boiler Breakdown Company clearly had maximum eye grab in mind! British Gas The 2013 Twitter campaign following an unpopular 9.2% price rise by British Gas led to the creation of this creative spoof advert.
Raising a glass of codswallop to glass. In the USA, September is Glass Recycling Month. Jane Embury, marketing director at advanced glazing system supplier Wrightstyle, takes a look at the wonders of glass – and suggests that we should also have a glass recycling month. As a building material, glass is both ubiquitous and timeless. It’s been with us, in the form of obsidian from volcanoes, since the Stone Age. In the form we know it now, glass has been around since at least 3,000BC when the Egyptians, Syrians and Mesopotamians mastered how to make it. Since then, the history of glass has been largely about its functional and decorative development – from the beauty of the Portland Vase to the rose windows of Notre Dame cathedral. But the history of glass is much more than that and has, in a very real sense, helped shape the modern world in which we live. So for a moment, let’s forget about glass as a material for life’s fripperies, like windows or wine glasses. Let’s not forget about the 13th century invention of the spectacles, which added years to the useful lives of scientists. In the 17th century, the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza also made his living as a lens-grinder. The humble mirror also has its part to play, used by the 14th century Italian architect and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi to establish the laws of perspective, which had a huge impact on Renaissance painting – let alone the design of buildings ever since. It was glass beakers that helped to create modern science, creating knowledge and cures for diseases, and the microscope and telescope, invented in the 16th century, advanced our understanding both of our world and the cosmos beyond. Let’s also celebrate the humble window, and not just for keeping the elements out. Glass windows, which became more widespread from the 17th century, made homes lighter and brighter – and, partly as a result, plague was eradicated from most of Europe by the early 18th century. In the mid-19th century, glass containers allowed the French chemist Louis Pasteur to disprove the theory that germs spontaneously sprouted from rotting matter – obvious now, but a huge stride forward in our understanding of disease. And then, of course, came the light bulb, changing our world completely. (By the way, recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a 100 watt light bulb for nearly an hour). As a supplier of advanced glazing systems, Wrightstyle is also playing our small part in the history of glass – helping, for example, to develop safer systems to withstand fire or the detonation of a terrorist bomb. But we’re also aware of our environmental responsibility and do what we can to ensure that, whenever possible, all waste materials from our facilities are recycled. Indeed, the UK now recycles well over 1,500,000 tonnes of glass bottles every year – an annual reduction of some 385,000 tonnes of CO2 emission, equivalent to taking more than 120,000 cars off the road. Data published in 2015 by the European Container Glass Federation (FEVE) found that the EU28 average recycling rate for glass packaging hit the 73% mark for the first time. The UK rate was 68%. So, although the UK lags behind some European countries, the good news is that waste glass, or cullet, is 100% recyclable, and can used again and again for a whole variety of glass products. But we can and should be doing more – and that means all of us involved in the building or demolition industries. Which is why I’m going to raise a glass of codswallop to our see-though friend, glass, and suggest to the powers-that-be that the UK should also have a glass recycling month – to help raise awareness of the wonders of glass, and encourage greater responsibility for its disposal by both companies and individuals. Why codswallop? Well, that’s all down to the Victorian engineer Hiram Codd who, in 1872, patented a glass bottle which could be filled under pressure and then stoppered with a marble. It was a hugely-popular invention and used mainly for fizzy soft drinks. In the 19th century, cheap beer was called “wallop” – and, so the story goes, beer drinkers dismissively called the contents of the new-fangled bottles as a “load of codd’s wallop.” It may not be true, and it’s completely irrelevant for glass recycling month. But it’s a lovely useless glass fact. For once, let’s copy the Americans! Does anybody out there agree?
