The following employees from Plumbs:

Phil Livesey, Carl Beesley, Mick Delaney, Phil Rowbotham, Gary Hayworth, Bob Jones, Allen Millom, Richard Gatley, Chris Plumb, Allan Frank, Mark Kay, Rob Page & Arthur Diamond

Whose aim it is to complete the Coast to Coast bike ride over 3 days, and to raise £7500 for the Rosemere Cancer Foundation. Sadly our work colleague and friend Carol Livesey passed away this year and this inspired Rob Page to organise this fund raising event.

The ride is going to take place over the 29th, 30th April and the 1st May 2009.

Please contribute to our fund raising efforts, and follow our progress on this Blog from training through to the thigh burning ride.

Our brand new Justgiving fundraising page is live and waiting for donations at http://www.justgiving.com/plumbs

Thanks in advance for your support.

Have you ever thought that something as simple as arranging your furniture in a different way could help save you money. Well here it is, like most households in the UK, people often arrange their living room around their TV’s. The obvious affect of this is the TV is most probably always on.

Just by simply re-arranging your furniture so that the focal point will encourage conversation, such as positioning sofas and chairs around a table or facing each other rather than pointing at the TV.

Not only will his save you money in the long term by not always having the TV on but it can also create a healthier family environment.

Curtains are a great way to hide flaws in your home and can bring symmetry to most rooms. These are some really simple tips and tricks interior designers and staging consultants use to make a room look far better just by using curtains.

• If a room consists of several windows at differing sizes, first take the measurements and dress the largest window. Then hang all the other curtains in the room at the same height making sure that all the hems are also at the same height off the floor.
• If you want to create the illusion of wider windows extend the curtains poles and width beyond the window frame.
• Alternatively, if you want to make the window look shorter, use a longer pelmet when dressing the window.

Recently findings by the web usage company Hitwise has found a 53.1% decrease in people searching online for the term “houses for sale” and a 25% increase in the number of DIY related “How to?” search queries.

This is backed up by the number house sales being at their lowest in 50 years, according to the Telegraph. So instead of moving, there is a big shift in people improving what they have. And because of the ever talked about looming recession, being thrifty with your cash is more and more important.

Take a look at some of these money saving ideas to spruce up your home:

Money Saving Tips – give a fresh feel to your home in the New Year!
Give your home a brand new look for spring
Create a new kitchen without all the expense

Here at Plumbs we are always striving to offer a better quality of service to our customers. We believe that investing in our staff is one way of achieving this.

So we are delighted to announce that the following Plumbs staff have all successfully passed their National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) awards and were presented with their certificates on the 25th September 2008 by Arthur Diamond, Production Director and Heather Murphy, HR Manager.

• Kirsty Carter – Level 2 – Performing Manufacturing Operations
• Andrew Haigh – Level 2 – CAM
• Rachael Richardson – Level 2 – Making and Installing Furniture
• Hayley Tarney – Level 2 – Making and Installing Furniture
• Katy Bolton – Level 2 – Making and Installing Furniture

The company would like to wish everybody many congratulations. Please see below a photo of the dedicated and highly valued team receiving their awards.

You may or may not have noticed our TV ads going out on channel 4 recently. Well, if you haven’t caught it yet, here it is: