As Christmas is the time for sharing, we’ve been up in the loft and dusted off our infamous ‘Christmas Gift Grabbing with Louis and Squid’ Christmas Game to share with all you nice folks once again. We’ve added a few new additions this time round to make it even more addictive including a high-score board for those of you with a competitive streak.
To add to the Christmas love, the game now resides within Facebook, allowing you to take our generous gift, extend thy Chritmas love, and share it with all your Facebook & Twitter friends.
I thought I’d take the last of my annual leave and use it to do something I’d had my eye on for a while. Climbing Snowdon (yr wyddfa). Despite no takers to join me on my expedition, I ventured the long drive up to Snowdonia, lodging in the quaint village of Betws-y-Coed for the night before the hike the following day. All was well despite the ominous low cloud cover, but after an hour of walking the Pyg trail, visibility became unnervingly poor and within the rolling clouds came the gale force winds. Against the weather I continued to the summit to be greeted my a misty expanse of white void – hardly the view I was hoping for but it made the journey that much more challenging and has given me good reason to return. The trip back down the Miner’s trail with the wind at my back was more perilous than I had bargained for but beneath the cloud saw beautiful vistas over some of Wales’ finest landscapes before the drive home. Here’s looking to a sponsored Three Peaks in 24hrs challenge with team dna next year!
Tesco’s 2011 Christmas advert has heightened our festive senses here at dna. It features a short but sweet reference within the advert copy, “We’re keeping Torquay in Turkey”, along with a beautiful shot of our sea front. Although quite a few places are mentioned, we can’t help but feel proud of our merry little town getting national coverage!
The creativity at dna is simply infectious and in between Chloe’s administrative and project management duties, she found an ingenious use for old paper merchant stock samples – a scrapbook for her friend’s 21st birthday… the lucky lady!
Following the sound of pitter pattering down our corridor, out into the dna studio emerged Grace Mabin, our newly hired Creative Director. Straight away Grace got to work, mocking up some new exciting designs for dna, as well as amending daddy Mabin’s days work to include the slogan “VSAguih ilajg”.
Grace then took on the role of ‘Senior chair checker’, moving her way around the office to make sure our chairs did indeed reach our desks and were able to spin in an orderly fashion. Needless to say, the presence of Grace certainly made the office smile, and we were sad to see her leave for a very urgent tea party… Until next time!
Friday the 30th of September gave us some unseasonal, fantastic weather and in true Brit spirit, dna were out in force to milk every single last ray of sunshine! Where better to do it than the cultural heartland of the bay, the all-round summer refuge for the classic British seaside experience – where age-old penny arcades stand proudly upon a 114 year old Pier, where buckets, spades, inflatables and fish & chips are the order of the day? Well, Paignton of course! Accompanied by Sarah T’s woofter Bella, the dna crew enjoyed some sweet R&R on our lunch break. We sure know how to live.
Yesterday saw the very first dna Curry Club night. It was a serious meeting of stomachs as we sampled spicy, fragrant delights of the East whilst mopping our sweaty brows with chutney soaked napkins. As this mini feast was as the brainchild of JB – we thought we’d honour the night after him! Not a bad turn out for a first time – and yes, despite the picture it was more than just Paul and Sarah tucking in!
On Saturday (9th July) the ‘DNA Dawdlers’, otherwise know as Sarah and Katie, took part in the Rowcroft Hospice Sleep Walk along with 1500 other women and a giant sheep named ‘Barbara’. We have been working with Rowcroft since October last year to produce the Sleep Walk campaign material and website so we were really excited to be part of the big event. The atmosphere on the night was amazing and it was an incredible sight to see so many women dressed in their PJs all determined to have a great time and raise money for such a worthy cause.
The ten mile route took us from Occombe Farm through Cockington and along the harbour to Kents Cavern where we walked through the caves (our favourite part of the walk). From Kents it was back along the harbour before climbing the hill up Headland Park Road, along Sandringham Gardens and Preston Down Road then heading back to Occombe Farm for a much needed bacon sarnie.
The Sleep Walk event has seen sponsorship pledged currently standing at an amazing £130,000 – that’s a whopping £170,000 including Gift Aid! This money will help secure the future of Rowcroft and the end of life care that they to provide. It’s not too late to donate, you can support the DNA Dawdlers here or find out more about Rowcroft and the services and support that they provide by visiting www.rowcrofthospice.org.uk.
On July 4th, Chloé Harvey joined the dna team for her placement year from Bournemouth University, studying Advertising and Marketing. Chloé hopes to bring new ideas to dna and is excited to be working alongside the Client Services team and getting thoroughly involved in some real projects, gaining experience she can take back to complete her degree.
(See what we did there?) Our trusty BDM Tim has taken up yet another challenge all in the name of charity! Tim will be running the Torbay Half Marathon on Sunday 19th June on behalf of Rowcroft Hospice – it’s a charity that’s close to Tim’s heart and provides fantastic care to people facing life-limiting illness. With the 13.1 mile coastal route giving all participants a run for their money, any kind donations will be most appreciated – please show your support and give what you can. Thank you.
It was the time for high-vis vests and ear plugs as the two Sarahs and JP headed over to the British Ceramic Tile factory for a tour of the new plant.
Although reopened some years ago, with the new brochures looming, we thought it apt for a refresher course and to show newbie DNA designer Sarah what happens behind those closed doors. The £40m expansion was certainly impressive and our guided tour from raw materials to a gorgeous product from the latest Laura Ashley range was fascinating – with automated robotic flatbeds zipping about the shop floor delivering tiles, giant silos that look like they belong in a science museum, state-of-the-art biscuit (not that kind!) conveyor networks and 1000°C kilns. The new plant has been modelled to accommodate new machinery in line with its plans to grow, to meet a target output of 30,000sqm tiles a day.