The latest research from Co-operative Insurance has revealed that more than 2.5 million households in the UK – over half (66%) – have been the victim of green fingered thieves in their gardens at least once. Nowadays, it’s not just a few stems of your prized roses that may be lifted from your garden, digging up entire garden plants, such as shrubs, trees, hanging baskets and even turf top the list of most sought after items, as a quarter (25%) of households admit to having these stolen, followed by garden machinery (18%), garden furniture and pots (16%), and even Chimeneas (7%) and Koi Carp (4%). You can get go to Globo Surf to replace these items or buy new ones for your garden. Top 10 garden items at risk of being stolen 1 Plants, shrubs, trees, hanging baskets, turf 25% 2 Garden Machinery, such as lawn mowers, strimmer’s and hedge cutters 18% 3 Garden furniture 16% 4 Pots 16% 5 Children’s toys, such as playhouses, slides, swings, battery operated cars 14% 6 Sculptures 8% 7 Barbecue 8% 8 Chimenea 7% 9 Sports equipment, such as goals, golf clubs, cricket set, fishing rod 7% 10 Koi Carp 4% With people investing more time and money in their outdoor spaces, it’s not surprising to see that since 2011 the average cost associated with a garden theft has risen by almost half (48%). According to Co-op claims data the average total claim now stands at £208, putting a total of £517m worth of garden items at risk. Despite this, over three quarters (77%) of adults didn’t claim for the items on their home insurance, whilst (5%) had no home insurance in place. As The Royal Horticultural Society warns that generation rent are neglecting their gardens, it seems they are also neglecting their home and garden’s security measures, as Co-op research also reveals that homeowners are more likely to take extra security measures, than those who rent accommodation. Over a quarter (26%) of renters admit to neglecting the security of the garden in their homes, by having no security measures in place at all, in comparison to (18%) of homeowners. Caroline Hunter, Head of Home Insurance at The Co-operative, said: “As summer approaches, now is the perfect time to spruce up your garden and clean off the outdoor furniture ready for enjoying the sun. However, relaxing days shouldn’t lead to lax security. Unfortunately garden items are desirable to thieves so make sure that things are locked away or taken inside when you aren’t in the garden. Also don’t leave items outside such as bikes which could entice thieves or items, such as ladders, which could assist a thief in entering your property. Nowadays, the garden is increasingly becoming an extension of the home. As people expand their living space outdoors, they are undoubtedly spending more on their gardens however many probably don’t consider just how much they are spending and we’d advise them to update their insurer about their al-fresco purchases.” Jim Maddan OBE, Chair of Neighbourhood Watch, said: “We want people to enjoy their summer without becoming a victim of garden theft. After a day in the garden it’s important to make sure all your valuable items are put away again and any sheds and garages are properly secured with a heavy duty padlock. Make sure you lock your garden gates too – particularly your side gates – as we know that thieves will always go for the easiest option when looking to steal and much prefer an unlocked gate.” If you have trees in your garden, get Riverside tree experts to check your trees. Analysing insurance claim stats from 20011 to 2015, July and August see a peak for such thefts which is almost twice as likely to happen (45%) than the month of February The Co-operative Insurance offers the following top tips for protecting your garden against crime: Check your insurance: Check you have adequate insurance cover and make sure you are clear on what is covered. Most household policies will be covered up to a certain amount, but insurers may specify that items should be locked in a shed, garage or brought into the house. If you have left your items unlocked and outside, insurers may refuse to pay out. Don’t advertise to thieves: Lighter evenings mean all your expensive power tools, bikes and children’s toys are more visible to opportunist criminals, be sure to keep any valuable items out of sight and wherever possible, keep them locked away or indoors. Mark your valuable items: If possible, tag items, such as patio furniture, BBQ’s, expensive pots and garden machinery with your postcode using invisible ink. In addition to this take photos of your valuable items should an insurer want proof of ownership. Remove climbable items: One of the most common pitfalls is making climbable items accessible to thieves, items such as ladders and wheelie bins can be used by burglars to get into a home, therefore it is important to store them where they can’t be seen or reached by thieves, or lock them up so they can’t be moved. Lock up your valuables: Secure sheds with a padlock attached to a strong hasp and staple. Ensure shed hinges are secured with coach bolts. Always ensure gates, garages and outbuildings remain bolted with a secure lock. If you have a tree or plant that is valuable, invest in an automatic alarm that wakes you, should anyone try to remove it. Source link
Structural steelwork contractor William Hare has secured a supply chain deal with British Steel. The partnership agreement will ensure that steel produced in Scunthorpe will be used in the construction of The Scalpel and 100 Bishopsgate, two projects that William Hare is working on currently. The Scalpel is a 36 storey office tower being built by Skanska at 52 Lime Street in London under a £200 million contract. William Hare is being supplied with 1,000 tonnes of British Steel for the scheme. 100 Bishopsgate is a 40 storey office tower which is under development by Brookfield and being built by Multiplex in the City of London. The building transitions from a parallelogram at its base to a rectangle at its top. British Steel is supplying William Hare with 3,500 tonnes of steel for this project. British Steel was launched on June 1 this year following the purchase by family investment office Greybull Capital from Tata Steel. The steel is made at its Scunthorpe site and the biggest sections are rolled at its Teesside Beam Mill. David Hodgkiss, Chief Executive at William Hare, commented: “We are delighted to have agreed our contract with British Steel, ensuring that we continue to supply market-leading products to our customers. The construction market can be very demanding and William Hare, and in turn our clients, demand all the materials we use meet the highest specifications. “It is also pleasing to be able to support UK manufacturing, however the main reason we are using British Steel is because of the quality of the steel they manufacture.” Meanwhile, Peter Hogg, Commercial Director at British Steel, said that at British Steel they pride themselves on delivering the products that their customers need, when they need them, and their highly skilled teams are dedicated to making sure that they not only produce world class steel but deliver a high quality service.
