Thursday, April 26, 2012

Another satisfied customer

Another testimonial from a satisfied customer! This time it’s from Dr Guy Glover, Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, London on a new trolley we recently supplied to them.
He says: "I can confirm that the trolley was delivered promptly yesterday by a very helpful member of your team, Charlie. The trolley is exactly what we required and the build quality appears to be extremely high. Both your service and the final product have exceeded my expectations so thank you.
"Many thanks, especially to Shahid for his expertise and indeed patience!"
Well done Team Ferno!
                                                                                               By Simon Shepherd

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Happy to support the NWAS staff awards

At Ferno we support a lot of initiatives in the emergency services sector - particularly with the ambulance service.
So we were delighted to receive this letter of thanks from Sarah Smith at the North West Ambulance Service.
The  North West Ambulance Service approached us a while back asking us to support their 2012 Staff Awards Ceremony which took place last week at Ribby Hall Village Blackpool.
The North West Ambulance Service is the biggest ambulance service in the country providing 24 hour, 365 days a year accident and emergency services to those in need of emergency medical treatment and transport. Its highly skilled staff provide life-saving care to patients in the community and take people to hospital or a place of care if needed.
Sarah tells us: "The feedback we have received since the ceremony has been very positive and the event could not have happened without the kind support of our sponsors. Thank you once again."
Isn’t that nice?
                                                                                            By Simon Shepherd

Monday, April 23, 2012

Two new appointments at Ferno

Mark Richards
Lee Cory
A big welcome to Mark Richards who joins Ferno as a Specialist Business Development Manager  to oversee the company’s continued expansion into the military sector and drive forward its after-sales service.
Mark has more than 15 years experience in sales and customer account management. He will work on a number of business development projects across the UK, including building relationships and growing sales within the Ministry of Defence, developing Ferno’s Service Division and lead training for key clients and Ferno partner companies. Mark has extensive experience having previously worked for Seymour Manufacturing International, Pepsico UK & Ireland and Shippam’s, part of the Princes food and drink group.
Elsewhere, congratulations to Lee Cory who has been promoted from Service Technician to Service Team Leader. He will ensure Ferno continues to deliver an extensive after-sales repair and maintenance service and state of the art asset management systems to customers.
Lee will be responsible for managing the day-to-day running of the service division, coordinating the scheduling of technicians, maintaining service contracts with key accounts and ensuring that customers’ needs are met.
Mark brings a wealth of solid experience in sales and business development and I am confident that he has the skills to further extend our interests in the military and defence sector where many of our products are already used.
Lee has worked for us for seven years and has gained an incredible level of knowledge about Ferno and our products. His new role will allow him to apply that knowledge at a higher level to further develop and enhance our service business.”
Both appointments come at an exciting time for Ferno. We will shortly be launching a range of new products and services and we are looking to increase our presence in new and existing markets while delivering our customers the highest level of service.
                                                                                                             By Jon Ellis

Friday, April 20, 2012

Ferno supports David's Marathon effort

David Elliot with support vehicle. We're a sponsor - can you spot the Ferno logo?
Just as we thought the bike ride challenge that Jon is undertaking from Yeovil to Huddersfield would be enough, another Huddersfield Town fan, David Elliot of Wellhouse Leisure Limited, will be doing 10 back-to-back marathons from Yeovil to Town!
David is looking for sponsorship for his Ten Marathons In Ten Days for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance Keep It Up Campaign - to support David simply go to his home page on Just Giving.com.
Ferno have assisted in the sponsorship of the support vehicle that will be following David every mile along the way, can you see the Ferno logo?
Wellhouse Leisure is the UK's leading manufacturer of compact motorhomes. Situated near Huddersfield, it offers a range of conversions based on Toyota , Nissan, Honda and Mazda/Ford vehicles. It has also converted the new Hyundai i800 for which it has won three major industry awards.
Ferno would like to wish David all the best for this massive challenge and we are sure that he will be glad to sit down on his arrival to the Galpharm Stadium on Saturday, May 5.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Virtual experience brings our products to life

