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A Grand Designs Success

May 17th, 2012

We have just returned from one of our most successful trips to Grand Designs LIVE. This was our fourth time exhibiting at the show and we had a great time meeting lots of customer, both new and existing and talking to lots of people about our furniture and the Myakka ethos.

 

After a pretty slick set up on Friday 4th May (except for a missing mattresses!) we were ready for the show to open on Saturday Morning. Five of the Myakka team manned the show throughout the nine day period and we all came back to the office feeling positive after chatting to existing customers about their furniture and telling lots of new customers all about Myakka.

 

We took as many new furniture and accessory lines as possible to the exhibition so we could show as many customer as possible all the new lovely things we have. This year we took lots of new pieces from our Hathi range including the Hathi Double Bed, Hathi Corner Cupboard, Hathi Carved Coffee Tables and the Hathi Brass Cupboard. Lots of customers commented that they love the elephants and suggested great new ideas to add to the range. People were intrigued to hear how each of the Sheesham Elephants were hand carved before being put together to create the finished piece of furniture. This means that no two pieces will ever be the same.

 

This year we ran a competition to give away a Surin Infinity Table every day of the show. This little table is one of our best sellers and the competition proved really popular with hundreds of people entering. We had nine very happy winners all of whom have a lovely Surin Infinity Table on the way out to them.

 

We always find Grand Designs LIVE a great way to get new ideas for new furniture pieces from our customers. At the end of the show our notebook was full of suggestions for new items and our furniture design team are now busy working on sketching these ideas ready to be sent over to our manufacturer in India to be made into prototypes. We always love to hear ideas for new designs, so please let us know if there is something we are missing from our range, let us know on Facebook or Twitter or send us an email to hello@myakka.co.uk.

 

After nine busy days at the show, Sunday evening came around and the close down went without a hitch with the team back in Somerset by 11pm (which is a new record for pack down!). As everyone knows unpacking is the worst part of being away and with two vans to go through the Warehouse team had a busy Monday morning unpacking all the furniture and accessories as well as packing all the orders!

 

We hope everyone who visited Grand Designs LIVE had a great time and went home feeling as inspired as we did. We saw loads of amazing things at the show including the longest sofa any of us had ever seen!

 

 

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Celebrate World Fair Trade Day and WIN!

May 10th, 2012

 

We know the value of supporting fair trade here at Myakka and to celebrate World Fair Trade Day we have teamed up with some of our non- furniture friends to offer you the chance to win everything you need for a delicious fair trade breakfast. This year World Fair Trade Day will take place on May 12th and we’re all being asked to register our breakfasts as part of the Take A Step campaign, launched earlier this year during Fairtrade Fortnight. The aim is to get the UK to take 1.5 million steps for Fairtrade by the end of 2012. Already more than 545,000 steps have been taken, but we still have a million more to go with each one taking us closer to the better deal from global trade that millions more farmers and workers so urgently need.  Register your Fair Trade breakfast and make your ‘step’ count!

 

The lucky winner of our Fair Trade Breakfast Hamper will be able to enjoy…

 

All you have to do is add milk and your favourite local bread (maybe even make some yourself!) for a delicious and ethical fair trade breakfast. You could even treat yourself to some fair trade fruit such as blueberries and oranges.  Simple!

 

To be in with a chance to win this hamper of delicious goodies, just ‘Like’ us on Facebook and answer a simple question.  We’ve also set up a Pinterest Board showing you all the great breakfast prizes and would love to see pics of your special Fair Trade breakfast – click here to admire all of the prizes on Pinterest, and for a bonus point or two, pop over to our facebook page and post a photo of your breakfast on Saturday 12th! We’ll add them to our Pinterest board as we go along!

 

Food is a great way to celebrate World Fair Trade Day, if breakfast isn’t your thing, why not make a delicious chocolate cake using fair trade cocoa, or how about a banana loaf with some yummy fair trade bananas.

 

Fair trade is fundamental to everything we do here at Myakka so celebrating days such as this are important to us as the all our furniture, so why not let us know on Facebook and Twitter how you plan to celebrate world fair trade day!

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Exclusive Offer – Compost and Save!

May 6th, 2012

Here at Myakka when we aren’t talking furniture we are always looking at ways we can all become more sustainable and reduce our carbon footprint.