Choosing the Right Paint for Your Business Properties When it comes to running a business, there’s plenty to keep you occupied. Keeping your workforce happy, winning new customers and balancing the books all take up lots of time and energy, but it’s important to remember that maintaining your business building is essential too! Why? Well, it’s simple: first impressions count, and the condition of your business premises says a lot about who you are as a company, what your values are and how you’re going to treat your customers. So, if your business property is needing a little bit of TLC, here’s everything you need to know about the different types of paint available, so that you can choose the right type… Metal paints A number of business premises are primarily constructed of metal because it’s a durable and cost effective material. It’s perfect for larger buildings, such as gyms, car repair shops, welding shops and gyms, as metal can be used for creating spacious structures, as well as being fire resistant too. So, if you’re going to touch up the paintwork on a metal building, you’ll need specialist paint to ensure that it doesn’t peel or flake from the surface. Check out Rawlins Paints if you want to find some online. There are many metal paints that can be directly applied without the need for a primer – suitable for painting over patches of rust – and they’ll be weather resistant and long-lasting too. Cladding paints Cladding is often added to buildings to improve their appearance and provide an extra layer of protection against the weather. So, if the paint on your cladding is beginning to peel, you’ll need to buy specialist cladding paint rather than generic exterior paint. Cladding paint is specifically designed to maintain and rejuvenate cladding and increase its lifespan (which is good news as it means you won’t have to shell out to replace worn or damaged cladding in its entirety), but it’s worth adding a polyurethane topcoat to preserve the paint-work further. Fire protection paints Make sure that you’re protecting your business property by using fire retardant paints. In fact, if your business happens to be a café, a hotel or an office suite for instance, it might well be the case that the law demands that you use such fire-control methods to comply with safety legislation, making the welfare of your employees and customers your chief priority. So, consider using fire retardant paints, coatings and treatments inside and outside of your property, particularly if your business premises consist of flammable materials or contains lots of flammable equipment. Safety and security paints Just as you want to protect your home, its occupants and your possessions, your business property demands just as much consideration. Due to the equipment, materials and contents that you have on site, it’s not unlikely that your premises will be targeted by trespassers or burglars. So, opt for anti-climb coatings when you’re updating your business premises’ exterior, making it far harder for intruders to walk away with ill-gotten gains! And, consider applying anti-graffiti coatings if your business is in an area that suffers with graffiti and vandalism, and remember that safety paints (such as luminous paints for glowing in the dark and fluorescent paint to make equipment highly visible) are worth investing in too. There are plenty more types of paint that you need to consider for your business premises, including anti-slip floor paints, roof paints and preparatory coatings, so figure out what your needs are to make sure you’re using the right products.
