Year in Review – eFIG  

2006 is almost at an end and it has certainly been an exciting year for everyone involved at eFIG. We launched a new house style for all our marketing material, which has been rolled out within our new membership packs and within the new website, which you are currently navigating. A big thank you to all those involved in getting us here, especially Greg Basire of ISS Waterers for overseeing the project, Alison Williams for producing all the content and guidance, Craig Goult  from xuny.co.uk for all his inspiration and finally, to our bed rock Joanna Hargreaves for co-ordinating everything. 

This has been my first full year as the training officer for eFIG and I am pleased to say, not withstanding the lack of take up for the courses, we have either successfully run or have booked dates for all of our available courses at least once this year. This will lead on to us awarding at this year’s awards ceremony, our very first group of successful candidates gaining their eFIG Accreditations in Interior Landscaping. 

September gave us another sell-out training session focusing on Planting Larger Speciments (4m plus). Many thanks to Martien Lek and Niuwkoop de Kwakel BV for all there assistance and hospitality and in making this a hugely successful event. 

With the awards looming ever closer, it has been a real challenge to get all our judges around the vast number of entries into this year’s awards. I am pleased to say, I have had a tip off that due to the excellent quality of work being produced by our members, we will have a record breaking number of award winners at this year’s special trade show/ awards gala dinner evening.

As I already mentioned this is a trade show year, which brings us our fourth biennial eFIG trade show. We are hoping to build on the previous three successful events, with many of the exhibitors planning on introducing new product lines and services at this year’s show. If that is not enough to get yourself excited about seeing everyone you need to see under one roof, then why not also book yourself into one or more of the informative seminars we are running over the two-days! We have also arranged a schedule of innovative demonstrations from our special guest Peter van der Sluis and there will also be an expert corner located at the eFIG area, which will be manned by Kees Jansen of Fachjan BV. So why not call by, catch up and get some very useful advice. I will be manning the eFIG stand periodically over the two days and personally look forward to meeting as many of you as possible.  

Enjoy the show. 
 

Alan Page

Chairman (2006/07)