Most offices across the UK are re-opening for business by the 4th January, leaving you just enough time to get your business prepared for the year ahead. With a full year’s holiday entitlement due to your employees, you’ll certainly need to be prepared for some way of logging all their days off and planned holiday! There is no better method of staff organisation for the year ahead than 2011 staff holiday planners!

Our Sasco 2011 Staff Planner is tried and tested and after using many other similar products, is used year upon year in our office.

• Space for up to 40 staff or projects
• Displays a Monday – Friday working week
• Symbol stickers and chart pen included
• WxH: 915 x 610mm
• Unmounted
• 24% off
• Free delivery when purchasing 4+ of this product

Originally staring out as the Self Adhesive Sticker Company; Sasco created the market leading Sasco planner as a way of increasing demand for its small self adhesive stickers, and inadvertently changed the way UK business’ record and plan events, holidays, staff movements and training in the process. Now offices across the globe are completely reliant on the almost age old holiday planner as a way of organising their staff throughout the year.

Sasco, part of the Acco group (who are No:3 in our top supplier list), continue to lead the way and today offer the most comprehensive collection of dated planning products available. ACCO UK Ltd take their environmental responsibilities seriously and with this in mind they have a range of products which address their environmental concerns in a positive way.

8 Days left until the near year and your business must have all kinds of plans! A new year brings with it many opportunities for your company to grow, expand and follow new avenues and as we all know, business begins with the customer. When a new year begins businesses across the globe take the opportunity to send their customers information which will hopefully bring further revenue. Whether this is January sales and offers, vouchers, new year promises, news letter for the previous year and agendas for the coming year, or even a nice big invoice; it’s all advertising and we could all do with marketing our company’s a little more thoroughly right? Well now’s the time to get our thinking caps on and generate new ways of grabbing the attention of our customers. Sending a letter is often the first impression your business will get to make, so make sure it is a good one! Choosing a quality envelope is a good start and as its business post; make sure it has a window.

C4 envelopes with windows can hold a full sheet of A4 paper unfolded. So this means that whether you send a nicely designed letter or a brochure, it doesn’t have to be folded! Our finest C4 envelope is the Plus Fabric C4 Envelope With Window featured. These prestige white envelopes provide the finest quality because presentation really matters! Send documents with confidence in these high quality white envelopes, which provide a combination of good looks and the strength which is so important.

• Easy Open envelopes, available in C4 and C5
• Available in small box quantities
• C4 (324 x 229mm)
• Window: 90 x 45mm, 60mm in from left, 15mm up
• Peel and Seal
• Boxed 250
• Specially designed for mailing of computer generated invoices/statements – vertical window
• Easy Open device allows a clean opening tear to the envelope, but does not compromise the strength of the product
• 120gsm
• Plus Fabric Prestige envelopes are made from paper awarded the EU Eco-label – which are better for the environment.
• Free Delivery
• £26.19 off!! Just £43.27!
  

The Green Bit

The EU Eco-label (also known as the EU Eco-Flower) is an independent accreditation that considers environmental factors that other labels do not, addressing the growing demand for environmentally friendly products.

Products displaying the EU Eco-label use less energy, consume fewer natural resources (e.g. water and raw materials), have lower impact on air quality and ultimately contribute to ozone layer protection and environmental safety.

Unlike other labels, the EU Eco-Label covers the following criteria under environmental label accreditation schemes; Scope, recycled fibre use, wood raw material, chemicals, energy use, emissions, waste management and recyclability.

It’s Christmas and that can only mean one thing! 2011 is just around the corner and we all have a wonderful full years worth of mandatory holiday coming up! Time to get organised people, this means at home as well as in the office. A fresh year brings the need for new diaries, calendars and staff planners, not to mention a stock up of the old biscuits and tea. This is where Office 365 can help you. With our fantastic choice of office planning equipment and accessories and our famously low prices, you’re sure to find exactly what you need, and at the prices you can afford after such an expensive time!

