What's the latest?
Well, it's fair to say that a lack of fresh posts on this blog are a sign of intense activity in the office!
When I last posted the coolers were about to be safety tested. I'm pleased to say that we've met all the regulatory requirements to make our CE declaration. I'd like to extend my personal thanks to Hampshire Trading Standards for their practical no-nonsense guidance in this matter. And of course to Intertek for undertaking the EMC testing on our product.
Thanks also to David Learmonth of Wessex Marketing Solutions for bringing structure to our marketing. A relatively simple and effective bit of help from David to help organise our thoughts and prioritise our activities was just the thing!
And talking of marketing. This month also saw me at Google headquarters in London for a pitch by their Adwords team. An interesting and informative seminar and very nice chill-out facilities guys! We'll let you know.
We've also been working on a new look for the website and blog. I'll be putting a post up about the work that Timi van Houten at Greenhouse Graphics has done on our new logo in due course. Timi and her team are currently working on the user manual, which is one of the last things we have to design before shipping the coolers out.
Readers of this blog may recall that we started work last year with a Southend-based company to manufacture our air flow duct. Sadly this didn't work out for either party and we turned to a Hampshire-based company who came up with an innovative production technique which, again, I'll be putting a post up about in due course. However, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Alan Holloway at Whitchurch-based Mobility Seating for his support. Alan and his team have done marvels for us and we look forward to a long and productive working relationship with them.
Over Easter we also came to know one of the Emergency Planners in Alabama who has received a pre-production cooler for evaluation. If his comments are anything to go by, then next time a hurricane hits the gulf coast and the power / air conditioning gets knocked out then keeping people from getting heatstroke won't be a problem. We like that idea. Thanks also to the staff at the Secretary of States office in Alabama - some of the politest people I've ever spoken to.
Thanks also to Bob. Not only for being Best Man at our wedding, not only for being so encouraging and for his determination to be our first paying customer (Bob, join the orderly queue.), but also for taking literally hundreds of photos of the product. Bob's an avid Man Utd fan - someone's got to be - and I suspect he only had half an eye on last night's match as he took yet more snaps of the product. Bob, your reward is waiting for you in "The Star".
The STAR-TIDES team has been active in Honduras in the last week at the Crisis Management III (CMIII) Experiment. I was pleased to see some students from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras experimenting with the cooler. We'll be putting photos of them on the blog as soon as we get permission from those in shot.
And because our business is part of our lives, not the whole... our heart felt and sincere thanks to the staff at Charlie's Day Unit Basingstoke hospital for the care they gave one of the smaller people in our family.
And as for the backpacking field tester? Well, she was last heard of on a glacier in New Zealand. And even I'd admit you don't need a sleepbreeze cooler there!
And finally thanks to Simon for keeping spirits up in the office. Bless you, Simon. And keep the music and emails coming!
So, I reckon the next time I post on this blog it'll be to say "shop open". Hope you'll like our product and tell your friends.
Andy & Jill