Codegate News

Codegate Plays Key Role in Cannes Lions Festival for 8th Year in a Row

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Codegate's enterprise mobility software has once again helped to ensure the success of the 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, held earlier this summer in France. Codegate's solutions continue to speed up the judging of the awards and enable the organisers to easily and quickly register and monitor more than 6,000 attending delegates.

"One of the key reasons I originally selected Codegate as our preferred enterprise mobility solutions provider was because of its open and honest approach,' explained Carolyn Lowery, Festival Director at Cannes Lions. "From the outset Codegate proved to be flexible, adaptable and very pro-active. We have continued to work closely together ensuring that Codegate is constantly able to tailor its voting solution and its delegate registration and tracking software to meet the unique demands of our advertising festivals in Europe and Asia.'

Established 57 years ago, the Cannes International Advertising Festival is the largest event of its kind with more than 22,500 advertising campaign entries from all over the world. Winners receive the highly coveted Lion trophy which honour the most creative film, print, outdoor, interactive, radio, design, sales promotion & activation and integrated advertising, as well as the best media, direct marketing, PR and Titanium ideas. The Festival runs for seven days and includes the judging of entries as well as a programme of seminars and workshops.

"Codegate initially developed an electronic voting system, just for the film category, to replace a paper based system which had required judges to register their votes by writing them onto an entry form. The votes were then manually entered into the Festival's bespoke back office system which was a time consuming and error prone process.' added Lowery.

Codegate's electronic voting system integrates with the Festival's back office system enabling the judges to cast their votes via hand held computers. The voting data is then automatically uploaded to the back office systems at the end of each day, eliminating the need for the Festival to employ a large number of temporary staff to manually process the votes, often late at night.

"Following the initial trials around the voting for the film entries, we quickly saw how effective Codegate's solution was in delivering a speedy and accurate judging process, at the same time as reducing our administration costs,' said Lowery. "The decision was then taken to roll out the Codegate system for use by our 180 plus judges across other entry categories.'

The Codegate team is always on site during events and through the observation of the Festival's processes is able to recommend new developments.

"It became clear to us that the judges had to review huge amounts of support material for each advertising campaign entry. This material arrived in a huge range of different formats which meant the Festival organisers had to use a wide array of different devices to present the material,' added Terran Churcher, CEO, Codegate. "Reviewing the material for the judges was a costly, time-consuming and cumbersome process. We recommended a move to a completely digital solution and developed Media Launcher, a bespoke software application.'

Media Launcher enables all of the supporting material to be loaded onto any PC instantly making it a complete library of items to be reviewed by the judges. Because the Media Launcher software understands the schedule to which the jury is working it presents this information in an intelligent, timely and orderly manner, making the whole review process a lot quicker and easier.

Media Launcher also provides the Festival organisers with visibility of which judges have voted on which category, enabling a gentle nudge to be given to those judges who have yet to cast their votes.

"We have also worked closely with Codegate on tailoring its delegate registration and tracking software to allow us to manage our 6,000 plus delegates more effectively. The Codegate solution enables us to verify delegate details at registration and their picture is taken via a webcam,' continued Lowery. "Delegates are then issued with a colour coded badge which includes a personal barcode and their photo. The colour denotes which days of the event they can attend and the barcode relates to their individual registration details.'

Codegate has further developed the delegate registration and tracking solution to allow the Festival organisers to gather additional delegate data by scanning the barcode on their badge as they enter seminars and workshops. The data collected now forms an important part of the post Festival analysis, showing which delegates attended which seminars and which workshops were the most popular.

One of the most recent developments Codegate has delivered for Cannes Lions is the availability of interactive delegate kiosks. Equipped with a PC or Mac, running Codegate's interactive kiosk software and located throughout the Festival's venue, the kiosks allow delegates to review all kinds of festival material such as: judges details, campaign entries from specific countries, short lists of individual awards, and which awards have been announced. This material is constantly updated throughout the festival ensuring that delegates always receive up to date information.

