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Grand Opening Review

14th July 2009

They say pride comes before a fall; well all I can say is get me some Savlon. The official Grand Opening of the Teckentrup Depot took place on Thursday 25th of June and I have to say I was left humbled by the turn out and full of pride due to the words of encouragement and general goodwill from all who attended.

We were of course blessed with an average 'northern' summer's day well into the late 20's, a tasty barbecue, a glass of champagne and excellent company from friends, old and new, who had traveled from all over the UK, and of course Germany.

Our guests were free to browse through the showroom and warehouse areas where they could view our stock and production facilities. This gave us a chance to talk them through our flexible approach to carrying stock and delivering a quality product on short lead times.

When we called the occasion to order I was given the opportunity to remind our guests that our single objective is â€˜happy customers'. We believe they order, pay on time, re-order and allow us to make a profit; the business model couldn't be simpler. This brought us to the highlight of the day the "Cutting of the Ribbon" which was performed by Kai Teckentrup the CEO of Teckentrup GmbH, it has to be said his words just prior to cutting the tape' whilst kept to our motto â€˜keep it real' seemed to get â€˜lost in translation!' - Thankfully!

They say you should never ever perform with children, animals and in my own opinion CNC routers on open days. That said whilst I retired to the safety of the offices Jon and Paul performed a faultless demonstrated of our production capabilities by cutting down some panels, and talking everyone through the processes.

In amongst all of this a couple of bottles of champagne were awarded most notably to Nigel from Excel who installed the complete counterbalance system into a horizontal track system in 2mins 23 secs, lots of people got close but it was never bettered!

I have to say that I was rushed off my feet all day talking to customers many of who had never seen the CarTeck product before. Again, comments on the product left me feeling buoyant and confident as to what the future will hold. Some seasoned veterans even suggested that this door was probably the best sectional on the market! I of course agreed!

For those who fancied it, a night in Liverpool was organised and once again it worked very well. Great food, great company all capped off a fantastic day for us. In fact after 20 years serving the industry I once again found myself reflecting on how lucky I have been to be part of an industry where so many friends took it upon themselves to come and support us on our big day.

So a big thank you to all of our friends old and new, supporting us by buying product and then coming back for more. To Kai Teckentrup and his team who have helped make this possible and I mustn't forget the Signature Doors team a big thanks to them as well. Finally of course the two Alison's who have supported Jon and me in getting Signature Doors aka The Teckentrup Depot off the ground.

Thank you all.

Jim & Jon