Do You Have Low Energy Lightbulbs In Your Shop? Be Careful.

This lady explains (in french with subtitles) how low energy lightbulbs are not as great as we have all been told.  In fact they could be extremely dangerous, especially to people who are sensitive to emf - electro-magnetic forces.



You can protect yourself from emf by placing electro-magnetic tape from cassettes or VCR tapes into pockets or sowing them into a hat.  Some people fix redundant VCR tapes under their desks near their PCs to absorb the emf that they give out.  Others keep their mobile phone inside a specially designed little sack, which protects their heads when talking.

Head and neck cancers are increasing worldwide due to mobile phone use.  Yet few warnings are given.

Low energy lightbulbs.  The government calls them eco-friendly.  There's nothing friendly about elevated electro-magnetic forces.  They are a silent debilitater and killer.

Likewise with low energy lightbulbs, they can exacerbate any medical condition.  You should get rid of them and replace with LED (Light emitting diodes) no matter what the cost.  No one tells you.  It's a crime.  Money rules these days, and we need to keep an eye out for ourselves.  I hope you take this warning, and go away and get rid of low energy lightbulbs from your living space and working environment.  Your health is more important than money.

You can check out your home and your shop for emfs by hiring an 'acoustimeter' for GBP 32.00 a week from this website, plus postage.  Well worth it, I would say.

Here is a list of health effects associated with low energy lightbulbs and other emf sources.  The list came from a court case in which a Canadian citizen was suing the government for promoting low energy lightbulbs.  Some individuals are extremely sensitive to emfs, for example, with their arms involuntarily lifting if close to a mobile phone, (source Breakspear Hospital newsletter).  For the majority there are still less obvious effects of significance to wellbeing.

(You can put a mobile phone inside a specially designed emf sack, but lightbulb emfs are not so easy to fend off)

Table 1. Symptoms of Electrohypersensitivity or Radio Wave Sickness (7).

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Neurological: headaches, dizziness, nausea, difficulty concentrating, memory loss, irritability, depression, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, weakness, tremors, muscle spasms, numbness, tingling, altered reflexes, muscle and joint paint, leg/foot pain, flu-like symptoms, fever. More severe reactions can include seizures, paralysis, psychosis and stroke.

Cardiac: palpitations, arrhythmias, pain or pressure in the chest, low or high blood pressure, slow or fast heart rate, shortness of breath.

Respiratory: sinusitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthmaDermatological: skin rash, itching, burning, and facial flushing.

Ophthalmologic: pain or burning in the eyes, pressure in/behind the eyes, deteriorating vision, floaters, and cataracts.

Others: digestive problems; abdominal pain; enlarged thyroid, testicular/ovarian pain; dryness of lips, tongue, mouth, eyes; great thirst; dehydration; nosebleeds; internal bleeding; altered sugar metabolism; immune abnormalities; redistribution of metals within the body; hair loss; pain in the teeth; deteriorating fillings; impaired sense of smell; ringing in the ears.

NEW Product Launch for 2012!

Did you know that Curteis launch new products three times a year?  Our launches are at The Spring Fair, International Jewellery London in September, and we have a mid year launch in June.  We don't want any customers to miss out on any of these launches, so why not sign up to receive our weekly e-shots.  These also  keep you up-to-date with news from the factory and news from around the trade, such as market trends and events.

Curteis responded to the jewellery trends we identified over the last 12 months by bringing to market an extensive range of sterling silver pendant and earring sets, in addition to modern longer length necklaces with stylish pendants.

We have seen an increasing demand for platinum chain and we are introducing a new collection of this in June next year.

Our in-house locket assembly team are working on a range of new locket engraving styles.  We felt it was essential to increase our existing range with some uplifting and fresh new designs, including stone setting.  We can't wait for you to see these next year!  Our production capacity is being geared up to meet the increasing demand.  Once these are in stock, they always sell out.

We are equally excited by the new collection of black rhodium and plated sterling silver jewellery.  This collection is being designed in-house and is bang on in the direction of next year's trend.

Click here to sign up to our weekly e-shot.