"Codegate is also working on a number of other developments for us, not just for Cannes Lions, but also for our European awards competition, Eurobest, our Middle East and North Africa awards, the Dubai Lynx and our Spikes Asia event,' concluded Lowery. "Codegate's solutions help to make our events run even smoother and ensure that we maintain our position as organisers of the most prestigious advertising events in the world. We have come to regard Codegate as a key and much valued member of our Festival teams.'

mobilewarehouse Enhances Customer Service for Felixstowe Warehouse

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Codegate’s mobilewarehouse software is enabling Felixstowe Warehousing to meet the requirements of its blue chip customers by delivering accurate tracking of goods into, within and out of its warehouse. Running on Motorola MC3000 mobile computers, mobilewarehouse transfers customer order and supplier shipment data from Felixstowe Warehousing’s back office system, directly to the hands of its warehouse operatives.

“To help us secure a major contract and to enable us to expand our range of services to a wider customer base, we needed to deploy a fully integrated barcoding solution covering goods received, location, stock checking and despatch,” explained Stuart Gosling, Director, Felixstowe Warehousing, part of the John Good Shipping group of companies, specialising in providing sustainable international freight handling solutions.

Having already realised that its existing conventional paper based warehouse management system could not deliver up to date information on stock and despatch, Felixstowe Warehousing was in the process of carrying out market research around mobile data solutions that would enable it to deliver this type of enhanced service to its key contract customers.

Codegate was chosen from a shortlist of three, following a presentation and showcase of its mobilewarehouse software solution.

“The mobilewarehouse showcase was a critical factor in our decision to go with Codegate. We have our own warehouse management (WM) system and integration of the barcoding solution with our SQL database was of prime concern,” added Trevor Manville, IT Manager for Felixstowe Warehousing. “This integration would deliver accurate real-time updates concerning all aspects of stock control which was paramount to the success of our implementation. The mobilewarehouse showcase demonstrated that the necessary levels of integration were achievable.”

mobilewarehouse, based on Codegate’s core enterprise mobility software, is designed to interface with legacy management systems and data stores which enables organisations to leverage their previous investments. mobilewarehouse enables barcode information scanned by a mobile device to be transferred in real-time from aisle and shelf locations to an organisation’s back office system.

Codegate worked closely with Felixstowe Warehousing as to the choice of mobile computers to be operated by warehouse personnel. Motorola’s MC3000 rugged mobile device was selected as it would withstand the rigours of a warehouse environment and with a three year fully inclusive maintenance contract, delivered a cost effective hardware solution.

“Codegate’s one-stop-shop capability in that it could deliver an integrated hardware, software and wireless network infrastructure, was another key differentiator for us. Codegate’s ethos is one of ‘can do’ and we have always felt comfortable that it would deliver the solution we needed to meet the demands of our customers,” continued Manville.

Felixstowe Warehousing is now looking to roll out Codegate’s solution across its food grade storage business. “The capability of mobilewarehouse will be invaluable in handling the complex issues surrounding this type of cargo storage,” concluded Gosling.

About Felixstowe Warehousing

Felixstowe Warehousing, part of the John Good Shipping group of companies, specialises in providing sustainable, international freight handling solutions. It handles deliveries by sea from worldwide points of origin to destinations throughout the UK and mainland Europe. Felixstowe Warehousing operates as a port-centric warehouse at the UK port of Felixstowe to achieve savings in freight costs, and their environmental impact, for our customers and the wider community.

Felixstowe Warehousing customers can choose from a menu of handling, storage, IT and delivery solutions for reliable, secure and cost effective distribution of their products to final destinations in UK, mainland Europe and global markets. It has a highly experienced workforce which offers a dedicated and versatile service in purpose-designed warehouse facilities.

For more information please visit: www.felixstowewarehousing.co.uk/internationalfreightwarehousing.html

Codegate Wimbledon Centre Court Appearance for 15th Consecutive Year

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Building on the success of previous years the mobile data specialist Codegate, is once again supplying the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) with a mobile access control system for its annual Championships at Wimbledon 21 June � 4 July 2010.

It is essential that security personnel monitoring access points to the venue have a quick and reliable method of verifying the access entitlements of players and staff at any point, on any day.

"Over the last 15 years, we have worked closely with the AELTC to ensure that we continue to meet the unique access control demands at Wimbledon," said Terran Churcher, Codegate's Chairman. "Over time the solution has evolved and now encompasses over 40 state-of-the-art Motorola mobile computers linked throughout the venue over a wireless network hosted by IBM."