The UK’s coal generation in the first quarter of 2016 has fallen by about 50% on the same period in 2015 which is a record low for the industry, according to the latest official figures. In the first three months of the year, coal fired plants generated 14.6TWh of electricity, compared with 29.5TWh in the first quarter of last year, while the coal industry’s overall generation fell to 15.8% from 30.8%. A market preference for gas and further plant closures were given as the reasons for the ‘record low’ by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Already this year, a series of coal fired plants have left the main energy market or shut down, including Rugeley, Eggborough and Longannet. Meanwhile, Fiddler’s Ferry was saved from closure after the National Gird awarded it a black start contract. Gas generation saw a rise of 48% year on year, which is a rise from 23.7TWh to 35.0TWh, while its share of the generation mix also saw a significant rise from 24.7% to 37.8%. Price reporting company ICIS also reported that gas prices levelled out at around ten year lows in the year’s first quarter after a prolonged decline. There was a slight decrease in nuclear generation, falling from 18.2TWh to 17.3TWh, at the end of December after the closure of Wylfa in Wales. Overall, the period saw a 3.4% fall in electricity generation from 95.8TWh to 92.5TWh, while the renewables’ share of generation rose to over a quarter. Earlier in the month a Conservative think tank, Bright Blue, stated that the future of UK electricity will be secure without coal. The government has declared its intention to close all coal power stations by 2025, with its use being significantly restricted from 2023, but only if there is enough gas fired capacity available to ensure a secure supply.
In this day and age, providing a physical service is no longer considered to be quite enough. Regardless of industry, it is increasingly the case that organisations can be seen to value partnerships as of near-equal import to other areas of service provision. Why, you might ask? Most specifically, this could be attributed to an increased need for contractor management to ensure that all works are being provided in a manner that suits the overall vision of any given project, yet, there are many other contributing factors to consider also. Through works being provided simply as-is, with no communication of discussion, it is entirely possible that such works will be completed adequately; at the same time, however, this can often not be the case. As organisations increasingly recognise the level of concise expertise maintained within the supply chain, the want for tapping into such specialist expertise so too, grows – this being most aptly due to a perceived lack of expertise in comparison; or at least, in that specific area of work. While a project may look feasible from the top, the need for specific details in a project, such as architecture, design, mechanical works and more, to then be checked, is of increasing import. In fact, it could be argued that it is of incredible import that any issues of challenges perceived in such works be highlighted at the soonest possible stage to ensure a minimisation of any delays or complications in the project itself. Yet, this can only be achieved in one way – communication. Through proper communication between prime and sub contractor, organisations can see their own expertise and capacity expanded considerably with specialist expertise. This, however, can only be assured should such a subcontractors be involved at the very earliest stages of any given project, which is the very reason why organisations are increasingly seen to develop such partnerships whereby a supply chain isn’t just about the supply of material, or service, but of partnership in the deliver of a project. As such, the development of partnerships is nigh-on essential to the effective delivery of modern projects.
In today’s society, items big and small are finding themselves imported and exported round the world at an alarming rate of speed and efficiency. A lot of the time, consumers and businesses are left feeling angry due to the unintentional state a product arrives in. If the item is of a fragile nature, of course the common sense approach in this situation would be to wrap it appropriately, but it would surprise you the volume of people who just take the cheapest approach when sending away any item. This can all too often lead to disaster, but alas! Disaster and calamity can be averted if you take guidance on the following top six packaging tips. Recycling When packaging items, why not consider recycling boxes that have not been damaged? You should be careful with this tip however as many boxes and items of packaging will seem of a high quality, but exposure to certain weather conditions may have caused the material in them to break down, yet not visibly, over time. This includes only using ‘like new’ boxes. Immobilisation The best way to ensure security of fragile products is to ensure immobilisation. Making sure that certain products are unable to move within the packaging is making sure that nothing will break. The air spaces left in a box could be filled with packaging material to ensure items have no room to shake and break. Purchase in Bulk If you are going to be sending away more than one item, or if you yourself are a mass product producer, buying boxes and packaging in bulk will enable a more economically friendly solution. Correct Sizing This is an economically friendly tip as well because buying the right size of packaging will mean that you have less packaging material to purchase. Buying the correct size of packaging will also ensure a more secure form of packaging for your product. Stick to the Correct Dimensions When packaging, wrap the products you have in the appropriate fashion – you would not wrap a table like a lightbulb or vice versa. Only Purchase from Quality-Assured Firms Although you may instinctively be looking to save a bit of money when buying anything, purchasing cheaper and lower quality forms of packaging may result in tears if the packaging breaks downs. Searching Google for quality-assured firms will give you the best results, and also a range of reviews so you can find exactly what it is you are searching for. Although packaging is not at the forefront of anyone’s mind when dealing with industrial products, or any product for that matter of fact, it should be something every packager should consider to ensure high quality of their product and above all, security. By Lucy Miller at Smarter Digital Marketing for Ferrari Packaging & BDC Magazine.