We were delighted to get a mention on Page 13 of the Caravan Club's guide for Caravan Security.

If you are thinking about sprucing up your mobile holiday home, why not have a read and make sure your caravan is kept safe until the weather warms up?

Despite George Osborne pontificating recently about the 'anti-business culture' in the UK, could this be a case of 'you get what you wish for'?

It has been an honour for us to host a lovely Ugandan lady, Maureen, over the last few weeks.

Learning first hand about living and business conditions in an African country has been an amazing (and truly shocking) experience.  I have great admiration for the way Maureen has adapted to the differences in our cultures during her 4 week stay, and it has made us look at our business and the opportunities we have through different eyes.

In the UK, we have few real barriers to business, whatever Mr Osborne thinks.  We can deal equally with men or women, straights or gays.  We can use 'sex', bad language and shock tactics to sell our products and not worry about language barriers.

In Uganda, there are 17 different tribes, all with their own cultures and languages.  English is the only common language, and then only spoken by the educated (often younger) minority.  Women don't so much suffer from glass ceiling, as a glass wall.  Many tribes prohibit women speaking to, or even being taught by, men.  Add on to these very real barriers, the geographical problems of being in a country with only one railway, intermittent electric, broadband etc facilities and many lesser people would just give up all ideas of free trade.  I would be one of them.

Many of my customers and business colleagues have so generously given up their time to meet with Maureen and speak to her about her own personal business interest - Industrial & Occupational Psychology.  I have been heartened by the generous time given by so many individuals, and on behalf of Maureen, would like to thank them.  If Maureen is representative one of the new generation of young Ugandans, there is much for this African country to hope for, and we can all consider ourselves blessed to have contributed, in a very small way, to this change.

not just to certain demographics of the population, but also to vinyl users. 

Few modern vinyls 'behave' in temperatures of less than +5c.  They become brittle and tear easily.  The adhesive becomes hard, making it difficult to get a good, lasting application.  For this reason, it can often take a good hour in the morning to heat the workshop and the vinyl rolls to anything near usable.  We often finish early too, because there is no point cutting and prepping the vinyl, only to leave it to be applied the following day.

January has been a busy month for car and van decals - mostly because of the unusually mild weather.  So who can complain?

Or do the nights just seem shorter?  Despite the relatively mild weather we are enjoying for January, it is still pretty hard to get motivated these dark, chilly mornings.  It was particularly difficult today, especially when we had to scrape the ice off the INSIDE of the workshop windows just to let some light in.

If the temperature is below 5c (which it was first thing inside even!) the vinyl won't behave and we have to resort to all sorts of tricks with hotwater bottles and hairdriers - and that is just to warm ourselves up!

We are feeling especially benevolent having received a lovely letter from a primary school that we made a banner for.  They raised £1200 from their Christmas Bazaar.  How lovely of them to write and tell us?  Personally, we all hope for a 'thank you' from our children, nieces, nephews etc for gifts received at Christmastide.  These days it is so easy to communicate by text or email, taking minutes if you are not into traditional letter writing, but so few youngsters take the time.

Which makes business customers who write all the nicer . . . . .

All the best to all our lovely customers.  We close on 21 December, and re-open on 3rd January.

We will also be looking for our two charities to sponsor . . . . email here if you would like to suggest a worthy cause.

The latest marketing band wagon - QR codes. 

Nothing to do with customer service - although as a company, we like to think we are Quick Responders.

Nothing to do with design fads - although you could say we are Quirky Reckoners

Nothing to do with market segmentation - although it we could be thought of as Questionable Regroupers

Enough!!!  QR Codes are those funny little black and white squares that keep popping up on adverts in papers, on banners, on t-shirts and all over the place!  QR stands for Quick Response Codes - and the idea is you 'scan' them with your smartphone and get taken directly to a website page.

Do they work?  We've not yet measured a response as we have only just started putting them on our promotional material for 2012 - but M&S are using them heavily so there must be something in it.

Why not have a small one put on your banner?