Sheetplant

Chairman Graham Sutherland opened the 67th SPA conference at the Stratford Manor Hotel and welcomed the Vice President of AICC, Brad Morphy of Morphy Containers, London, Ontario. Mr Morphy gave the meeting an overview of the North American corrugated market, which will make for challenging times in the near future. He finished by inviting the delegates to attend the forthcoming SuperCorr Expo. He said that the exhibition is expected to be attended by around 8000 delegates and over 235 exhibitors. The AICC is offering complimentary attendance to their meetings during the week long event and the opportunity to visit some local sheet plants. Members wishing to attend the exhibition should contact Allan Glen or Lorna Quinn at the NPC office (tel 01563 570518)Andrew Barnetson of the CPI gave the conference a presentation of the work the CPI and the CPI/SPA joint promotional committee have been engaged in this year, working on highlighting the benefit of corrugated from the environmental aspect with it being 84 per cent recyclable and putting forward the hard business case of the versatility and space efficiency of the material, especially when used in the retail ready sector to be able to quickly and efficiently change branding and design.

The CPI has now retained a PR professional who is actively working with them and the promotional committee targeting the media. The aim is to promote all aspects of corrugated to the media from Industry publications to national newspapers.

Mr Barnetson also announced that the forthcoming House of Commons event will take place on 18th November and encouraged delegates to talk to their MPs and invite them to their plants, ahead of the luncheon, to highlight the benefits of corrugated.

Presentations from Pamarco on quality printing, Carbon Consultancy Company on actively reducing spiralling energy costs throughout the corrugated industry and CRP Print & Packaging on the benefits of short run digital printing were made to delegates.

The conference ended with the SPA’s Members Session. The committee encouraged the Association members to join the Benchmarking programme. Robson Taylor, the independent Charter Accountants, will control the service. It was suggested that a dummy set of accounts should be sent to the membership together with a letter from the Chairman encouraging participation of the process, as every company who has entered into it before has said that they gained invaluable information for the cost of a ‘postage stamp’. The whole service is ring fenced in professional confidentiality. The SPA will offer training days which will be open to all members. Currently the SPA have organised printing and die-cutting courses, but the association will be expanding the courses available. “We are looking for host companies to offer their premises for these courses,” commented Allan Glen. “If you can assist, please contact the NPC office.”

The new web site is up and running and the committee would like more interaction from the members on the blog page. Also, if you wish to advertise on the site or indeed have anything to sell, please contact the NPC office who will be happy to assist.