November 2009

Two 'ladies' and their friends join us for Children in Need

Many thanks to all our staff for raising a fantastic £180 for Children in Need with particular thanks to Debbie Hiles for organising a variety of events and to Jean Upfield, Claire Marks, Suzanne Butterworth, Kevin Moore and David Jeffries (well, Mrs Jeffries!) for baking a fantastic selection of cakes and biscuits plus excellent bacon and avocado rolls which sold out within minutes.

As ever staff entered into the invitation to dress up with lots of enthusiasm with digital web operators, Jason Ellis and Tony Jones (see photo bottom left), going above and beyond the call of duty by dressing as Katie Price lookalikes (from her blond days) and staying like that all day!

October 2009

Staff Wear It Pink for Breast Cancer

MPG Biddles staff raised £160 during our Wear It Pink day in aid of Breast Cancer. Many thanks to Sarah White for organising an excellent raffle and to all staff who donated prizes for this. Thanks also to Jean Upfield, Sarah Williams and Kevin Moore for a delicious selection of home baking which sold out very quickly! (Back row left to right: Charlotte Hulmes, Jean Upfield, Peter Upfield, David Jeffries, Steve Wymer, Nigel Mitchell. Second row left to right: Kevin Moore, Debbie Hiles, Glenn Burgess, Jo Palmer, Rod Willett, Theresa Loosley. Seated at the front: Sarah White and Sarah Williams)

The Breast Cancer Campaign uses all wear it pink donations to fund innovative, world-class research throughout the UK and Ireland to understand how breast cancer develops, leading to improved diagnosis, treatment, prevention and cure.

September 2009

Customers triumph in British Fantasy Awards at FantasyCon 2009

Nicky Prentis and Theresa Loosley had a fantastic day at the FantasyCon in Nottingham catching up with customers and seeing them launch new books. The photograph to the right shows Theresa chatting to Pete and Nicky Crowther and author, Ramsey Campbell, about our new presentation cases which PS Publishing have adopted for all their new titles and which were much admired.

We would like to congratulate Elastic Press for winning Best Small Press, Newcon Press for winning Best Short Fiction, PS Publishing for winning Best Magazine and Screaming Dreams for winning Best Collection at this year's British Fantasy Awards. They all cited MPG Biddles as major contributors to their success thanks to the quality of manufacture of their books.

And the winning team is ... Team Nigel!

Congratulations to Nigel Mitchell and his team seen in the photograph to the right enjoying their prize of a three course meal at a local hotel in King's Lynn (Back row left to right: Jo Palmer, Sarah Williams, Steve Wymer, Nigel Mitchell. Front row left to right: Glenn Burgess, Suzanne Butterworth and Claire Marks) except for Kevin Moore who was on a canal boat holiday.

The final decision came down to which team would save the company the most money through the idea that they had presented firstly in a visual presentation followed up by a written business proposal put together with the help of two external consultants. The result was incredibly close with just £800 separating the teams! However Team Wasted were consoled by the fact that their idea will also be implemented. They came be seen in the photograph to the right enjoying their runners-up prize of a meal from the local McDonalds! (From left to right: Sarah White, Theresa Loosley, Jean Upfield, Katie Ward, Charlotte Hulmes, David Jeffries, Debbie Hiles - Nicky Prentis was behind the camera!).

Sir Rod commented: "The idea of running an 'Apprentice style' in house improvement programme was aimed at creating friendly competition within a very close knit team. Whilst the end results of the first task are impressive, generating annual savings in excess of £60,000, the spirit generated by this approach promises to make a much greater contribution to the overall success of our business as more demanding challenges are taken on by the teams."

Team mentors Jeanette Hurworth 'Margaret' and Gary Mackney 'Nick' commented: "Both teams came up with some excellent innovative ideas. We were incredibly impressed at the innovation and teamwork they showed in developing their ideas and working them up into a proper business plan. The teams showed a healthy competitive spirit which drove them forward all the way. It was a close call as to which team was going to win, but ultimately we felt that Nigel's team had the potential to make a bigger impact on our business. Roll on the next project!!"

