The shortlist for the next stage of the Domestic Mover of the Year 2013 has been announced and I’m pleased to announce that yet again 3 are Move Administer users!
The shortlist consists of:
Kilmarnock Removals Ltd
M J Christophers & Son
Maidman’s Removals & Storage
Matt Purdie & Sons Ltd
Richard Healey Removals Ltd
White & Co. plc, Telford
These shortlisted members will be subject to an independant “mystery shopper” and have a site and code inspection. By adding the scores gained to the first round, 3 finalists will be identified. The finalists will then have independant customer interviews conducted and the scores from the interviews will then be added to the overall score to date and the competition winner will be revealed.
The finalists will be announced at the BAR 2013 Annual Conference during the business sessions on Friday May 17th, and the winner announced at the Gala Dinner on Saturday May 18th.
Our congratulations go to all, especially Matt Purdie & Sons who have been shortlisted every year since the DMotY begain 5 years ago, and being crowned winners in 2010. Maidman’s Removals & Storage were also crowned worthy winners in 2011. Fingers crossed a Move Administer user can win for the 4 time in 5 years!
Car Storage Scotland of Lasswade, Edinbugh are the latest to go live on Move Administer!
After a successful trial period of a 3 user Move Administer it was decided that Move Administer would be the chosen system to replace their existing Remstar system, a system they had been using since 2002 when it was first purchased to run their removals & storage operation John Duncan Removals.
The data conversion from Remstar to Move Administer was made effortless due to our data conversion utility and prior in-depth knowledge of Remstar.
This is a unique installation, as we do have other customers just using the storage and accounting side of Move Administer, but this is the first specialised Car Storage company and it has been a real pleasure modifying existing stationery to fit this marketplace.
It’s great to once again be of service to Car Storage Scotland!
Digbys Removals & Storage of Basildon, Essex, is the latest company to go live on Move Administer!
After a successful trial period where a 2 user Move Administer, with Shipping Administer Lite was installed remotely and a day’s training it was decided that Move Administer would be the chosen system to replace their existing Remstar system.
The data conversion from Remstar to Move Administer was made effortless due to our data conversion utility and prior in-depth knowledge of Remstar.
It’s great to be of service to Digby’s once again!
I came across this posting on Twitter last night and thought I’d share it with everyone, but credit to Boris at The Next Web for the posting.
Dear person emailing me,
Email signatures are weird. Seriously. The header of an email already contains your name and email address, but still a lot of people insist in replicating them below the message too. Signatures are often six or seven lines long. I just received an email from someone that contained just one word (‘yes’) but also 20 lines of signature.
Now I know that email signatures aren’t melting the poles or crashing the internets. But regardless of that, I still see most of them as waste. Sending me your phone number, in every email we exchange? Really? Is that necessary? Can’t we just exchange vCards when we first get to know each other? Or wait until I ask you?
How about images and logos in signatures? Often my email will interpret the signature picture as an attachment. Now I’m anxious to find out what the attachment is going to be! But of course there is no attachment, just a pixelated logo that doesn’t add value to the message.
How many links is enough? One? Do you need to include your LinkedIn and Twitter URL too? How about just one link to a page that contains all your info? Get an About.me page or something!
How about vertical space? How many white lines do you need to separate all those URLs you’ve included? How long, literally, can a signature be?
Moving on to divider lines. Some people put them directly above their signature so it becomes clear that “HERE STARTS THE SIGNATUREâ€. Yep, got it. I can read. Not needed.
Then that totally irrelevant and too politically correct ‘Please consider the environment when printing this email’ line. Stop it already. People aren’t printing out emails anymore and if they are, they are lost anyway. Your signature isn’t saving trees. Snap out of it.
Lets end with the absolute worst part of signatures. The legalese, “if I screwed up and mailed this to the wrong Boris you should delete this message and prepare to get sued,†messages. Seriously, if you are a lawyer this doesn’t make you appear smart. It makes it seem like you are regularly emailing random people sensitive information and it has happened so often that you are now ordered to include that statement by a judge who’s simply had it with your shit.
My ground rules for email signatures are simple: at the most 3 lines. You can include your name if you want and one URL, but not three. No dividers and no logos. Keep it simple and efficient.
Sincerely,
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten
———————————————
Co-founder The Next Web, Twitter Counter and some other stuff.
Follow me on Twitter
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———————————————
The views expressed in this post are personal and may not necessarily reflect those of The Next Web, unless explicitly stated otherwise. This post, and any files transmitted with it, are confidential and intended solely for the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this post by error, please notify me immediately. If you are not the intended recipient of this post, you should not copy it for any purpose, or disclose its contents to any other person.
Please consider the environment when printing this post.
Image Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
Hot on the heals of DevReach 2012, Managing Director, Colin Wynn, is also please to announce his attendance of DevConnections, held at Bellagio, Las Vegas during October 29th and November 1st!