We would love to hear from you.   What products you would like to see launched next year!  Or any other suggestions.  Use the comments at the bottom of this post.  Or the email address on www.curteis.com.

My Experience at Curteis By Ryan Age 15 !

Work Experience at Curteis

Many people know the story of Curteis Ltd’s origins in a farm house called Towed Hall, where the Curteis family lived.  And how the modern factory we operate in, is built on the farm’s land.  What is less well-known is how deep the company’s role in the local community goes:  Most of the company’s staff live, and many were born, within a few miles of the factory.  We all use the rural shops, pubs and schools near to our workplace.  And almost everyone who works for the company has a friend or relative also working here.

Each year the company welcomes one or two pupils from the local schools on a Work Experience scheme.  The following is Ryan’s story, in his own words, of his week at Curteis:

“My name is Ryan. I came here, to Curteis Limited, for a week of work experience that is a compulsory scheme at Lakelands Sports and Language College. I came here for experience in IT work because that is what kind of work I am interested in.

When I arrived on Monday I was given a tour of the factory where I was shown the complete process of jewellery production. It started downstairs in the factory where I saw the beginning of all jewellery production where the gold, silver and copper is made into the correct concentration and manageable amounts of it. I was then taken to an area where they turned the pieces of silver/gold into chains or what ever shape was required. This work was done with machines that is over viewed by humans with large magnifying glasses to check that everything is done perfectly. I was then taken into several rooms where the jewellery is checked and tested with strict guidelines. One of these rooms had multiple bath-like tubes filled with sulphuric acid and cyanide which is used to clean the chains because when they come out of the previous stage they are greasy and mucky, so the acid cleans them. 


I was then taken upstairs where I was again shown several different rooms. The first one of these was a room where a group of people were hand engraving lockets and putting them together, which looked very fiddly and difficult to do but the results are amazing. The next room was where there was another group of people who cut chains at the required length and style. The chains are taken from this room into one next to it where machines, again operated by humans with large magnifying glasses to make sure that the bolts, triggers and hooks connect to the chain properly.


I was then showed the order processing rooms that are divided into two rooms. The Gold Room, for the part of the order that contains gold and the Silver Room that deals with the silver part of the order. I was then shown Order Dispatch. Order Dispatch is where the orders are packaged, tagged and put in a bag when they are then taken to the post van and dispatched to the customer.

The following day, Tuesday, I got to spend the entire day doing IT, where I got to make a spread sheet on a survey about the company and its jewellery.

On Wednesday I started a mammoth task which I haven't finished yet (Friday), which is to Cut up 333 pieces of paper into one thousand slips saying that there is a stock clearance at Curteis.com. I then had to put them all in one thousand envelopes, one each, and then label each of these envelopes with its own sticker. On Wednesday I also got to go and help in the Gold Room for about one hour before being sent back because I had picked and made note of all the orders and had nothing left to do!

On Thursday I went to help in the Silver Room, which operates in much the same way as the Gold Room. After that I went to the chain cutting room where I had to manually cut 750 silver chains that were then sent to be polished. I then went to help in Order Dispatch when I logged up on to the computer what orders were going out with their order number. An example of an order number is 1145950001. I also produced invoices for orders which I would later put into Royal Mail packaging and then into large bags that would be given to the RM.

On Friday I helped out with the financial side of things as well as continuing with the post job. I did things like creating news letters and making logs on what parcels went where and for how much.

Through out work experience I was greeted by loyal and friendly workers”.

Forging Links That Endure !

Forming strong links is our speciality.

Building good relationships between customers and suppliers is essential in running a good company.

Today's customers expect an honest approach with the lines of communication clear and open.

Successful customer service is all about returning customers.  A sales person can sell anything to anyone once, but it's the level of customer service that determines whether or not they come back to you again for future orders.

We feel the basis of good customer service is forming a relationship with our customers so that they feel that they can call us and feel satisfied that they have received the best service possible.  We received a call from one customer yesterday, who calls us most weeks.  He started off by saying, 'I don't know why I've called up really, as I don't need anything.  I just wanted to hear your friendly voices on the phone!'  He ended up buying a couple of items, and went away happy, which gave us a smile.

