Tel: 01644 460296
CONFERENCE PRODUCTS
LATEST NEWS FROM STABLECROFT
Donkeys Galore
We are so proud of Aimee, our fundraising donkey who has done sterling work throughout 2009 to raise money for various equine charities. Not only was she able to save Pivione and her son, Tibere, two little donkeys destined for the meat trade, she was so successful that another little donkey, Ulysses, only one year old, was able to come to safety with the other two. They are now safely in the permanent care of Sussex Horse Rescue Trust.
Little Pivione has had a hard life, but as she is only 7 years old, hopefully she will recover well and make friends in her new home.
Her son, Tibere, is now firm friends with Ulysses, and once they have had attention from the vet, they will be suitable for rehoming. They are only 1-2 years old, but many donkey boys born in Europe are inevitably bound for the meat trade, as no one will pay for their 'fixing' so that they can be kept in social groups.
And Not Just Donkeys
Aimee's fundraising has been so successful this year that in August 2009 she played a very large part in saving Caladeux and her filly foal, Eclipse, from the meat trade. Caladeux is another feral mare constantly having foals, all of which were sent for slaughter. As a completely unhandled little pony, she is of little value, and she and her 2009 foal were in imminent danger - sadly her 2008 foal is due to go for slaughter this month.
For Caladeux and this year's baby, the vicious circle of constant foals with no future has now been broken and she arrived in England into the care of Animals Refuge Carlisle, a charity set up originally to care for pit ponies. We have been thrilled to be able to visit her and while she is still very shy and protective of her baby, she now has a bright future ahead of her. When her little chestnut foal, Eclipse, is weaned, Caladeux will either retire completely, or if she is amenable, be trained to be a riding pony.
She was chosen as she was clearly a very proud mother, and had such a hopeful expression as she watched over her baby, that many people were moved to find the money to help save her - Aimee donkey contributed £1000 towards this campaign, and this enabled a wretched three year old filly, whose only crime was to have had an untreated leg injury which left her badly scarred, to join the transport and come to safety.
All three are now safe and secure and are young enough to lead useful lives in the UK, rather than being thrown away and slaughtered.
Caladeux is such a hopefull little person, that we just couldn't leave her behind.
The little chestnut filly, so miserable, and so close to being selected for the next transport to the abbatoir, just broke our hearts - she is now doing so well and is very very happy in her new home.
We appreciate that we cannot help the 100,000 horses ponies and donkeys who end up in the meat industry every year, but we help those we can.
More Overseas Customers
We now have quite a number of overseas customers - we currently supply:-
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
Finland
France
Germany
Hungary
Latvia
Netherlands
Norway
Singapore
Spain
USA
While we are happy to supply these customers with direct exports from the UK, we would be happy to work with agents and distributors in any overseas destinations - just drop us an email if you would like to work with us.
Our First Customer in Greece
We would like to welcome Matina as our first customer from Greece - we have made sales in Europe but not to southern climes, mainly due to freight costs. However we have found a new courier company whose rates make shipping single items to far off destinations less jaw droppingly expensive. Hopefully Matina will spread the word on her patch and we will see more of our conference items on show in Europe and beyond.
We Pass the 800 Mark
In June 2008 we passed the 600 customer mark - we are amazed that in June 2009 we are please to welcome Bank of New York as customer number 850! If all the other 849 would like to place an order this month we would be even happier!
Custom Made Badge Trays
We have made a number of one-off metal badge trays for customers who are using unusual badges which will not fit our standard trays - these range from simple ID badges which are just too thick to fit the slots in our trays, but we have managed to make some to suit curved badges - our manufacturer groans every time we send them a special badge but so far they have managed to adapt the product no matter what we throw at them. Obviously the price for these custom trays are more than the standard ones, but given many are made in small quantities, such as less than ten trays, solving the problem of how to transport a particularly difficult badge outweighs the cost of the trays, particularly if you have a lot of stock of it!
Appeal for Mother and Son
As ever, we try to help equines in trouble - our fund raising donkey, Aimee, has been out on a number of Saturdays raising money for well known charities such as the Brooke Hospital, SPANA, Animal Care in Egypt, Scottish Borders Donkey Sanctuary and many others. She is booked to do 15 street collections this year, so she will be a busy young lady.
We are trying desperately to raise money to save a seven year old donkey, called Pivione, and her two year old son, Tibere. They are currently at a fattening farm in France and will be exported to Italy. Pivione is likely to be in foal again, and sadly Italian slaughterhouses permit the killing of in-foal mares - their meat is much valued, as it has a distinctive flavour.Foal meat is also at a premium, and any coloured horse ponies or donkeys make more money as their skin is valuable for the fashion and furnishing trades.