Official opening of the Ferno Customer Experience Centre
At Ferno we are delighted to announce the launch of a virtual portal and state of the art ‘Stage to the World’ for customers to see products in action.
The Ferno Customer Experience Centre gives customers unique access to webcasts and live video streams of equipment and services being demonstrated in different environments and terrains. Staff at the company’s headquarters in Ohio, United States, are also available to talk to customers via Webex or Skype and answer any questions or queries they may have.
Jon Ellis, managing director of Ferno (UK), said: "While there is an actual Customer Experience Centre in Ohio for customers to visit, such a visit is not always possible. This interactive, state-of-the-art virtual showroom is a great solution for our customers in the UK and Europe. It is a unique way of bringing our equipment and services to life and people can see them being operated in real-life situations."
All of Ferno’s products are featured at the centre, including those for emergency medical services, search and rescue, mortuary, funeral and military. Scenarios are played out in a variety of landscapes including New York City, a desert, the Canadian Rockies and a European high street.
The centre in Ohio was opened at the beginning of the year.
Mr Ellis added: "This offers Ferno another platform to engage its customers. Rather than just looking at a photo of a product, they can see the technology which has gone into its development in practice and in some quite extreme situations."

Cup victory for Victoria

Ferno’s Victoria Woodford was celebrating at the weekend as Brighouse Rangers’ Under 12s Rugby League team won the Halifax & District Cup final.
While everyone at Ferno is delighted with the team’s success – the company has recently donated funds to the club for a new kit – Victoria had more reason than most to toast the victory.
Monday-Friday may be taken up by her job as marketing executive, but the weekend sees her attention turn to rugby and her role as manager of the Brighouse Rangers’ Under 12s.
Sunday’s cup final against Greetland was a hard-fought game with both sides scoring well but it was the Brighouse Rangers which came out on top, securing a 24-16 victory.
Victoria said: “It was a brilliant match and I’m so pleased for the players. They have had a great cup-run and this victory was well-deserved.”

Monday, April 16, 2012

Ferno's good friend George Hodkinson

The picture above includes my son Harvey Ellis who is 8, myself and George Hodkinson, left, from Chloe-Care in Preston.
Chloe-Care is a private ambulance company that was founded in March 2009 by George after more than 30 years service with North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
Ferno supported George during the early days of his new start up company and have helped him ever since. Chloe-Care will shortly be in possession of their eighth ambulance as they look to expand their PTS contracts with a move towards specialist Bariatric transfers in the near future.
George is an avid Preston North End football fan and me and Harvey met up with George before Saturday’s game between our team Huddersfield Town and Preston to exchange some pre-match banter.
Unfortunately for Harvey and me the game ended in a 1-0 loss for Huddersfield Town at Deepdale. George said: "At least we have secured our status in Division One for next year having beaten relegation whereas Town have the chance of promotion through the playoffs." George then went on to say at least he can now relax for the remainder of the season!
                                                                                                     By Jon Ellis

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Happy Huddersfield Town Day!

Today at Ferno we have mostly been celebrating Huddersfield Town Day.
For the past few years Huddersfield Town Football Club has been celebrating April 12 as ‘Huddersfield Town Day’. The reason being, April 12 was a very significant day in the club’s history when in 1925 the club beat Bolton Wanderers 3 - 0 to be crowned thrice champions – the first club in history to achieve this feat. Incidentally it has only ever been repeated by three other clubs – Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United. But Town was the first!
As a local employer and, some of us [ ;-) ], being keen Town fans, we are happy to throw our support behind Huddersfield Town Day
We also want to bring your attention to another activity Town have been up to for the past three years and is equally gaining some considerable momentum namely - the Huddersfield Town Enterprise Academy (HTEA).
HTEA is a free ‘club’ to any business, irrespective of shape and size.
Over the course of each calendar year HTEA hold four, two-hour long events that encourage businesses to engage in a dialogue with the club and, of course, other businesses that are members of the HTEA. Needless to say Ferno is a member.
Town and Ferno also use HTEA to promote or raise the profile of local business in West Yorkshire.
You can join the Linkedin group at HTEA.
Alternatively if you have any press releases or stories that your marketing, communications or PR department would like us to include on the HTEA Linkedin site on a regular basis – then please send them through to Ajin Abraham at ajin.abraham@htafc.com.
Have a Terrier-iffic Huddersfield Town Day!