Security staff located at each entry point use the Motorola mobile devices to scan the bar code on passes. The device then instantly displays the access rights of each individual together with a photo ID for added security enabling the accurate recording of movements in and out of the Championships. Crucially, the Codegate mobility solution enables the AELTC to ensure that the required procedures are in place to meet health and safety guidelines.

"One of the unique demands of the Wimbledon mobility solution is that it is only required for two weeks every year," continued Churcher. "Codegate offers lease/hire opportunities and the ability to lease our solution for the Wimbledon fortnight has become an extremely cost effective way for the AELTC to deploy a leading edge solution year after year. Codegate also provides training for the Wimbledon security staff to ensure that the solution is implemented correctly."

"It is hugely satisfying for all of us at Codegate that our mobility solution is, for the 15th year in a row, being deployed at the Wimbledon Championships," concluded Churcher.

Codegate's mobileworker meets the challenges of visitors to Futuresource 2010

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Codegate, the mobile data specialist, is to use Futuresource 2010 as a platform from which to demonstrate just how successfully its mobileworker software is being deployed by organisations operating in the waste, environment and sustainability marketplaces. Futuresource 2010 runs from 15-17 June at ExCel London and Codegate can be found at Stand C15.

"Futuresource is a great opportunity for us to share our mobile data expertise with professionals within today's competitive waste management, construction and field service sectors and to help them meet the business challenges they are facing," explained Terran Churcher, Codegate's Chairman. "Through discussion and live demonstrations we will be able to showcase how our mobileworker, field service and workforce automation software is delivering significant business benefits to organisations such as the Environment Agency, MITIE pest control and A-Plant."

Codegate's mobileworker was chosen, following a competitive tender process, by the Environment Agency as a component of an Electronic Duty of Care pilot project which aims to deliver improvements for waste carriers enabling them to better fulfil their obligations of duty of care. The project will replace paper based Waste Transfer Notes (WTNs) which are key to the tracking of waste collected and where it is taken for disposal, with WTNs created electronically using mobile computer handsets carried by waste vehicle drivers.

Running on rugged mobile devices, mobileworker will allow waste carriers to issue tasks, monitor and manage WTNs updating a web host with the completed data. Additionally, mobileworker has the capability to deliver tracking using GPS which enables the capture of more data around the waste being moved and should help waste companies to reduce their transport costs.

With mobileworker at the core of an end to end mobile solution from Codegate, MITIE pest control has increased the volume of pest control jobs by 20%. At the same time mobileworker has allowed MITIE to save approximately £15,000 a year in reduced telephone calls and postage costs, decrease distribution of materials through more efficient use of stock ordering and the real time data capture has reduced timesheet manipulation and increased the accurate and timely capture of chargeable extras.

Codegate's mobileworker has enabled A-Plant, the UK's second largest Plant, Tool and Equipment Hire company to prove that it is exceeding its service level agreements (SLAs). The combined capability of the mobility solution allows A-Plant to prove key performance indicators (KPIs) and meet the reporting procedures demanded by its key account customers. The company is able to demonstrate that it is meeting SLAs through accurate reporting on job type, the date and time it was completed, with electronic signature capture and digital imaging as proof of delivery or job completion.

"We relish the opportunity to dynamically illustrate and demonstrate just how much difference deployment of our mobileworker solution can make to professional organisations," concluded Churcher. "mobileworker provides the mobility tool for organisations to increase their competiveness and ultimately their profitability."

British Film Institute Deploys Codegate Mobility Solution to More Effectively Capture Delegate Information

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The British Film Institute (BFI) has deployed Codegate’s Delegate Registration and Tracking mobility software to ensure that it accurately captures data concerning the 2,500 accredited delegates attending its British Film Festivals.

The BFI needed to upgrade its existing paper based data capture processes to deliver the required market intelligence around the delegates, who come from the international film industry and include press and filmmakers, to the BFI’s public funders and stakeholders.

Codegate’s solution accesses the BFI’s Festival management database and prints delegate name badges that include an all important individual barcode which corresponds to the delegate’s unique reference number. As each delegate enters a specific screening or one of the delegate event programmes, his or her badge is scanned by a Unitech HT630 mobile computer, also supplied by Codegate, to capture the desired delegate data.