You can join Barry online in a step-by-step journey here.
In preparation for Rowcroft Hospice’s ‘Sleep Walk’ women’s-only charity night walk event, the Rowcoft team have begun selling promotional merchandise and giving out their famous training t-shirts. Sarah popped down to the wonderful surrounds in the bay to pick up her shiny new tee only to find not just Barbara promo items galore, but a special appearance from the Sleep Walk mascot herself!
The success from the promotion of the event has seen 1800 walkers sign up in 2 months with over 200 on their waiting list – great news!
A huge “Thank you” to everyone that helped us smash our target, donating for such a worthy cause. At 121% of our target, DNA’s ‘Row Yellow: Rowing for Rowcroft’ charity event raised a fantastic £1146.41 (including gift aid) as the DNA team took turns to row the distance of The Channel and back again! 9.5 hours of sweat and aching bottoms later and the team had reached the magic 60 miles, with the whole event streamed live!
So again, thank you to those who donated – we really appreciate your support and Rowcroft Hospice will use your donations to continue their fantastic work. See the final slo-mo stretch on our YouTube page
Or relive the experience here on UStream and scroll down to the recent videos.
On 18th April, Sarah Thomson joined the DNA team. Sarah has a passion for the industry and has been working in design for over 4 years in both the print and digital arena. She left her previous role, managing a small team of designers to join DNA. We see Sarah as a great and welcomed addition to our creative team and I know she is excited to get stuck into more creative projects and work with our prestigious clients.
Today, in aid of Rowcroft Hospice’s ‘Go Yellow’ fundraising event, the whole DNA team raised money by enduring another feat of human endurance! – taking turns to row the 60 mile equivalent of Dover to Calais, and back, all in our studio on an Olympic rowing machine. To prove that we’re really going for it we streamed the whole event live, with comments, song requests and more! But it’s not too late, you can still donate to a fantastic cause on our Just Giving page.
Our challenge ran from 7am – 4.30pm when we reached the magic 60 miles. As of 5pm today, we’ve reached our target so thank you EVERYONE for your contributions! Thanks also to Samatha Barfield at Pure Body for the loan of her rower!
This year, in aid of Rowcroft Hospice’s ‘Go Yellow’ fundraising event, DNA are hoping to raise money by enduring another feat of human endurance! Yes! We’re rowing from Dover to Calais, and back. Okay, so we’re not actually braving the chilly waters of the English Channel but we’re doing the next best thing… Over approximately 15 hours, the DNA team will be taking turns using an olympic standard rowing machine to travel the 60 miles to and from the sunny shores of northern France – non-stop! That’s right! And better yet, just to prove that we’re really going for it we’ll be streaming the whole event LIVE! You’ll be able to watch, listen, comment and even drop us a music track to workout to when you donate over £10 on our Just Giving page.
Our challenge runs from 6.30am – 9.30pm on Friday 1st April – This Friday!… (or until we reach our target mileage). Be sure to tune in and watch by clicking here (or on the top menu) and visiting our dedicated ‘Row Yellow’ page.
Why wait? Please give a little to this fantastic cause now. Let’s get the ball rolling!
Being a really big music fan, I wanted to let the world know how amazing the new album is from Adele, titled ’21′. If any of you like singer songwriters, then you’ll love this masterpiece. How often do you purchase an album to find one or more songs not up to par with the rest of the album – not in this case. Every track could become a single. I downloaded ‘Adele 21′ from iTunes a couple of weeks ago and have played it almost not stop since and I’m still not bored with it. It has also prompted me to purchase the Adele 19 album too. This is equally as good. For an artist to create such a great album at just 21 I can’t wait to see what she produces in the future. Adele, you’re a legend!
Here’s a taster of one of my favourite songs from the album titled ‘Take it All’
Some of you may remember me posting a link to a YouTube video that I produced from my 9 day Safari holiday in Tanzania, back in September 2010. The video was posted in October 2010 and has now achieved over 1,000 unique hits on YouTube. Having not done anything like this before for my own personal enjoyment, I am amazed that so many people have viewed it. For those of you that did not get chance to view the video last time round, here it is again.
Several members of DNA recently spent two days in London at the Tullett Prebon London International Boat Show (LIBS). It was a rewarding visit, with meetings with several of our clients. There were numerous boats on display that we would love to own. The ultimate boat on display was the 32M, the new flagship product from our long standing client Princess Yachts. As the name suggests, it is 32 meters of pure luxury and opulence. We were fortunate enough to board the vessel on two separate occasions and were blown away each time. This boat has had a lot of PR, due to it being both the largest boat currently built by Princess Yachts and it is also the largest vessel to fit inside the hall at Excel. The boat has been featured by numerous media companies, including the BBC and Boat International.
This shot shows Katie, Matt, myself (Paul) and Tim from DNA on board the flybridge area of the new Princess 32M.
On a recent trip to London to see several of our clients, Katie came a cropper while on the return journey. We have all heard the ‘mind the gap’ announcements at nearly every train station – well, Katie certainly did mind the gap while climbing on board the 4.06 train from Paddington, unfortunately one of her shoes didn’t! Can you believe it. Poor Katie had to travel back to Newton Abbot wearing just one shoe after it fell off her foot while climbing on board the train and fell between the train and the platform. Luckily, Dave her boyfriend met her at the station to carry her home.
As Christmas is the time for sharing, we’ve been up in the loft and dusted off our infamous ‘Christmas Gift Grabbing with Louis and Squid’ Christmas Game to share with all you nice folks once again. We’ve added a few new additions this time round to make it even more addictive including a high-score board for those of you with a competitive streak.
