It’s been a busy start to the year here at Smith of Derby. The team have been working hard both in our works and out on the road to keep Britain’s clocks ticking, along with some huge international work which we hope to share with you very soon. In the meantime, please read further about our recent activities.
We are delighted that in this edition of NewsTIME we can report that we have received feedback from our training partner, Learning Unlimited, that Joe Mines has achieved a ‘distinction’ in a recent examination on engineering health & safety, attaining 85%.
Staying with the ‘training’ theme, January 2019 saw all the team come together for our annual company update on skills, training and important health & safety matters. Completing work to the highest quality and in a consistent and safe manner, was the core theme of the week.
On the left: Apprentice clockmaker Joe Mines who was awarded with a distinction in engineering health and safety. On the right: several of the team taking part in training.
Tony Charlesworth has been asked to step up to the challenge of Customer Service Manager. Tony is responsible to drive our new processes and managing our helpdesk, a recent development within Smith of Derby to help our customers.
The South of England had some significant snowfall at the start of February, which proved to be a problem for our resident clockmaker in the South Paul Kilburn. Whilst attending a job in Hampshire Paul’s van was left stranded near Basingstoke but you will be happy to know he did get home safely eventually. Whilst the South was left in chaos, we only had a light covering at our Derby works but not enough to stop our fantastic team carrying out their day’s duties.
On the left: Pauls van stranded near Basingstoke. On the right: Our Derby works with a light covering of snow.
We love hearing customer feedback, here’s two very happy customers who have recently passed on their thoughts:
“Mr. Robson was delighted with the work carried out by Brian Parry and Aaran Daniel recently. He recognised the fact that Brian was poorly, but still put in a great effort. He also mentioned that the vans were very clean, and the team were well presented and very polite.” Thank you very much for your kind words Mr. Robson, who had new movements and hands fitted to his clock on his turret.
We also received some very kind words from Geoff Smith from St Lawrence Church in Longney, Gloucestershire, where we dismantled and cleaned the clock. “I wanted to thank Peter Sully for the excellent work recently completed – and to acknowledge the outstanding work of your engineer, Matthew Smith, who has been with us for the past 3 days.” We also thank Geoff for his very kind words.