After a pretty slick set up on Friday 4^th 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!

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…

• Set of placemats and coasters from Myakka – made from recycled coffee cups!
• An upcycled tea cosy from Delaney Designs
• Yummy peanut butter from Harry’s Nuts
• Fair trade tea and coffee from Café Direct
• The Ultimate Muesli from Rude Health
• A Tea Poster from Nick Prints
• All put together in a fair trade raffia basket from Myakka

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!

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 6^th May to Saturday 12^th 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 6^th-12^th May.

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

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>>

Here at Myakka we like to support a number of great charities both locally and overseas in India. Along with the Somerset Community Foundation we also support the Genesis Trust. This amazing charity helps people in Bath (just under an hour away from Myakka HQ) who are socially vunerable; including the homeless and the unemployed.  To help we donate some of our damaged furniture to the trust who use it to help vulnerable people.

So far, we have made two donations of damaged furniture to the trust, which they’re able to either resale and keep 100% of the price,  use it to help develop skills in woodwork or if it beyond repairing they can use the wood to create something new. We love the fact that not only is our furniture recycled but people are able to learn new skills which they will be able to apply within their lives.

Any of the furniture which requires some work goes to The Woodworks project which helps the long term unemployed. The participants gain industry recognised qualifications and much needed experience. During the placements participants learn how to repair and refurbish furniture, all of which has been donated.  So far we have made two donations, the first in November 2011 and then February 2012, the full retail price of these donations would have reached around £27,500 worth of furniture. The restored furniture is then sold in the Genesis Trust shop with the trust retaining all the profit.

Any of the donated furniture which is able to be sold goes to the Furniture Project which sells on the furniture and the team are able to keep 100% of the profits. The Furniture Project is open to the public Monday to Friday and sells a collection of donated furniture and household goods.

For more information about the great work by Genesis Trust please click here.

One of the main reasons for visiting our suppliers is to sign off new samples and to build on the excellent relationship that we have with our suppliers. It also gives us the chance to develop new relationship with new suppliers as well as monitor the whole supply chain to make sure all Myakka furniture is fair trade. A selection of samples were signed of including new additions to our new Orissa range and more additions to our Mallani, Thakat, Chandra and Hathi ranges.

During the trip Robert celebrated his birthday with some chocolate cake and a ride in a cart pulled by a camel. As part of our supplier’s birthday tradition, Simon and Robert visited a community for sufferers of leprosy and delivered food and sweets to those in need.

Simon and Robert also visited SKSN School which regular readers of our blog will know we support with donations and through the vocational training scheme which produces some of our cushions such as our Pure Silk Cushions.

.

Once again some of our furniture has appeared on 60 Minute Make Over. This is the 10^th 60 Minute make Over show which we have donated some of our furniture to, and what a worthy cause! This make over was completed by designer Derek Taylor for Mother and Grandmother Sue who lost her husband to cancer and is now going through chemotherapy herself.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show. 60 Minute make Over, has a time limit of 60 minutes to completely make over a selection of rooms in someone deserving home. Once again the team did a great job and we love seeing the end result. We especially love seeing our furniture look so good in someone’s home.

This episode aired on the 2^nd April featured our Mallani Triple Sideboard, Mallani Small Bedside Cabinet and Mallani Dressing Table. To watch the episode for yourself simply click here

Don’t forget to tell us what you think on Facebook and Twitter!

.

We are once again exhibiting at Grand Designs Live from the Saturday 5^th May to Sunday 13^th May.

This year you can save up to £9* off the door rate for tickets when ordered in advance. Meaning each ticket will cost you just £10. Simply visit www.granddesignslive.com or call 0844 854 1348 and quote the promotion code EXHIB12 when prompted to receive your discount. Remember children aged 15 and under do FREE when accompanied by an adult.

This year will be our fourth year exhibiting at Grand Design s LIVE and to make it easier for all our visitors our stand will be in the same place this year as it was last year. You can find us in the Interiors section on Stand L93, where we will be displaying a selection of our best selling pieces including furniture from our brand new Orissa Range and a selection of our new accessories. New items on display will include our new Mallani Easy View TV Unit, Hathi Carved Coffee Tables and Hathi Corner Cupboard as well as a number of old favourites.

We will also be running a competition throughout the period of grand designs Live to give away one of our best selling Surin Infinity Tables every day of the show!  There will also be exclusive show discounts available for all visitors to our stand. This is a great opportunity to come and experience our furniture and meet some of the team behind Myakka…we’d love to see you!

*Saving indicated based on the standard door rate. Advanced booking offer expires 5^th May 2012. Subject to £1.60 transaction fee. Kids under 15 enter free when accompanied by a paying adult.

We have seven pairs of ticket to Grand Designs LIVE to give away for this year show worth £38!

To enter, simply click here to send us your name and address details, and tell us where in the UK you would build your dream house, and we’d LOVE you to scoot over to our to like our facebook too so you can tell us your dream UK house location.

Good Luck!

****And the winners are***

Jill Ireland

Margaret Farmer

Petra Hora

Sarah Addison

Steve Knight

Jill Barker

Karen Hadley

Tickets are on their way to you, watch out for your post!

Terms & Conditions
Prize draw is open to UK residents only. Entries must be submitted by 12pm Monday  30th April 2012. No purchase necessary.
Prize is a pair of tickets to Grand Designs LIVE at Excel, London valid from 5^th-13^th May 2012.
You will be notified by email if you have won. Seven winner will be chosen at random. The draw is open to residents of the UK. Only one entry per person is permitted via email. There is no alternative prize and the prize is non-transferable, non-refundable and non-exchangeable.
If you were not a member of the mailing list for the monthly Myakka Furniture update via email, by entering the competition, you are agreeing to be added to Myakka Furniture’s newsletter.
The winner will be drawn on the Tuesday 1^st May.

Some of our furniture is appearing in the new Channel 4 TV decorating programme ‘You Deserve This House’. The new programme gives deserving people a surprise home make over and is presented by Amanda Lamb. Myakka will feature in the 16^th episode of this new series and after the success of this one we have already been asked to donate some more furniture!

For this episode on Channel 4, we have donated a Chandra Sideboard, Mallani Large Coffee Table and a Mallani Large Console Table. The programme was aired at 11am on Tuesday 27^th March, but don’t worry if you missed it, you can catch up by clicking here…

We love watching the makeover unfold as the team work hard to complete it on time. We love watching the big reveal at the end when the person finally gets to see what the team of volunteers have achieved.

To let us know what you think of the makeover leave a comment here….