The PAGE group hosted their annual conference, table top exhibition and awards dinner at Brandon Hall Hotel & Spa in Brandon, Coventry on Thursday 14th June 2018.
The conference was attended by PAGE members where Brian Hayward welcomed new members and addressed the well received latest PAGE catalogue and other support facilities offered by PAGE. The conference was then followed by a table top exhibition where 44 featured suppliers showed off their products that had been selected for the new catalogue.
In the evening, the awards dinner was attended by around 150 dinner guests including the top UK business gift suppliers and distributors.
The awards evening opened with an introduction about current market conditions by Brian Hayward of PAGE Partnership. Gordon Glenister, who is leaving the BPMA later in the year, received a rapturous round of applause for his services to the industry and was asked to present the awards.
Scores for Supplier service and efficiency are taken from the PAGE monthly and annual surveys to determine the winners. Supplier silver awards were presented to Sarah Allison and Yvonne Blackhurst of the Bizz Badge Company, Ryan Brown and Stephen Reeve of The Umbrella Company, Jules Adams of WCM & A Ltd and David Kershner of Impression Europe Limited. Charlotte New and Sophie Kelembeck received the 2018 Gold Supplier of the Year Award on behalf of The Pen Warehouse.
This year the Distributors awards were split into 3 categories based on turnover and scored by the Suppliers, recognising their professionalism in the promotional products industry. In the under £1,000,000 category the Silver award went to Chris Witt of BH1 Promotions and the Gold was awarded to Blair Carroll of Boosters Ltd. Andrew Nash of Sussex Promotions Limited was presented with the Silver Award in the £1,000,000 to £3,000,000 category with Claire Welch and Suzie Munday of Hambleside Merchandise Limited winning the Gold award. Finally in the over £3,000,000 turnover category the Silver award went to Lloyd Simpson of LSi Ltd, and the Gold Award was presented to Angela Wagstaff, Alice Wakefield and Lisa Cooney of Allwag Promotions Ltd.
After dinner, the crowd was entertained by British comedian Adam Bloom with his hilarious observations of Gordon Glenister of the BPMA.
As ever, the event involved a serious amount of networking with a late night for many.
The following day the networking continued with powerturns, quad biking, axe throwing and a hilarious team building spider’s web activity.
The winning team was made up of Ryan Brown of The Umbrella Company, Anthony Godfrey of Just A Drop, David Wilson of Preseli Ltd, Angela Andrews of Arrow Corporate Promotions Ltd, Andrew Calver of Calver Ltd, and Lee Thompson of The Leather Business.
Published on: June 19th, 2018
