“The Best Yet”

The 2006 carton Conference has received widespread praise.

Held at Staverton Park, Northamptonshire, the event attracted an audience of 140, with a ratio of carton converters to suppliers of almost 2:1. The converter delegates who attended represented 50 businesses including 75% of the industry’s Top 50 Companies.

Delegates heard a variety of presentations from a widely drawn range of speakers, who outlined the Industry’s present difficult position and some alternative routes for survival.

Unprompted feedback has included comments like:

• Very well organised ~ material supplier
• An excellent conference; glad I came ~ equipment supplier
• Proud our name was associated with this conference ~ sponsor
• Congratulations; very professional ~ sponsor
• Strong messages; very frank and thought provoking ~ carton maker
• A great success both in business and social contexts ~ carton maker
• I enjoyed it; and learnt something myself ~ speaker
• Industry can now go forward rather than looking constantly over its shoulder ~ carton maker

Host, BBC Correspondent Nick Higham drew proceedings to a close with a summary of the future direction that delegates might like to consider. Despite the reluctance of the audience to speak out publicly at the time on their personal intentions, subsequent feedback has revealed a strong acceptance of the messages and a determination to embrace some of the ways forward.

On behalf of the organising Committee, I should like to thank everyone for their participation. The involvement and support of such a wide cross section of our Industry shows there is still strong enthusiasm and interest in improving our future prospects. I hope sponsors and delegates alike will be encouraged by what they heard, and that we shall begin to see better relationships emerging as the benefits of networking is more openly realised.

Finally, I paraphrase comments I used both in the programme and in my opening remarks at the Dinner, regarding taking a positive perspective ~ “ doing nothing is not an option; but advancing in a different direction doesn’t mean a retreat !”

John Monks
BPIF Cartons President