We are always looking into ways to improve our service to our customers.  A more recent development has been the changes made on our website. Customers can now apply to become a stockist of ours online, and we have seen our recruitment of new customers double from this time last year.  We are also working on SEO - Search Engine Optimisation, which means people searching for supply using search engines are able to find our products more easily.  We are confident that this is a step in the right direction,  helping our customers find what they are looking for, with Platinum chain, bangles, Earrings and our lockets proving some of the most popular searches made on our website in 2011.


We are always looking for ways to improve our service, and your feedback is crucial to us knowing what we need to do next.  A survey, for example, showed us that many customers want a mobile version of the website, so you don't need to go to the office all the time to go online.  This is being attended to for release next year.

If you don't yet buy from us, why not put our customer service to the test?  We're here ready and waiting your call.  

Posted by Hayley Davies Sales Team Leader

November 2011 Assay Scores Are In .......

The scores are in …..

…. as they say in the TV programme ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. The scores in question are the monthly hallmarking figures for November, which were received today.

The total number of items hallmarked by the four UK Assay Offices was down again in November by 37.5%, representing nearly 700,000 less items than November 2010. Gold items were down by 42%, silver by 34%, platinum by 15% and palladium by 28%.

Well....we can dream, I suppose.

At Curteis we use the hallmarking statistics as a useful benchmark when looking at our own performance and that of our customers. In recent months we have seen these to be ahead of the market, which is a great boost to morale.  Wherever the main reduction in demand has fallen, it doesn't appear to be from amongst independent retailers.

History

Curteis was the first manufacturer in which a hallmarking sub-office was set up by the Birmingham Assay Office. The facility was granted to us in August 2002 after a rigorous review by Assay Office staff. The sub-office is subject to very strict criteria and is manned by two Assay Office staff based at our factory. The advantage is the greater control we have, and the shortening of the throughput time for our products from manufacture to the final delivery to the customer.

The UK hallmarking system has offered valuable protection against fraudsters for over 700 years – long may it continue to do so.

Posted by Ray Kenna Finance Director   

Jewellery Fit for a Queen!

 

The Royal Wedding was watched by millions. Everyone was glued to their tv sets waiting for a glimpse of the future Princess.

Since the Royal engagement Kate's face and style have become famous around the world.

Fast becoming a new generation's style icon, people are flocking to emulate Kate's choice in what to wear.

Only last week a request came from one of our customers to create a beautiful bracelet to match the one Kate wears.

18ct yellow gold with a disc engraved with the royal crest, Kate's bracelet is a beautiful modern design.

 

                                                         Kate's special bracelet. 

With over 30 years experience in the jewellery industry combined with a reputation for excellent customer service, who better to turn to than Curteis for bespoke one off items such as this?
Kate should be flattered.  Imitation, after all, is the sincerest compliment.

Posted by Claire Davies Sales and Marketing Manager

Where To Begin? Lockets.

                            Hand assembled lockets - 
                                small hearts.  Click image.

I don't know about you but I can't believe it's December! With the festive season nearly in full flow,  retailers' thoughts are aimed at the Christmas and the New Year's sales.

Here at Curteis we are thinking ahead too. We have lots planned for the next 12 months.  Our only problem is where to begin ?!

We would like your feedback....

Take our lockets sales.  They are going from strength to strength.

There must be a reason ?

Whenever they are in stock they sell. 
In response we moved up from two fulltime members of staff to four, but there is still seems to be more demand.

What I want you to tell me, if you can, is which designs you would like us to make next.

Here are our new ideas so far.

New ideas for locket designs

Click image to expand.  Nice, aren't they?

In your opinion, are we on the right track ?
Are we missing other designs that you'd like to see in the range?

Let us know what you think.

We are happy to listen.