DevConnections consists of over 250 in-depth sessions for several technologies, Visual Studio, Windows Azure, ASP.Net, HTML5, SQL Server, Sharepoint, Cloud, Windows and Exchange, all under one roof!
Several keynotes will be provided during the course of the conference from non other than Microsoft.
Colin was in attendance for the first time last year, and found it highly informative to say the least.
The release of Visual Studio 2012 and SQL Server 2012, the newly chosen development tools for Move Administer 2, the eagerly anticipated release of Windows 8 makes this all the more reason to attend.
Managing Director, Colin Wynn, is pleased to announce that he will be in attendance at the forthcoming DevReach 2012, held in Sofia, Bulgaria during October 4th & 5th.
DevReach is an annual conference, with 2012 being the 7th consecutive year. This year over 40 prominent speakers from 10 countries on 3 continents will deliver 60+ sessions in 6 parallel tracks covering a broad range of topics.
Tracks include: Web Development, Mobile Development, Agile & Testing, Architecture and Cloud.
Thankfully DevReach will be recording ALL sessions, making them available to VIP attendees, that’s over 60 hours of recordings!
Colin will mainly be attending the Web Development, Mobile Development and Architecture sessions as development of Move Administer 2 is already underway, and Web and Mobile will play a prominent part in its future.
Colin Wynn
Administer Software Limited
26 The Links
Bordon
Hampshire
GU35 9HB
1st August 2012
To whom it may concern
Following a review of our software requirements, we approached Administer Software Limited to adopt their “removals & storage” package, Move Administer.
The system was very quick and easy to install. Richard held two days of staff training at our offices in Livingstone and their help desk is always available to handle any queries our staff may have. Move Administer is very flexible allowing adaptations to suit our specific needs.
We would have no hesitation in recommending Administer Software for their professionalism and quality of services.
Yours sincerely,
Graham Byers
Removal Services Scotland
Download an Adobe Acrobat PDF version of this testimonial by clicking here.
The July 2012 issue of Removals & Storage is out, and if you haven’t received yours yet then feel free to view it here.
Before heading to the BAR Annual Conference in Windsor, Bray and Son’s classic vehicle was in North Berwick, Scotland, filming “The Railway Man”. The vehicle, nicknamed “Eric”, was used outside the film location on the sea front, and was used as a removal vehicle. The vehicle was loaded and unloaded as part of the story line and hopefully this will be seen in the final screening of the film.
2012 marks the twentieth year of the Maidmans and Basil Fry relationship, with Maidmans signing a new 3 year agreement.
Some BAR Members celebrated the Diamond Jubilee showcasing their vintage vehicles to a massive crowd at the Surrey County Show where Specialised Movers and Bray and Son participated.
Specialised Movers & Bray and Sons
After 3 years as a Directly Elected Director, and nearly twenty five years as a BAR member, Gary Wheadon of Sully Removals, has now taken on the position of BAR Vice President, a role that will see him visit every BAR area over the next 2 years to update members on BAR and industry developments. Over the next 2 years Gary hopes to; talk, listen and respond. We wish him well.
The July 2012 issue of The Mover is out, and if you haven’t received yours yet then feel free to view it here.
Maidmans and Basil Fry insurance brokers have signed a new 3 year agreement topping off a 20 year relationship between the companies. Maidmans is now a major player in the south of England having developed the business dedicated to commercial moving, domestic moving and self storage, winning DMotY in 2011.
Alexanders Removals & Storage of London NW10 were one of only seven finalists shortlisted for Small Business of The Year at the Business Excellence Awards 2012. 
Sam Pope (second from left) & Alex Pope (right)
Director Alex Pope said “To be finalists in these awards is an amazing recognition and one that everyone who works at Alexanders deserves. We know that the key to success is to have an impressive product, which for us means an excellent removal service for every customer, and this is what all our staff help to deliver“.
APAK Removals & Storage – Is allowing a bankrupt company to change its name and continue as a BAR ATN in BAR’s interest? An interesting topic indeed, but one can only suggest that sour grapes obviously still remain with one of APAK’s closest competitors. One would have to ask the question of whether the said competitor would have contacted The Mover if they had purchased the assets of APAK, as I’ve no doubt they would have immediately requested a BAR ATN being a BAR member themselves! We’ll watch this space to see if anything further develops on this story.
The BAR Southern Area held their annual Golf Competition on Tuesday, July 10th. The event, kindly sponsored by George Lambert & Son, took place on a wet and windy morning with tea off time for the 9 entrees starting at 10:30AM after bacon sandwiches!
Administer Software Ltd are pleased to participate in donating prizes for Nearest the Pin and Longest Drive, we even entered Richard into the competition! Nearest the Pin winner was David Bigglesworth from Britannia Leatherbarrows with Greg Wildman from Basil Fry & Co. winning Longest Drive, both winners each receiving a Nike Practice Golf Ball Holder and a dozen Titleist Golf Balls.
The BAR Southern Area meeting took place after the Golf with prize giving at the end, before everyone tucked into a hearty BBQ spread.
Congratulations once again to the winners.
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