Stablecroft Ltd are putting up the money to buy Tibere, as he is a stallion, so he is less valuable and few people will want him, but we will need to raise Euros 400 for his mother and £650 to bring them both to safety. As they have been together all their lives, it will be very traumatic for Pivione if we can only save her baby but due to the credit crunch it is becoming increasinlgy difficult to help these wretched creatures. If anyone would like to save a baby donkey and his mum, please contact us - we have a home ready for them in Sussex with a local charity so they are all sorted, we just need to raise more money to bring them to safety.
Christmas Charity Appeal - Excellent Result
Our Christmas appeal for Equine Section (www.equinesection.com) managed to raise enough money to save a little French donkey, now named Ebony, from live export to the processed meats trade in Italy. Ebony is only two years old, but was destined to die - he is now safe in the UK, and has been put in the care of a charity, Sussex Horse Rescue Trust, and will be put out on loan to a suitable home where he can enjoy himself with other donkeys for company. Sadly several of his friends are still at risk.
We received many donations - thank you so much for your support- and our own fundraising donkey Aimee braved the coldest day of the year (27th December) to meet bargain hunters in Ayr and raise the truly amazing sum of £515! Her human companions resembled a pair of ice statues, but Aimee was tucked up snug and warm in two heavy weight rugs. As ever, people flocked to see her and bring her gifts of food, while we froze and starved. At one point my feet were so cold that if I had had a cup of tea I would probably have poured it over my feet to try to warm them up!
Anyway an excellent result and another little life saved.
Christmas Cards - Save Yourself a Job This Year
Too much to do and too little time - instead of sending out company Christmas cards this year, why not donate and save a little donkey from the meat trade. During 2008, we have assisted a number of donkeys to find safety in the UK, rather than face a long journey to Italy where they are slaughtered for the processed meats trade. They travel for 3-4 days, without rest, food or water, EU regulations regarding trasportation are routinely flaunted and poor horses ponies and donkeys have horrendous journeys before meeting their deaths. 100,000 a year are doomed to make these journeys of despair.
Vodka Donkey was the first to arrive in March but now there are ten donkeys at Scottish Borders Donkey Sanctuary and two donkeys at Sussex Horse Rescue Trust. It costs around £800 to save one - can you make a donation to part pay to save another little soul from slaughter.
Our own donkey, Aimee, has been taking to the local town centres to raise awareness and most importantly money - in a collection for Scottish Borders Donkey Sanctuary she raised nearly £600.00 which help save Kofi and Charlotte, two delightful donkeys.
Here is a picture of Aimee in action - if you would like to help please contact us direct or have a look on the website www.equinesection.com for further information.
Stablecroft Carbon Footprint
We continue to reduce our carbon footprint. Our efforts to install a wind turbine have stalled - the site survey did not show that the wind speed was adequate to produce a worthwhile return on investment - given how windy our Scottish hillside is in winter (and a fair bit of the summer as well) we find it hard to believe this is not a perfect location for a turbine. The only way to be sure is to install a test station which will take readings for a year and then see what the statistics say. We are mulling over the cost of this and whether we feel it is likely to produce the results we need.
In the meantime, we are progressing on another route. In the autumn we intend to plant a large amount of willow, which can be coppiced in a couple of years' time and will fuel our wood burning fire and may in time be able to fuel our wood pellet boiler.
Stablecroft Goes Greener
We are still keen to improve our carbon footprint and are hopeful that a site visit from a wind turbine engineer will confirm that our location is suitable for the installation of a turbine to generate most of the electricity we require to run the business in Scotland.
Stablecroft Welcomes Customer No 600
We are thrilled to welcome customer Number 600 in June 2008 - if only all 600 customers placed orders every month we would be even happier!
Vodka Donkey Saved from Slaughter
Vodka donkey arrived in Scotland in March 2008 and joined the Stablecroft Team. Not only was our appeal to save Vodka successful, we managed to raise enough money to bring her gallic friend, Cazaux. Cazaux is now in residence at the Scottish Borders Donkey Sanctuary, where he is training everyone to speak French.
Both were in an appalling condition on arrival in the UK, totally emaciated, feet over grown, covered in lice and generally very very poor. Vodka was particularly traumatised, very depressed and anxious. She has recovered physically for a large extent, but is still very 'blank' and unresponsive. Cazaux was always more resilient, and while his physical condition has a long way to go, his attitude to life is completely irrepresible - from day one he was shouting for joy and ready to go out with the lads for a night in the pub and a curry.
