Picon invites Mark Bristow to extend his chairmanship

Print Solutions

The Picon Council has unanimously agreed to extend the chairmanship of Mark Bristow, managing director of Friedheim International, by a year, meaning he will serve for three years until June 2022.

It is hoped that this will enable Mark to enjoy more of the travel and in-person business engagements involved in the role and will give him more time to fulfil his ambitions for the organisation (which represents the print and paper manufacturing suppliers) although he is making good headway with this already.

‘Picon has held almost all meetings online since the start of the Covid-19 crisis and it has certainly played an important communications and support role. We have tried to keep in more regular contact with the members providing them with key and relevant updates. One of my goals was to develop the business support opportunities and this year we introduced a Covid-19 Support Scheme that reimbursed members for some of the capital expenditure outlay involved in meeting new Covid working practice standards,’ said Mark Bristow.

Another of Mark’s aims has been to maintain and develop training initiatives and grant schemes. He says that this has not been restrained by the crisis.

Indeed in 2021 a new Work Experience Placement Scheme will be introduced, another initiative which should work to encourage young talent into the industry and help young people whose job prospects will be hard hit as a result of the pandemic.

The WEPS scheme will mean that Picon members can employ an 18 to 24 year old for up to 12 weeks for a specific project be that market research, digitisation work, increasing social media etc and Picon will reimburse the member the minimum wage for 25 hours a week plus the employer’s National Insurance. Mark believes members will be keen to help young people get their first foothold in the industry.

He is also keen to encourage greater co-operation with other print and business organisations and he is pleased that GPMA now has 12 member organisations. He is unsurprised by the cancellation of drupa, but that means he awaits news about the next Global Print Summit (which had been scheduled to meet in Dusseldorf) and whether by next year it will be possible to hold it in person rather than online.

‘We also continue our focus on trying to deal with, and support members where we can, with the aftermath of what Brexit situation the government leaves us with,’ he said. Challenging times to be a chairman but one he is honoured to hold and to have had extended to a three year term.