“Codegate’s mobility solution now allows us to quickly and easily monitor which members of the press attend which press screenings and which delegates view industry screenings, enabling us to report interest to film sales agents who are looking for distribution deals,” explained Helen de Witt, British Film Institute Festivals Producer. “The delegate event programme, which runs during our Festivals, receives funding from Film London and Skillset. We have particular reporting functions against this funding and we are now able to more efficiently provide the necessary demographic data relating to participating delegates.”

Additionally, the BFI is able to monitor which members of the press attend individual press conferences and importantly, those delegates who make use of the dedicated delegate centre.

Codegate’s Delegate Registration and Tracking solution was successfully implemented during The Times BFI 53^rd London Film Festival which took place last October and, is being deployed again during the 24^th BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival which started on 17^th March and runs until the end of the month.

The BFI spoke to a number of web-based combined database and accreditation system providers who operate festivals in Europe and North America. But, on deciding not to entirely replace its existing Festival management systems, deployed Codegate’s solution as its integration capability allows the development of bespoke add-ons that improve registration and tracking efficiencies, at the same time as working with the BFI’s legacy processes.

“The beauty of the Codegate software is that we are able to work closely with Codegate’s Technical Director to develop the additional features and functionality that we require. This has enabled us to access delegate data to more efficiently meet our reporting objectives,” added Emilie Arnold, Industry Office Co-ordinator for the BFI London Film Festival. “Importantly, these reports are now more accurate and less labour intensive as several of our manual processes have been eliminated.”

“We have found the Codegate team extremely helpful and very responsive to our individual registration and tracking requirements,” concluded de Witt. “The company has a very practical approach which has enabled it to continually meet the agreed implementation and development timeframes.”

About the British Film Institute

The BFI is the UK's agency for film culture, aiming to provide people with access to the broadest choice of film, regardless of where they live or how they want to access it. We do this through preserving and curating the UK's film heritage, generating new knowledge and content through an exciting and accessible cultural programme (screenings, DVDs, festivals, theatrical distribution, publications, education, online) and reaching new audiences by inspiring and motivating people to seek out film culture.

The BFI London Film Festival is Europe's largest public film event and runs for two weeks every autumn, showcasing the best in contemporary cinema from around the world at venues across London. The BFI also runs the annual BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival each spring.

About Codegate

Codegate specialises in the provision of robust mobile enterprise solutions that deliver a rapid return on investment through improved productivity, traceability and customer service levels. The company's solutions are used by transport and logistics, distribution, warehousing, retail and field service companies ranging in size from small to medium sized enterprises through to much larger blue chip organisations. Codegate's solutions include mobilevantage – a mobile workforce management solution for small businesses with around 50 mobile workers, mobilecourier - a highly configurable shrinkwrapped proof of delivery solution, mobilelogistics - a dynamic track and trace solution for transport and logistics companies and mobileworker - a real time job scheduling solution designed to optimise the mobile workforce for the medium to large enterprise. Codegate has partnerships with leading rugged mobile hardware providers including Intermec, Honeywell, Motorola, Psion Teklogix and Zebra. For further information please visit www.codegate.co.uk

Strategic Changes at Codegate

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Codegate today announced that it has appointed data capture industry expert, Graham Fenton, as its Managing Director. Terran Churcher, Codegate’s long standing Managing Director, will assume the role of Chairman.

“As many people within the auto-ID marketplace will know, I have worked on and off with Graham for over 20 years, and am really pleased that he will be playing such a key role in developing Codegate’s future,” said Churcher.

Fenton has a wealth of experience in the auto-ID and enterprise mobility sector having held a number of director level positions within the industry over the past 25 years. He was previously Managing Director of Synergix, the largest UK centric and specialist auto-ID product distributor which was acquired by broadline distributor Midwich Ltd in June 2007. At Midwich, Fenton continued to head up the Synergix management team and helped with the integration of the two companies.

“I am excited by the opportunities that my new role as MD offers. Enterprise mobility is a challenging market right now, but Codegate’s current and future solutions ensure that it is the perfect organisation to meet these challenges head on,” explained Fenton. “As MD, I will be in a position to build on Codegate’s existing Intellectual Property to ensure it continues to meet the constantly developing mobile data market’s needs.

