Several of our leading retailers are due to open their flagship Eco Stores in September and October this year and all have made extensive use of Monodraught’s energy saving products, the Windcatchers and SunPipes.  Full details will be announced to the press in due course but in the meantime, an independent Report from a leading firm of Consulting Engineers has shown that there will be a 20% saving in the annual energy consumption of chillers used on such Stores, as a result of using Windcatcher natural ventilation and Monodraught have always previously stated that up to 70% saving in electricity costs can be saved using SunPipes instead of conventional lighting during daytime use.  This determined drive by the big Supermarket chains to reduce their energy costs with most of the Supermarkets saying that they intend to reduce energy consumption by up to 50% by the year 2010 is a welcome move for the better.  All these results also augur well for Monodraught for the 2012 Olympics following on “Team GB’s” tremendous victories at the Beijing Olympic Games, Monodraught systems are already being actively considered for a number of 2012 Olympic Projects to be held in London.

Our Technical Director, Tony Cull, has a great passion for rock music.  Every year Tony attends the Escot Park open air Music Festival in Devon, but every year it seems to rain (this year was no exception) so this time, Tony thought he would ‘beat the mud’ and equip himself with a Landrover!  This year the Festival was called “Beautiful Days” and 10,000 people got stuck in the mud!  Tony, who has just celebrated his 18th year with Monodraught, is due to take over as Managing Director in March 2009 but also has a great passion for motorbikes (he has seven altogether) as well as music, so he continues to bring his own inimitable style of management to Monodraught!

Four of Monodraught’s long established Sales Managers (and their wives where appropriate) together with Monodraught’s Terry Payne and Head of Design, Nick Hopper, enjoyed a weekend’s intensive training in Austria recently but in between, they enjoyed the excesses of a Ferrari 430 Spyder, two Lamborghinis, and an Audi R8!  Part of the exercise was to take these super cars over the Grossglockner Pass into Italy, looping back round up to Kitzbühel but the drive also took in an expedition to Obergurgl, the highest village in Austria, bringing back memories of Monodraught’s momentous Christmas trip in December 2001.  All members of the team came through with flying colours and were back at their desks at 9am on the Monday morning!

Having persuaded our Sales Managers to stand still long enough for a photo (they are usually too busy to stand around!) we had the opportunity at a recent Sales Managers’ Meeting to have a line up.  They now present a formidable team covering most of the UK, except Scotland and Northern Ireland, that have their own offices but even now, we are still interviewing and recruiting more Sales Managers for the team.

Monodraught’s staff celebrated their Summer Party in Austria at the 3-day Boogie Woogie Festival in Kitzbühel.  The star attraction was Mungo Jerry but with the line-up of three musicians, the Boogie Woogie spirit carried over the 3-days with the first day being a New Orleans open street party in Kitzbühel, ending with an all-night session at a mountain villa.  In between times, Monodraught staff enjoyed swimming in the mountain lakes and perilious mountain biking from the top of the Buchesteinwand chair lift station.  The trip concluded with a visit to King Ludwig II Palace of Versaille on an island retreat in the Chiemsee with a pretty exhausted Monodraught group making it home by midnight on Sunday night!

As a result of “public demand” we now make our literature email service a standard feature on our website, as you can see from the chart right.  We also have a ‘button’ on the left-hand side of the screen on any category of product, so that you can always receive our literature by email.  In this day and age, although people always compliment us on our literature printed, email is instant, so we do hope that our many Clients will find this new service of assistance.

Such is the popularity of our commercial SunPipes that we have now put together a “Gallery” of the first 50 photographs of Projects around the world, since these all show the amazing transformation that takes place, when natural light is piped into a building through a SunPipe system.  Please click on the button above.  We will update this ‘rolling gallery’ of Commercial SunPipes whenever the opportunity arises.