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SPECIAL REPORT
Visit to Eastern Europe by TSGA (Thailand Screen & Graphic Association), FESPA Associate Member
Hosted by FESPA Member Associations :
Sieťotlačový zväz SR (Slovakia), Sítotiskový svaz ČR (Czech Republic) and PSSiDC (Poland)
Another first for FESPA took place last month (July) in Eastern Europe when we welcomed a delegation of 14 printers and suppliers from TSGA in Thailand who were on a fact finding visit to explore the possibilities of developing business opportunities between Thai and European Association members. Our Associations Sieťotlačový zväz SR (Slovakia),
Sítotiskový svaz ČR (Czech Republic) and PSSiDC (Poland) hosted meetings for all attendees to network, discover more about methods of working and working practices in the four countries and to exchange ideas and information in a convivial and friendly atmosphere.
Slovakia
The project began at Vienna airport where Ludovit Bartos (Secretary of Slovak Association) and I welcomed the group following their 14 hour flight from Thailand via Istanbul. Though they were all tired, our agreed itinerary did not allow for a rest at this stage so we located and boarded our coach for the journey to Bratislava where we were to meet with our Slovak and Czech colleagues for lunch. This had been arranged for the Kamzik TV tower restaurant in Bratislava (a revolving restaurant about 70 m high) where on a clear day you can enjoy nice view of Bratislava or see even see parts of neighbouring countries, such as Austria and Czech Republic. This gave everyone an opportunity to relax, take in the wonderful views and enjoy a good lunch but we were soon off to the hotel Danube where our first meeting was to take place.
With a combined group of about 17 printers from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and with our new friends from Thailand, we held the first meeting of the trip which gave everybody an opportunity to speak about themselves, their companies and explain what they did. Then we had a question and answer session with many of the group trying to find out more about activities undertaken by all colleagues. There were exchanges of gifts between Associations (this is a wonderful FESPA tradition) and each Association had a gift for colleagues from other Associations. All in all this was a very worthwhile meeting and to finish it off, FESPA Vice-President, Gyorgy Kovacs who had driven from Hungary to participate in this activity, made a brief speech about building on this initiative and working together to further global business activity and to share information and knowledge between Associations and Continents. He concluded by saying how proud he was to be involved in this new FESPA initiative and believed this was the way forward for FESPA.
After dinner, our Thai colleagues, who were quite understandably very tired, went to bed for a well deserved sleep. The next day we were able to show them Bratislava (a city I love), enabling them to learn a little about the history of this part of Europe, and by now relationships were beginning to be formed between various members of the group.
The next day we started off early for Trencin (en route for Krakow) where we visited the castle and took lunch with all three Associations present, after which we parted company with our Slovak and Czech hosts to continue our journey to Krakow.
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Poland
We arrived quite late due to long journey from Bratislava, but were met by Michał Kridel and Jacek Stencel, the Secretary and President of the Polish Association. And after such a long coach journey, there was just time for dinner and bed.
On Thursday (17th) after breakfast we made a short walking tour of the Kazimierz district of Krakow following which we visited Lynka Company, the largest and possibly best T-shirt and promotional printer in Poland. We were welcomed by Katarzyna Borek who then took us to the Board room where President John Lynch gave us an overview of the work Lynka undertake. They are certainly at the cutting edge of T-shirt printing with a new 16 colour MHM carousel recently added to their equipment and John explained to the group the history of the company and how they had grown from one small hand carousel in 1995 to be the leading textile and promotional printer in Poland. With a customer base including Coca Cola, Microsoft, Shell, Sheraton and Kodak to name but a few, they clearly place quality at the top of their agenda and have a most impressive list of products and clients. Lynka is famous for its high quality and in its modern state of the art factory they undertake both printing and embroidery and since 1997 they have won more than 35 international prizes and awards at various trade shows.
