Farewell as President

I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed being President and meeting many people. I have worked hard and I have learnt a lot as well. We have launched our Colour Management in Textiles Modules but we still have to work hard to ensure that we train our trainers well. We have not paid as much attention to the UK textile companies as we would like but I did start to visit some at the end of my Presidency. Mike Bartle our new President and Susie Hargreaves are going to make sure they contact and speak to industry everywhere. I am therefore saying farewell as President but hope to see you all soon.

I would like to wish Mike all the best. I know he will be a great President.

Last but not least

This was my last trip as President and it was to the AATCC conference in Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. This was the first visit where I have been and not actually worked but acted as a pure ambassador for the Society. We met with our old friends Jack Daniels, head of AATCC, past President Martin Bide and the new President Fred Cook. I presented Fred with a present to mark his being made honorary member, a reciprocal agreement for Presidents of either society. Martin Bide made me honorary member of AATCC in April last year. There were two brits winning awards our own Professor David Lewis and John Provost. David Lewis won the prestigious Olney award for outstanding achievement in textile Chemistry and John won the Millsen award together with Wim Prinsen for the invention of the first commercially available ink jet printer for textile fabrics. The conference had about 150 to 200 attendees and I attended the C2C track which I found to be very interesting.

Visit to UK events

In February I attended the AGM of the London Region together with Susie Hargreaves who spoke about the SDC in the 21st century. March has been a very busy month. I started by visiting two dye houses in the North West to see why they were successful and what the SDC could do for them. The two companies were Blackburn Yarn Dyers and Pincroft Dyeing and Printing Ltd an I hope to visit two more before I finish my Presidency. I attended the Midland regions’ AGM and seminar as well as being a judge at the Midland heat of the design competition. It was my honour to present the 50 year membership awards at this time. Shortly after this I flew to Northern Ireland for their AGM and was also a judge at their design competition. I was welcomed at both events which I really enjoyed, and was amazed about the sheer talent of all the young designers, their enthusiasm and eloquence of the presentations. It was really hard to decide the winners! The winners were Cassandra Hawkins in the midlands and Aiofe Twomey in Northern Ireland, both will go on to the final in Bradford at the end of April.

The first and second days of colour in India

We held the first Day of Colour in India at KCT in Coimbatore. We were honoured to meet the principal Dr Joseph Thanikal as well as Professors and HOD of Fashion Technology, DR Ramachandralu, as well as Dr D'Souza. Professor and HOD Textile Technology. Mr Sankaran Professor and Head coordinator made sure our tour of the facilities were successful. Siva arranged the event and I gave a talk on colour perception, best practice , Ramya Kandiyoor from International Colour Solutions presented about how important it is to have the right colour standards and Llaxmi Natarajan an inspirational designer based in Australia encouraged the students to share the design concepts.

I need to mention here how impressive the main building was it looked like a palace and you can see it in the back drop of one of the pictures.

We held the second Day of Colour at PSG in Coumbatore, unfortunately I don't have any photographs but the same event was held with the same speakers. Dr T Ramachandran hosted the event very well. It was here that we saw the most amazing sari design with 164,000 hues.

'Global Textile Opportunities – Vision India'

I attended the TAI conference in Mumbai on 16 to 17 January and presented a lecture on Best Practice and Innovation in Colour Assessment and Communication on the morning of 17th. I attended the SDC EC trustee meeting on 16th and we discussed the forthcoming training courses and the conference in Goa. It was good to meet the trustees and many of my old friends at the conference. Please see Vilas Gupte who invited me to speak at the TAI conference on the right,

The first Colour Management for Textiles Diploma modules were held in December at Verivide in Leicester. The attendees came fro Next, Panache and John Lewis. The courses were highly successful and all attendees achieved a pass of over 75%. Well done to everyone. The comments were that the courses were excellent and wished they had been held before. They did want to spend a longer time with each modules as they had so many questions! We will address these on Modules 3 and 4 when we repeat some of the content again. in more detail and these and more questions will be answered. The chief tutors were myself and Janet Best.

Bangladesh and Hong Kong

This was a very important and interesting visit, the first region in Bangladesh, the second female President and the first female CEO of the SDC. We visited the College of Textile Engineering and Technology in Dhaka and four other companies BDL, Bextex, Pertex and Dird Composite where we got an overview of good fabric production. The traffic made us late on several occasions. We had an inauguration seminar where both I and Arthur Whelan, previous President, spoke about best practice and getting it right first time. There were about 200 attendees. I would like to thank Mr Barmma for both making us welcome and organising an excellent seminar and series of visits.

Afterwards we travelled to Hong Kong for their AGM and to visit several key educational establishments and retailers. The Hong Kong region now 36 years old and is crucial to our links to China. There were several key awards with the top one being John Xin who won a silver medal and the ultimate Fellowship award. There are very key opportunities here in HK and China for our Diploma Courses and consultancy. I would like to thank the committee and the friends of Hong Kong who have made this a very successful region.

I would like to say that or new CEO, Susie Hargreaves, was an excellent ambassador for our company as well as learning about our membership and regional requirements. I am sure she will ensure all membership and regional needs are met in the UK and abroad.