Posted by Claire Davies, Sales and Marketing Manager

Twitter And I

Today social media is playing a massive part in business and most other walks of life. I currently have 3 twitter accounts, one personal, one work based and one for a football team I am involved with. This shows what an impact social media is having on people’s lives. At the beginning of 2011, I registered the @Curteis_Craig twitter name, at first I was busy, trying to get followers and talking a lot of shop, but over the Autumn I became disinterested. I think the reason for this is that there was less chat going on, and not much actual selling.

From what our marketing department tell me, Twitter is a start up tool for making connections and not the hard sell, so I've decided to crack on and keep trying to make new connections and see if I can use twitter to grow some new business relationships.

The good thing with our business at Curteis is that we aim at so many trade markets,  whether it's retail, design, wholesale, Internet, manufacturer or some other weird and wonderful ways of using jewellery! (We actually made chain for an escapologist once upon a time!).  This gives me a large range of people to chat to and try make some friendships with, and hopefully show people in the Jewellery trade that Curteis is much more than just a chain supplier.

We are designers, casters, finishers, assemblers, we can help with marketing, photography and distribution. Most of all, we hope we are friends to our customers that we are there to lend a hand when needed.

How has your business been affected by the social media age? Do you think it has helped your business? How would you like to see it changed? Is there anything you want to see us add into tweets, e-shots or facebook?

They made a film called 2012 about the world, as we know it, ending.  To me 2012 is the start of something, rather than the end!

Posted by Craig Rogers, Curteis Creates Manager.

No I am not running a brothel!

No sooner have we set up Curteis Chat as our brand spanking new blog, and someone naturally enough tries to find us on Google.  Guess where they were sent first......

Internet dating is the modern way

Curteis Chat hasn't yet been registered by Google's auto-web crawler, Googlebot, which takes  a while to recognise new sites and log them into the system.

Instead a charming little 'dating' site called Curteis Corner popped up top of the search, a location where gentlemen can find pretty ladies to 'date', no less.....!!

Maybe the ladies would like to view our site in return, and consider equipping themselves with some nice gold pieces for Christmas.  We can recommend a stockist.

The only thing that strikes me about the site is that the person running it can't really be a Curteis (our spelling is pretty unusual and there are only a few hundred of us in the UK total).  

The site's English isn't quite right, and is typical of someone who's picked up their English somewhere other than the classroom.  It comes across as a foreigner who's decided that Curteis is a classy name to trade on and they've borrowed it.  They didn't ask permission of course.  We can only protect our name in the jewellery business, sadly, where as far as we know, we are still unique!  

We'll stick with our blog's name Curteis Chat for now, and see if we get any interesting callers.  We'll keep you posted, of course.  It could keep us lively while we await the first blog comment.

Curtei

UPDATE - 'Curteis Corner' is a little hamlet in Kent, probably the inspiration for the Curteis Corner dating site name.  I wonder if the Parish Council gave their permission for their village name to be so used!

There is another 'Curteis' named town called Curteis Point, situated on the southern outskirts of Vancouver, British Columbia.  This was founded by my great uncle who emigrated there in 1908.  He built a shack on the coast in a beautiful wilderness.  Today it's a hot real estate area for wealthy British Columbians.  He returned to Britain to fight in WW1, losing all his property rights, but his name endures.

The Importance Of ChattingCHAT 

The word 'chat', thanks to the internet, is clearly becoming associated with only one aspect of human interaction, a bit like the word 'gay' used to be a much broader term.  The narrowing of the meaning of words is not always one way traffic.  In 1890, for example, the fashionable word for 'gay' was 'earnest' as in 'the importance of being......' ' by Oscar Wilde.  If the words 'chat' and 'chatroom' are suffering from an attenuation of meaning, I want to challenge that.  Humans are capable of chatting about all kinds of things and do so on a daily basis.  Chat is a word we need to keep available to describe what we all like to do, the way we find out important information about all manner of things.  We will not be worried about the newer associations of the word.   Chat is too important a part of life to be handed over exclusively as a word for dating.  If this is becoming the next battle over political correctness, let's take a stand now.  Human interaction is as broad as it ever was, and a good chat is still the best way to put the world to rights.  Let's keep it that way!  

TheTh