 

To celebrate Compost Awareness Week we have teamed up with Hotbin Composting to offer you a fantastic £10 off a HOTBIN. Compost Awareness Week runs this year from Sunday 6th May to Saturday 12th May and is all about encouraging more of us to compost and recycle more.

 

We want to encourage as many people as possible to start to compost their waste as it reduces the amount of waste going to landfill and it great news for your garden too. Composting using a HOTBIN brings many rewards. Not only do you keep your garden and food waste out of landfill sites, but you also produce rich compost, which can be used on flower beds and vegetable plots. Not only can fruit, vegetables and garden waste be added to the bin, its clever design ensures all food waste including meat and fish can be composted effectively with less odour and fewer flies.  You will be returning all those lovely nutrients back into your compost to help your garden flourish.

 

The HOTBIN is designed to help maximize what nature does naturally by bringing together the right conditions to make hot composting easy. It works as you can actively achieve temperatures between 40 -60C. These higher temperatures along with the effective aeration allows the HOTBIN to effortlessly reduce and recycle a wide variety of food and garden waste into great compost all year round. In fact at those temperatures you can expect to harvest a batch of beautiful ‘black gold’ every three months.

 

To claim you £10 off these amazing compost bins simply quote the promotion code COMPweek2012 when you visit Hotbin Composting website, during Composting Awareness Week 6th-12th May.

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Go green and take part in the Great British Walking Challenge

May 3rd, 2012

 

Here at Myakka when we aren’t packing furniture, chatting to our customers or designing new furniture we like to stay fit and healthy by walking as much as possible. But walking is a great way of getting around. The charity Living Streets has research to show that if we all swapped 5 short car journeys under 2km in to walks we could reduce our personal carbon footprint by 86kg per year.

 

To encourage us all to do a little more walking and a little less driving Living Streets hold the Great British Walking Challenge which takes place this month in May as part of the charities National Walking Month. The aim is to get people walking across the country and see how many times we can collectively walk form Land’s End to John O’Groats .

 

To help and encourage us on our way, Living Streets have lots of tools to calculate how far you have walked, how much CO2 you have saved and record the steps you have taken.  The Great British Walking Week is open to everyone regardless of fitness levels and age. Every walk counts, whether it is to pop down to your local shop, a quick walk to school or work in the morning, of just a leisurely stroll around your neighbourhood.

 

 

Why not get a group of friends together and go for a long walk in the country, or how about getting off the bus a stop  early so you can walk and prepare yourself for the day, one of the easiest way to increase your walking is taking a lunch hour stroll, a great way to clear your mind before the afternoon and you get a break from your computer screen! Don’t forget to register you steps online, just click here to let Living Streets know how far you have walked and make your steps count towards the challenge.

 

 

This year Living Streets are asking us to go on Twitter and Facebook and share our walking images and sounds. If using Twitter then simply use the hashtag #gbwalk. There is also a challenge on Pinterest to try and get as many Mums as possible to share unique images from their walking with the hastag #mumswalk. So why not share some of things that you love about walking. Whether it is an unusal shaped tree and pretty coloured sky, share your images on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

The best pins will be added to the Living Streets Pinterest board and their favourite images will be used  for a real life walking photography exhibition planned for June.

 

 

To sign up for the challenge this month click here

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Update from SKSN

April 26th, 2012

During Simon and Robert’s recent trip to India the pair checked in with SKSN school to catch up with all that has been going on with the school. We have been working with the school, which is home to around 550 physically challenged children as well as providing vocational training scheme for school leavers, for some years and the visit is always the highlight of the trip.

 

In our last update we mentioned that Myakka now sponsored the vocational training center for girls of school leaving age. The girls are taught basic sewing skills which should provide them with means of finding employment. This kind of project is vital for giving every girl the skills to be able to gain a job when leaving school despite any disability she may have.

 

Myakka is now the main sponsor of the vocational training center and our aim is to grow and expand this. Georgie is now a trustee of the Indiability Foundation and her lead project is to develop the VTC so it can begin to make money and become a more viable business which will create more jobs for school leavers from SKSN.

 

Watch this space for more updates from SKSN school!

 

To find out more about SKSN please click here>>

 

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