The office planner is vital for the organisation of your office and the teams and individuals within it. It allows you to keep on top of the comings and goings within the office and the tasks assigned to each team and individual. However the planner cannot be used to its full extent without the use of office planner accessories! Self adhesive and re-usable stickers, strips, magnets, shapes and kits correspond with your chosen planner and enable you to make full use of your planner, clearly marking important dates and events. It allows the user to colour code teams and staff members for quick glance use. Our Franken Planner Accessory Set featured to the right has everything you could possibly need, containing 20 magnetic name plates (50 x 10mm), coloured magnetic strip (5mm x 2m), in red, green, blue and yellow strips, transparent adhesive tape, tape cutter and 4 finemarkers (drywipe; red, green, blue and black). With festivity in the air, we’re offering you 24% off this item and combined with its free delivery, what more could you ask? I’ll tell you what; how about a reassuring 5 year guarantee? The icing on the cake…or rather the holly on the Christmas pud .

Once upon a time (as some of us remember clearly), we relied upon black boards (aka chalk boards) as a demonstration and education tool. The concept was great and became a widely used item across the globe; however it came with its disadvantages. Chalk boards were extremely messy, leaving your hands (and sleeves) and surrounding board areas covered in a white dust. They didn’t exactly wipe clean either. In order to get a completely clear finish so that the following text and illustrations could be visible from a distance, the board had to be cleaned with a wet sponge! Never the less, the black board saw us through generations and should never be underestimated. The 1980’s saw the dawn of a new era, the invention and widespread use of the epic blackboards upgrade – the Whiteboard! Whiteboards can be written upon with dry erase markers or drywipe markers. These wipe clean with ease leaving a completely clear surface. A little later came the invention of the magnetic whiteboard which allowed for the easy and magnetic storage of the whiteboard eraser and pen tray, as well as other usefull accessories such as magnetic markers and gridding tape.

After much testing over the coming years; here at Office 365 we will always recommend Magnetic Nobo Boards as the best option available on the market today, in fact they made it to No: 3 as our Best Supplier for Quality out of our entire range of stationery and brands. As part of the Acco group, Nobo’s reputation got off to a good start from the beginning. Take a look at our Nobo Professional Magnetic Drywipe Board featured to your right.

• Recommended for use in training/ meeting rooms
• Nobo Easyclene gloss white surface for easy erasing, lasting durability and use with magnetic accessories
• User positionable ‘clip-on’ accessory system – position pen tray on left, right or base of board so pens are readily to hand; eraser tray fits to base or top of board
• Board surface has lifetime guarantee
• Free Nobo drymarker and drywiper
• Complete with colour corner caps in blue, green and graphite grey to suit most environments
• Includes wall fixing kit
• 900 x 600mm (3ft x 2ft)
• Free Delivery
• 30% Off (Saving £35.30 – While stocks last!)

The Green Bit

Acco are committed to providing and conducting its business in an environmentally responsible manner, ensuring that their products, packaging and operations are safe for their employees, business partners, customers and ultimately, the environment. They strive to continuously improve their processes and products to ensure innovation, quality and value for money without compromising on their environmental responsibilities.

We’re precisely 11 days from 2012, that’s just 7 working days and counting! Never mind what’s coming this weekend, if you haven’t completed your online orders for Christmas by now, they probably won’t get here (Apologies for the pessimism)! It’s time to concentrate on the New Year now and if you haven’t thought about your home and office planning yet, then it’s time to get a move on. Each and every employee of yours or at least every area of your office will need a calendar, a staff holiday planner and diaries! Your staff will need to be able to see dates at-a-glance to quickly and accurately deal with your customers, so you’re going to need to get organised quick before we all return to work!