Lynka is still growing rapidly and export to over 20 European countries. Staffed by a team of over 130 highly qualified employees working 3 shifts around the clock, and with more than 3000 customers and over 10,000 products on offer, Lynka are here to stay. It was a most interesting visit and we were all made so welcome.
After lunch it was time for our second meeting, this time with Polish printers, and once more this proved to be a very worthwhile activity with discussions taking place on how possible work activities could be explored. It was a very useful exercise to learn how other countries operate and I was so envious of my new friend Suraaut Narongrit, who has a factory just 200 metres from a most beautiful beach in Hua Hin. I can imagine what his workers do lunchtime! Once more there was a lot of discussion and questions about the various businesses of members and everybody seemed to be getting on very well. Again there were presentations and gifts for everybody including a bottle of Polish vodka, always a great and enjoyable gift.
That evening the whole group were guests of the Polish Association with our evening starting with a ride around Krakow (another city I just love) in horse drawn carriages followed by a splendid dinner at a restaurant in the city centre. Once again everybody was tired, so when we returned to the hotel, most of the group went to bed but a few of us managed to find the bar before we too decided to retire. On passing through reception it was great to see a designer from Poland talking with a T-Shirt printer from Thailand about various designs and it was clear that they were both excited about the concept of working together so I hope this will happen.
Our final day had been reserved for sightseeing and shopping so the group visited Auschwitz in the morning but in the afternoon, rather than go shopping, a late change was made to the programme and we visited the Wieliczka Saltmine, a world (UNESCO) heritage site. Everybody was amazed at this magnificent and enthralling visit, a truly incredible place. After another dinner with some amusing entertainment which had been organised by PSSiDC, we returned to our hotel once again exhausted after a long day.
The next day it was time to travel on to Warsaw where Ludovit and I left the group to travel home but our Thai friends were to do some sightseeing in Warsaw the next day before they returned home after an exhausting, but I hope rewarding and informative trip.
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None of this would have been possible without the hard work and efforts of our three European Associations Sieťotlačový zväz SR, Sítotiskový svaz ČR and PSSiDC who organised such a fantastic programme for everybody. We will be circulating contact details of all participants to enable them to explore any business opportunities and as many people have said to me, we hope FESPA will organise more activities like this.
I believe I have made many new friends following on from this visit and though I will not be on the FESPA team going to Asia Pacific this November, I believe there is sufficient interest from our European colleagues for a trip to be organised subject to prices of flights etc. They are keen to visit the show and Thailand.
Thank you Zlatko, Ludovit, Zdeněk, Jitka, Jacek and Michał for making all these arrangements and many thanks also to Khun Pirach Thampipit and his colleagues from Thailand for wanting to learn more about European screen and digital printing. Finally thanks to our Hungarian coach driver Gábor from EETS Budapest, who drove us safely over about 800 km and the Thai guide, Dom, who helped make everything run so smoothly and acted as translator to the group.
At the end of 2004, FESPA decided to reinvest surplus revenues from its show into projects to support the industry. These projects are proposed and managed by our Member Associations. Since that time, over 175 projects have been considered with 130 having been approved. Projects can cover any activity provided they meet the objectives and criteria established by the FESPA Board and as such, projects approved have encompassed such activities as:
n conferences and seminars;
n surveys;
n booklets and publications;
n recruitment events;
n education and training activities of which e-learning in screen printing is perhaps the most widely known;
n production of environmental guides (Planet friendly);
n website and database support;
n translations of articles (mainly technical)
n workshops.
Other FESPA initiatives have included:
n Sensations; European Terms and Conditions of business (currently being checked and translated by Member Associations); An expansion of the dictionary of technical terms into 10 languages (now available on this website); Guidance to members on Wee and RoHS and Reach.
 During this period, over €750,000 has been approved for such projects and, in addition, with shows now being organised outside of Europe (India and Thailand), we are able to help the printers in those countries as surplus revenues are reinvested in the country where the show takes place through the local Association. Much of the material produced or used during these activities are accessible in the FESPA Academy. Let us provide alittle more about some of these supported projects.