Cazaux enjoying his new life - he has a future in advertising!
Cazaux in transit from France, a 4 day journey - his face tells it all
Vodka at home - she will one day be a lovely donkey once she forgets her recent past.
Stablecroft Charity Appeal - Go Vodka Crazy
Vodka is a four year old donkey who is being fattened in France, in the Loire area, for the Italian meat trade. When she is a bit fatter, she will endure a horrific journey to Italy. This will take many days, probably without food,water or rest, in a large transporter where she will be loose with other horses and ponies. Many will not survive the journey and will break legs, be trampled on, injure their eyes, fights will break out - many of the horses are in foal, or with young foals making this final journey. Vodka is destined to be made into salami, mortadella or sausages.
For £800 we can save Vodka and bring her to Stablecroft Headquarters in Scotland where she can join our team of rescue donkeys. We have to purchase her and transport her - would anyone be able to give up their Vodka shots to help save poor little Vodka - any donations large or small would be appreciated. You can see full details of her - and sadly another little donkey on www.equinesection.com - we have committed to bringing her here - could you share some of the costs? On your next night out, instead of having another round, send the money to save Vodka.
Stablecroft Conference Products Go Green
We appreciate that the nature of the conference products business does not lend itself very well to 'going green'. We have reduced our carbon footprint by, wherever possible, having our products manufactured locally, though there are still some items which we do have to import as tjhey are not available from the UK.
We can supply our delegate badge paper inserts in re-cycled paper but it does compromise the brightness of the white paper inserts, which many customers like. There is also a more restricted palette of colours for the coloured badge inserts and again the colours are not as sharp.
So we have concentrated on using 'green fuel' where possible. We have installed a wood pellet boiler which runs our central heating - this is currently supplied by 'bought in' wood pellets but as it can burn other crops, we are investigating growing some willow as a potential fuel. We also have a log burning stove for background heating and this is powered by logs grown on our very doorstep. We are contemplating a small wind turbine as our experiments with solar power have been largely unsuccessful due to the lack of sunshine in winter. We use solar power for some of our outdoor lighting for our warehouse and will continue to experiment with it to see if it is viable in other uses.
Christmas Greetings from Stablecroft
The Stablecroft team of donkeys - Ferguson and Aimee - posed very sweetly for the 2007 Christmas card - they are braving the Scottish weather though some days their preference would be to stay in their donkey domaine and not venture out into the frozen wilds.
Stablecroft in Lapland In Time for Christmas
We almost couldn't quite believe it when we received our first order for Lapland, in early December 2007. We have despatched Rudolph with his sleigh and our conference name badge carrying cases and hope he has a safe journey.
Stablecroft Christmas Offers
Finding Christmas is already getting you down - all those cards to send out - can we help? If you want mailing labels produced just ask - we already provide fully produced badges to a number of customers so can we make your life easier by taking over some of the pre Christmas tasks - get to your parties early
Stablecroft Signage
If you are organising in house events for the festive season, will you suddenly find you need signs to direct visitors to the room, bar (essential!), and other facilities. Rather than have your staff running around like crazy delivering guests to their destination, good use of signage can make your life much easier. We can provide a very attractive range of either Table Top or Floorstanding signs, which are modern and professional - just ask for further information.
Stablecroft Welcomes Customer No 500
As a small family business, we were delighted to note that in November our customer list passed the magical 500! To all our customers old and new, we would just like to say thank you for your support and much appreciated business. We don't always appreciate the extremely short lead times but we always do our best to pull white rabbits out of hats when required.
Stablecroft Badge Trays Find New Uses
While most of our conference badge trays are used at conferences and events, an increasing number of customers are using our metal badge trays to hold visitor passes in reception - the trays offer a very neat and space saving way of displaying passes, ready for use, particularly where it is impractical to wall mount a storage facility.
Stablecroft Record October
Our new website has now been found by major search engines (we hope!!) and we would like to welcome the ten new customers, from very diverse industries, who have purchased Stablecroft conference products this month.
Stablecroft Launch new Website
Stablecroft are very excited to announce the launch of our new website. We've been working on it for quite some time and today is the day we switch over.
We hope you will take time to explore the website. Since it just went live, we would also like your help and feedback. Just go to the 'Contact us' page and send us an email. Thanks to STORM for building the website and making the process so simple.
August 2007
Stablecroft move Premises
We are very pleased to announce that we have moved into our new premises in Dumfries and Galloway. You can view our contact page for full address details.
June 2007