Monthly wall calendars are the perfect choice to easily reference your monthly events whether at work or at home. These calendars are often found centrally located such as on a wall or on your fridge.  Our 2011 wall calendars are selling like hot cakes and is it any wonder with examples such as this? Featured to your right is our At-a-Glance 2011 Wall Calendar which is one of our finest examples, featuring;

• Month to View wall calendar with At-a-Glance® date indicator
• Full year for reference on each page
• Gold blocked on a selection of coloured leatherette borders
• Size: 254 x 317mm

As our largest calendar in this At-A-Glance range, your employees (or yourself) stand a much better chance of being able view the dates from a distance, thus deserving it’s brand name! Please note, if you’re in a hurry, call our offices on 0870 766 1624 or e-mail order.enquiries@office365.co.uk to check stock availability.

At-A-Glance have specialised in producing traditional style non picture calendars since 1897 with the unique red window date indicator feature. These fantastic calendars where first developed by a man named John Frederick Bennet who began production in his North London stationery shop basement.  They became so popular and increasingly successful that the At-A-Glance branded calendars eventually became the entire business! Now, well into the 21^st century, these innovative calendars are still in as much high demand as they where more than 100 years ago!

Why not encourage your little monkeys organisational and educational side – it’s not just down to their teachers! Without your motivational talks, encouragement, guidance and time; your children will not get the start they need to go further. This background at home can be seriously underestimated; instil confidence in your child and their abilities by making sure their studying environment is just so. Always make sure that your child has a quiet and comfortable area to study and complete homework in. Provide a desk or table area and always keep tabs on whether they have homework or studying to do, and when it needs to be done by. Try to set aside some time to help them, especially when they’re small. It helps to have a home for their homework where it is visible at all times – a reminder of what needs doing. Desktop filing units provide the perfect storage solution for your children’s school work.

This Leitz Form Set Filing Unit with 10 drawers would be a great accompaniment to any desk, whether for your kids or for your office.

• A4 desktop shallow drawer unit
• 10 Drawer
• WxDxH: 291 x 352 x 291mm
• Red/Grey
• 30% off!
• Free Delivery!

Leitz bring you premium quality and innovative filing, document management and desktop products for the office and home office. The Leitz brand guarantees quality, functionality and durability, designed to keep you and your children efficient and organised at your desk all year long. Definitely a range Santa would approve of!

The disposable society is coming to an end.
Leitz make quality products that last. Innovation, progression and imagination drive us, today and tomorrow.

After a bit of personal research for today’s blog, I realise now just how important a personal organiser is! As a full time working mum of two – as you can imagine – I don’t get out much; but my research was based on real relevant people…other mothers! Now who on earth needs to have more organisational skills than a parent, particularly one trying to juggle a career too? After much discussion we came to a final conclusion; organisational aids, and not just for the mum’s. It’s high time our children took some responsibility for their own personal events, whether school, hobby or social related. The Filofax is a brilliant idea for both the kids to use and the parents. How about considering a Filofax for your little ones this Christmas and not only will you make them feel ever so grown up, but alleviate some of the pressure too! Take a look at this ideal little organiser featured below.

The Mini Filofax Metropol Personal Organiser as with all the Filofax range was voted the nation’s 8th most loved Christmas or birthday present of all time making them the perfect Christmas stocking filler! This particular organiser pictured to your right features;

• Mini Organiser
• Modern ‘leather look’ PU design with natural grain appearance
• Features credit card pockets, inside full-length pockets and pen loops
• Includes diary, an A-Z index and a range of notes pages
• Mini size
• Black
• 30% Off (while stocks last!)

Alternatively, upgrade to our Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Filofax ensuring your pennies are going to a good course. As with all Filofax products; by purchasing from the brand, you will be supporting a company with fantastic environmental credentials.