August 2009

Stage Two - The Challenge continues

After all the secret planning and plotting the two teams have made their presentations. Team Wasted, led by Katie Ward, were first to present arriving in true Apprentice style in an executive people carrier and with their suitcases (see photo right) followed by Team Nigel, led by Nigel Mitchell. Both teams presented three ideas which demonstrated ways of saving the company money.

Sir Rod commented: I must say that although I didn’t really know what to expect I was delighted with the thought and effort that went into the challenge, so much so that I would like at least two of the main suggestions to be put into action immediately.

Sir Rod has arranged for two external consultants to come in and work with each team along with their mentors, Jeanette 'Margaret' and Gary 'Nick'. Each team will then represent their idea as a formal business plan. The team that can demonstrate the biggest financial saving for the company will be declared the winner.

July 2009

MPG Biddles staff to stage their own version of The Apprentice

We like to inspire our staff to be creative and so we have set them an Apprentice style challenge with a brief to either come up with a new product or service or demonstrate ways of saving the company money.

Two project teams, led by Katie Ward and Nigel Mitchell, have been secretly planning and plotting and will shortly be formally presenting their ideas for consideration to Rod 'Sir Alan' Willett (see right), Jeanette 'Margaret' Hurworth and Gary 'Nick' Mackney.

We await with baited breath to see which team comes up with the winning idea or ideas. We hasten to add that no one will be fired on our version of ‘The Apprentice’!

Publisher's Choice service extended with investment in Océ VarioStream

We have installed an Océ VarioStream 9210 as a direct response to demand from customers. As well as increasing our capacity to produce black and white short books with integrated photographs, this investment enables us to extend our Publisher's Choice service with a wider range of formats (up to A4 portrait) and choice of stock papers which will now include a 90gsm matt coated paper.

Rod Willett, general manager at MPG Biddles, said: "The growth in demand for digitally printed short-run books has escalated as our customers focus more on the cost savings Publisher's Choice can provide. Cash is king and publishers are having to look at different business models in order to respond to the current economic situation."

Staff dress up for Red Nose Day

Staff were invited to dress up as something 'outrageous' to support Comic Relief and they certainly entered into the spirit of things contributing to the fantastic £59 million raised so far for Comic Relief.

From an Arabian sheik, Cleopatra, The Joker, the 'bin ladies' and more a lot of imagination and effort was put in. However perhaps the most 'outrageous' was the swap by Sarah Williams and Daniel McMahon who came as each other (see photo bottom right)!

MPG Biddles extends support agreement with Nipson for its Varypress 400 digital web tri-press

MPG Biddles has signed a three-year extension to its service support agreement with Nipson to cover its VaryPress 400 digital tri-press which is used predominantly for our Publishers Choice short-run book production service.

Rod Willett, general manager at MPG Biddles, said: "We currently run 24 hours a day, producing 30,000 books per week, and the Nipson printers and support have constantly enabled extremely high levels of output and uptime which is quite unique for this type of equipment."

He added: "The consistency and support of the Nipson printers and support team has been fundamental to our business and the additional three-year contract is the reward in recognition of this."

MPG Biddles awarded Investors in People

We are delighted to kick off 2009 by being awarded the national recognised Investors in People (IiP) standard which is a recognition of the way organisations achieve success through their people and demonstrates that MPG Biddles believes in and recognises the value of its people, their performance and their contribution to our growing success.

The final report stated that "obviously all the processes are working well with 95% good customer feedback received. To take the trouble to give positive feedback demonstrates they how well they are working."

"We are very proud to have achieved the Investors in People accreditation and really appreciate all the support we have had from everyone at MPG Biddles." said Jeanette Hurworth, MPG Biddles' customer services manager

"We believe that the Standard gives us a structured framework on which to build our business for the future and we are already seeing the benefits which staff are feeding back to us, so all the hard work has definitely been worth it."