” The appointment of Fenton as Managing Director enables Churcher to step back from the day to day running of Codegate to concentrate on long term strategy.

“I am looking forward to working ‘on’ the business rather than ‘in’ the business and being able to confidently leave the day to day running of the company to the professional, and probably the most experienced, management team in the industry,” concluded Churcher. “Graham joins Codegate at a really exciting time. We ended 2009 with a net profit increase of 105% year on year, so he has a great platform from which to take us forward.”

Codegate Delivers Bespoke Mobility Platform for The Garden Centre Group

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The Garden Centre Group, the UK’s largest garden centre retailer, has successfully upgraded its existing mobile stock control infrastructure with a tailor made future proof enterprise mobility platform from Codegate. The new solution has been rolled out across The Garden Centre Group’s 121 retail outlets around the UK and runs on Motorola MC3090 rugged hand held terminals.

“Our existing stock control infrastructure needed to be updated. Our legacy hardware had served us well but was becoming costly to maintain and repair, and no longer provided the memory capacity to store our large product files,” said Sophie Vyse, Project Manager, Store Systems, for The Garden Centre Group. “It was time for a hardware refresh and this gave us the opportunity to leverage the latest enterprise mobility technology and enhance the functionality of our existing stock control software.”

Codegate worked closely with The Garden Centre Group to develop a solution to deliver the additional functionality now required. Using the MC3090, Codegate’s bespoke software enables The Garden Centre Group’s employees to carry out stock functions such as ordering stock, price checks and stock takes, all via the hand held terminal from any location in the store or outside. Operating in batch collection mode, all data captured by the software is uploaded from the mobile computer to central back office systems providing The Garden Centre Group with visibility of its business operations.

Codegate was chosen from a list of eight other possible suppliers. “Having written the existing stock control application some time ago, Codegate’s development team has a proven track record of success with us and has existing knowledge and experience of The Garden Centre Group’s business processes. This understanding allowed Codegate to migrate a lot of our existing functionality to the new solution, importantly reducing the need for the re-training of our users,” explained Chris Thomas, IT Business Analyst, The Garden Centre Group’s Systems.

“The Codegate team is always responsive and sets realistic expectations, providing all the ingredients of a trusted partnership, making it the natural choice to quickly deploy a competitive high quality reliable solution,” added Vyse.

Crucially, the MC3090’s functionality provides the option for The Garden Centre Group to move to real time data capture using wireless connectivity and to implement mobile printing at a later date, thus ensuring the company keeps pace with its evolving business requirements.

“Once again, Codegate proved its commitment to ensuring the successful deployment of the new solution by delivering a pilot, which met our requirements within challenging timescales, at two of our garden centres. Codegate then completed the installation and roll out to the remaining garden centres within The Group in six weeks, again meeting our tight schedule,” concluded Vyse.

Codegate enhance mobilesafeguard with Google Maps

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We have listened to our customers and are pleased to say we are currently revamping our mobilesafeguard product, especially the PDA/vehicle tracking and find-my-nearest [engineer] elements.

Phase 1 of the development includes enhancing the functionality and user interface. Existing raster maps will be replaced with Google Maps Premier which means PDA/vehicle tracking users can still get all the information they previously had, but within the much richer mapping environment, including satellite viewing, smooth dragging/panning and instant zooming.

Phase 2 will allow you to overlay a technician’s visit or job information together with client information onto a map, along with their location data. For example, you may have a marker showing where the customer’s premises are and another showing exactly where a photo or signature was obtained along with the photo or signature itself.

We don’t want to compete in the vehicle tracking sector however, for customers that don’t carry a PDA but still need to track data on the move, mobilesafeguard offers a cost effective alternative to many specialist vehicle tracking companies. We will soon launch a standalone “black box” tracker that can be fitted to any vehicle or indeed any other asset that needs to be tracked.

To find out more about this application or for more information contact us today on 0845 3450808

Codegate Mobility Solution Enables A-Plant to Prove it is Exceeding SLAs

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Codegate’s complete mobility solution is enabling A-Plant to demonstrate that it is exceeding contracted service level agreements (SLAs), to key account customers. Codegate’s mobilelogistics software, running on Motorola MC70 rugged mobile computers is being deployed throughout A-Plant, the UK’s second largest Plant, Tool and Equipment Hire company.