The Green Bit

The Filofax Group is an environmentally conscious organisation and acknowledge the impact that their operations have on the environment. Their objective is to minimise any negative impact on the local and global environment through establishing, operating and reviewing a continuous improvement approach to the management of their Environmental Policy. Their key objectives are;

• To comply with environmental legislation.
• To set environmental strategic key tasks for the organisation, plus review their Environmental Policy as part of the annual budgeting process.
• To continue with the ongoing education and training of employees on environmental issues.
• Establish a Company Energy Policy.
• Consider the effects that their operations may have on the local community by behaving in a considerate and socially responsible manner.
• Regularly review their product design, trading and commercial standard practices to minimise any negative environmental impact.
• Promote environmental awareness amongst their customers, suppliers, contractors, and partners.
• Source paper from mills that operate a policy of obtaining pulp from sustainable sources and are FSC or PEFC accredited wherever possible.
• Ensure effective and expedient incident control, investigation, and reporting.

Filofax will fully comply with the duties placed upon it within the requirements of statutory legislation, whilst at all times complying with, as a matter of best practice, the requirements and duties set out within approved guidance as issued by SEPA and other organisations. All employees and subcontractors are expected to co-operate and assist in the implementation of this policy whilst ensuring that their own activities, so far as is reasonably practicable, are carried out without risk to themselves, others, or the environment. The Chief Executive has overall responsibility for ensuring that the management of the company implements the environmental policy and also gives adequate consideration to environmental matters within the day to day running of the business.

More from our ‘Santa’s Useful Ideas’ range…

Today we’re bringing you another useful idea which will please every child, big or small. An old traditional favourite; a stocking filler we’ve all been happy to receive once upon a time. Going with the ‘encourage their creativity’ concept, which at Office 365 we strongly back, our artists pencils selection is perfect. I still clearly remember waking up on Christmas morning (so early it was dark outside) and feeling something heavy on my feet. I remember that rustling noise when I moved an inch and just knew what it was. That was it, I was from that moment until my head hit the pillow in the evening, a ridiculous over excited little person. Nothing’s changed really! Except now I’m the one creating that excitement for my little people. Colouring pencils where always a favourite stocking filler of my brothers and I, plus they came in pretty useful too. If it was still dark outside and obviously far too early for mum and dad’s poor weary heads; then we’d open them up straight away and put them to use making beautiful pictures from the magic in our heads.

Our Lakeland Colourthin Colouring Pencils featured to the right are the ideal stocking filler for any child. These traditional full length coloured pencils have a hexagonal barrel and a hard wearing core so that they can be sharpened to a fine point for detailed work. This pack of 12 includes a variety of different coloured pencils and is available with a generous 22% off the RRP! Lakeland are a popular brand by Derwent who are most popularly known for their pencils. The Lakeland pencil variety has been a firm favourite with generations of children for many years and it’s easy to see why. They have achieved a consistently high quality finish at already excellent value for money, plus there’s a great variety of products to choose from too!

The Green Bit

The Derwent factory is situated in one of the most beautiful parts of England, in the heart of the Lake District National Park. The company is therefore probably more aware than most how important it is to protect the world around us. Derwent comply with the internationally recognised environmental management standard, ISO 14001 and are committed to ensuring that their materials, processing, products and services have minimal environmental impact. For example, in 2002 they were awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for developing a unique, solvent free paint application system which has greatly improved the air quality in this production area.

Derwent have also been awarded the BOSS (British Office Supplies and Services) Federation Environmental Award for the past 11 years. This comprehensive award scheme covers a wide range of environmental issues, such as reducing energy consumption and improving their employees’ working conditions.

This Christmas let’s encourage and discover our children’s creative side. It is said that creativity is essentially a form of problem-solving, involving problems which there are no easy answers to and where popular or conventional responses just do not work. Creativity involves adaptability and flexibility of thought which are the same types of skills that numerous reports on education (e.g. the Carnegie Report, 1986) have suggested are crucial for students. By giving your children the freedom to express themselves through creativity is hugely beneficial to their evolving minds. One of the things we do in my house is collect rubbish. Yes that’s right, we collect rubbish! Old egg boxes, cereal boxes, pretty wrapping paper, toilet roll tubes, bottle tops; you get the idea. We have a great big plastic tub to store it all and every few days the box is out, the table is covered and my children are in their element making pencils pots, rockets and items which I’ll never understand. They absolutely love it. But other than the rubbish and possibly a lick of paint, it wouldn’t be possible without a glue stick. This activity is great at home and very common in schools. A child’s first few years at school is based mainly on play and creativity and of course building on their social skills. So whether you’re looking to facilitate their expression through creativity for your school or for your individual child, we can help you find the perfect glue sticks for school.