FESPA sponsored a conference in Thailand just before Christmas which was attended by about 200 members of the Thai Association. A packed programme had been arranged with a small exhibition running throughout the day. Marcus Timson and myself (Chris) attended from FESPA and both of us were very impressed with the organisation of the seminar as well as the fabulous facilities of the BITEC centre which is where FESPA Asia Pacific is due to be held in November. We were made most welcome and treated to wonderful Thai hospitality throughout our stay, but the highlight perhaps was the awards dinner where winners of the annual Thai screen printing awards received their trophys. Both Marcus and myself were honoured to be asked to present gold awards to two of the winners and be able to participate in such a splendid event. A more detailed report of our visit will be available in the March issue of FESPA World.
E-learning will soon be available in 10 languages with the addition of Chinese and Thai courses. Interest is beginning to pick up in all languages as the opportunity for formal training is diminishing everywhere. This is due to the loss of so many colleges and learning establishments throughout Europe so if you want your staff to adopt best practice in screen printing and save you from considerable waste of both materials and inks, not to mention workers time and most important of all MONEY, you should seriously consider enrolling one or two of them on the course and see what they say. Some companies have enrolled all their staff on the course and have seen the many benefits accruing. In addition they have a more competent and professional workforce.
FESPA achieved a first at the end of last year by supporting The Adriactic Print Forum - an event organised by our Slovenian Association . The event was a two day seminar which took place in Ljubliana, Slovenia where the main speaker was Nicholas Hellmuth from Flaar. The event was simultaneously webcast live to a number of universities in Europe and also to China where an audience was also assembled. FESPA opened the seminar from our Reigate office and a presentation on Sensations was made from London both contributions being live. In addition many of the lectures were filmed so members of Associations will soon be able to view many of the lectures in the Academy area of this website.
Also in October we held our third Czech/Slovak seminar which attracted a record number of participants from 6 countries. A local tv crew came and filmed part of the proceedings and a three minute clip was shown on local Slovakian television. You can see this clip on this website and a more detailed report will also be available in the members area of the Academy fairly soon.
At our last projects committee meeting (16th January) we approved a few more projects as follows: Baltic States – Approval to develop a website in four languages (Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and English) as well as support to translate the dictionary of terms into the three Baltic languages.
Italy – development of a new website
Norway – Sponsoring of a printing project for students which is being held in conjunction with the opening of the new opera house in Oslo.
We also agreed in principle to support a number of other initiatives pending further information being submitted or requiring the approval of the FESPA Board. Some of these have now been approved by the FESPA Board and these are:
China - A practical special effects printing event on May 9th in Hangzhou (about 1.5 hours from Shanghai) which will be attended by around 150 printers. The object of this event is to explain how to achieve some of the special effects that were featured in the Sensations book. More information will soon be available through CSGIA (www.csgia.org)
In Australia we will be supporting the production of a commemorative book celebrating the 50th Anniversary of SGIAA. The book will show the development and growth of screen printing in Australia and is bound to be a worthwhile memento for our Australian friends.
Support was also given in principle to a colour standardisation project in Belgium (to be co-ordinated by Febelgra) but currently we are examining the best way to achieve this. We are aware that the Ghent Workgroup and FOGRA are both involved in this work so we want to ensure that the FESPA project will not conflict with these other activities.
At the last Projects Committee meeting held in Geneva, we have supported a 4th Czech/Slovak seminar in October, the establishment of an Australian Pavilion at the FESPA Asia Pacific show in November, translation of FESPA World articles for the Finnish Association magazine, a new website for Norwegian and Italian Associations, the preparation of a new members brochure for the Portuguese Association (Apigraf) and two projects for AEDES (Spain) - the first a Sensations project directed at print buyers the second being a textile colour management technical event. A number of other projects are to be referred to the FESPA Board which meets in June.
The next Projects Committee meeting is in July.
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