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Right royal welcome from the Shepherd family

Simon Shepherd and his family were in York last week when the Queen visited the city for this year’s Royal Maundy service. For our American colleagues and others, unfamiliar with British customes, you can find out more about the Maundy service here.
With a guest list of more than 2,000 people in York Minster - and a crowd numbering several thousand outside, it certainly felt like a great state occasion.
People began gathering in the April sunshine at about eight in the morning, several hours before the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Beatrice of York, were due to arrive.
As the crowd grew, the queues of guests passed through strict security as they took their seats in the cathedral. The queue also included the 86 men and 86 women chosen to receive the Maundy money from the Queen.
As you can see from the picture of Simon with his daughter Georgia, 13, and son Henry, nine - the Shepherd family really entered into the spirit of the celebrations for this year’s Diamond Jubilee.

Ferno features in the Boat Race

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing Ferno equipment on the field of play over the years - usually on the football and rugby pitch when a player has been stretcherd off the field following an injury.
However, none of us expected our kit to feature in the 158th Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race on the River Thames between Putney and Mortlake.
One of our basket stretchers, specially designed and manufactured by us for the Royal Lifeboat National Institution, was used to transfer Oxford’s bowman Alex Wood after he collapsed from exhaustion.
On Sunday, Oxford coach Sean Bowden told BBC Radio Five Live: "Alex's on his way back home to Oxford. I think it was just a case of somebody being able to row themselves absolutely to a state of exhaustion."
Immediately after the race, Bowden put Woods' collapse down to the "most extraordinary and unfortunate chain of events" that were set in motion by the swimming protester, who forced the race to be halted.
Oxford lost a blade in a fierce clash of oars shortly after the restart, allowing Cambridge to pull clear to win by over four lengths.
"I guess you can only imagine the desperation that Alex must have been in with only six crew-mates left and that's probably how he ended up pushing himself beyond his limits," Bowden said.
Woods appeared to be unconscious when he was lifted out of the Oxford boat but he was in a stable condition when paramedics transferred him to Charing Cross Hospital.
It was a sad way for Woods' Boat Race dream to end. The former lightweight rower had been at Oxford for 10 years and worked his way up to the blue boat having competed in the reserve Isis crew last year.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Jon Ellis: Training for charity


Ferno’s Jon Ellis participated in a cycle ride training session along with other members of the Pink Team (see above) accompanied by the Huddersfild CTC.
The ride started off at Somerset Bridge in Huddersfield going through Bradford - Shipley - Otley - Ilkley and onto Addingham, then back to Huddersfield through Shipley - East Bowling Park picking up cycle route 66 green way back to Mirfield on to their final destination at Somerset Bridge.
Avid Huddersfield Town fan, Jon will be pedalling for pounds from Yeovil to Huddersfield to raise money for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance ‘Keep It Up’ campaign. The Pink Link ‘Pedal for Pounds 3’ bike ride will be Huddersfield Town FC’s third charity cycle ride.
Jon will join more than 300 cyclists, including Town chairman Dean Hoyle and commercial director Sean Jarvis, to begin the 280 mile ride at Huish Park, Yeovil, on the morning of Wednesday May 2, arriving at Huddersfield’s Galpharm Stadium on Saturday May 5 just in time for Huddersfield Town’s last home game of the season.
Jon said: "This was a hard 70 mile cycle ride which tested the team in terms of stamina. There were plenty of hills but not so many down hills. But I guess that is what we need in terms of training before the big event in five weeks time where 300 of us cycle fromYeovil to Huddersfield over three and a half days."
For anyone wanting to sponsor Jon and this good cause you can do this at JUSTGIVING or simply TEXT 70070 and enter JONE90 £1,2,3,4,5,10 donation. Thanks all for your support as this will help save lives!