• Glues paper, card, labels and expanded styrofoam
• Clean, fast, strong and long-lasting
• Unique screw cap prevents drying out
• Non-toxic and solvent-free
• Glides smoothly
• Cold washable
• Ideal for school, home or office
• 25g
• 43% off
• 4g extra free (Oct-Dec 2010)

With 4g free, 43% off and the UHU brands renowned quality; this little glue stick would make the perfect stocking filler this Christmas.

The Green Bit

Environmental awareness and measures are applied to all areas, from product development and production processes to usage and disposal by consumers. At the same time UHU never loose sight of their own corporate values nor of current legal requirements.

UHU constantly improves conditions for the protection and health of their employees, the environment, their neighbourhood and their millions of consumers worldwide. In production processes, UHU‘s efforts far surpass that which is required.

Just 10 days to go until Christmas and our little monkeys are expecting the magic of Santa! It’s not easy coming up with so many little stocking fillers year after year, making sure that they are unique, magical and suitable.  That’s why this week  we’re bringing you ‘Santa’s Useful Ideas’ where we find you a new little item you’re children would love to get their hands on, everyday.  Today’s item is highlighters for kids, an educational and exciting little stocking filler which they can actually get some use out of! Giving your child a highlighter allows them to ‘highlight’ text from their school work and studies that is important. It works in a kind of ‘bullet point’ way accept quicker! One educational idea which I remember doing myself is a kind of Sight word practice. Take a piece of text, this could be anything really, text from a book, their own school work etc, and using the highlighter, ask them to search for small words within the words in the text. For example, in the word ‘educational’ you can find ‘cat’, ‘on’ and ‘at’ hiding. They can highlight these small words using the highlighter pen.

Our Stabilo Swing Cool Highlighters are a fantastic idea for a stocking filler. Bright and cheerful, useful and educational, these assorted waterbased pens are the perfect treasure and don’t have to break the bank!

• Fluorescent marker for colouring, highlighting, marking
• Pocket clip
• Water-based ink
• Line width: 1-4mm
• Wallet of 6 – blue, green, yellow, royal blue, orange and lilac
• 22% off

Highlighters are an essential item in most school and educational situations. Students and pupils are occasionally required to use highlighters to mark references or important information on school work or papers used in the research and preparation of tests. Put a smile on your little ones faces and hide a little fluorescent treasure in their stockings this year.

STABILO GREEN

Stabilo want to preserve nature and the environment for subsequent generations. That’s why they continually optimise their production and working conditions. Stabilo pencils are continually adapted to the latest product requirements and are often pioneering for the entire industry. As a logical consequence of their environmentally aware approach, Stabilo have developed a dedicated product line: STABILO GREEN pencils are made from renewable woods, obtained from controlled, environmentally responsible forestry operations. By introducing their own range of sustainable, high-quality pencils made from renewable woods they are making an important step towards increasing environmental protection. In this, Stabilo works closely together with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies the pencils in the STABILO GREEN line.

LIVING RESPONSIBLY

Every company bears a heavy responsibility – towards people and the environment. Because modern production processes use precious resources. That’s why Stabilo converted early on to environmentally friendly solutions. And they’re proud of the figures and results. At their international production sites, Stabilo pay painstaking attention to ensuring that they handle natural resources such as water and wood in a responsible way, save energy or consistently increase their recycling rates. They employ state-of-the-art technology to minimise the effects on the environment.