“Codegate’s expertise is based around its ability to tailor solutions that meet the individual requirements of its customers. In A-Plant’s case Codegate’s skilled software developers were able to develop a solution that was simple, but at the same time, delivered all the functionality we required,” explained Andy Wortley, IT Director for A-Plant. “Crucially, Codegate’s mobilelogistics software, designed to support the dynamic services delivered by companies operating in the transport and logistics sector, has allowed us to reduce the amount of data input necessary and our users are able to quickly and easily operate the MC70s via a user friendly touch screen process.”

Codegate worked closely with A-Plant to develop a customised solution that allows A-Plant’s drivers to complete vehicle checks, to ensure compliance with Government guidelines on health and safety requirements, before selecting a choice of job tasks to be completed. The driver selects whether he or she is to make a delivery or collection, carry out an exchange or attend a breakdown or perform a service. All tasks are completed utilising unique contract numbers or plant IDs for job and data validation and all are date and time stamped.

“Codegate’s software combined with the MC70 allows our users to carry out barcode scanning, image capture, electronic signature capture via sign on glass capability, and real-time data communications from the field back to A-Plant’s back office systems via GRPS,” added Wortley.

“The combined capability of the mobility solution enables us to prove key performance indicators (KPIs) and meet the reporting procedures demanded by our key account customers. We are able to demonstrate that we are meeting SLAs through accurate reporting on job type, the date and time it was completed, with electronic signature capture as proof of delivery or job completion,” continued Wortley. “The imaging capability of the MC70 allows us to provide picture evidence of damage caused to equipment and the ability to recoup the cost of repair without dispute.”

A-Plant had previously trialled a mobile enterprise solution that would help the company to improve its business efficiency through the capture of vital information from its mobile workforce. But, the software was found to be over complicated and resulted in A-Plant encountering problems with user acceptance. However, a workable solution had to be found.

“We looked at ‘tidying’ up the original solution with our internal IT team but realised that the quickest and most cost effective route would be to work with a specialised mobile data solution provider,” commented Wortley. “Codegate was recommended to us and when we understood that the company had vast experience in successfully deploying large enterprise mobility solutions, had a competitive pricing structure, could deliver a solution that met our mobility requirements today, and those of tomorrow, and had strong relationships with rugged hardware manufacturers, chose it as our preferred supplier.”

A-Plant has currently deployed the Codegate mobile solution on 250 MC70’s across 28 of its Service Centres and is looking to further extend the roll out of the solution and to deploy it to other business areas such as its workshops.

Motorola MC35 Tracks Codegate's Technical Director Cycle for Charity

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Rafe Aldridge, Codegate’s Technical Director and Board Member, joined around 75 other cyclists to raise money for the children’s charity o2e by cycling from central London to Bruges, Belgium. In order to allow family, friends and sponsors to track Aldridge’s progress via a dedicated website, he carried Motorola’s MC35 mobile computer in his saddle bag.

“We left The Cenotaph in Central London at 09.00 last Thursday and arrived in Bruges on Friday at 18.00. 200 miles in two days was pretty hard, but I have always supported o2e’s ethos of encouraging people like me, to get way outside of their comfort zones, and take part in a sporting event to raise money that will make a real difference to seriously and terminally ill children,” explained Aldridge.

“To enable my progress to be tracked, I carried a Motorola MC35 PDA running Codegate’s standard asset and vehicle tracking software, normally deployed as a core element of our commercial enterprise mobility solutions. The software automatically logged my position using GPS and then sent it back to Codegate’s central communications server via GPRS. The data was then forwarded to the dedicated website to show my location,” added Aldridge. “I chose the MC35 as it remains a state of the art rugged PDA, and importantly, it is small and light enough to sit in my cycle saddle bag.”

This is the third year that Aldridge and Codegate have supported o2e through Aldridge’s participation in a charity cycle ride. This year he hopes to raise over £1,000.

“Each charity ride has a theme and this time it had a World War I feel. We left from The Cenotaph in London and cycled to Bruges via The Menin Gate and the Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing, just outside of Passendale,” concluded Aldridge. “It was extremely poignant to think of those who had made the ultimate sacrifice and to compare it with the small sacrifices we could all make to improve the lives of others.”