The suspense is killing me!!!

We have had some real ups and downs at work in the last week and a bit. We have had some bad news that has turned into REALLY EXCITING GOOD news........ I have to wait to have it all confirmed before we tell the world! I know this is annoying for you, but it will be worth the wait! I am so excited about this I couldn't sleep last night!

Wind up those clocks!

Did you all remember to change your clocks? Here at KC INKS all but one of us did.... we phoned Tommy at 9.15 and made him panic! Poor Tommy was full of the cold all weekend and never gave it a thought, luckily he is feeling better now - I say lucky because we all spent the day teasing him! Apart from Tommy (!) we are all on the ball and ready to leap into action and take your orders, http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/ place your orders and look for them in the post the very next day! We really are as quick as that!

Twin Packs!

We now have some twin packs in stock, we started getting them about two months ago but the supply has been a bit hit and miss so we decided to wait until it had calmed down before we told everyone we had them! It would have been awful if I had told everyone and then when you tried to order there weren't any!
We have Canon PG-40+CL41 £34.74. So you are saving nearly £5! PG-40 is £18.24 and CL-41 is £21.34. Of course we also have the refilled cartridges as well, here is a link to our website so you can have a look http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/index.php?p=toner_ink_finder&cid=8&pmid=570

HP also has a twin pack for HP350+HP351 £23.15. Saving a massive £7.81!!! HP350 £14.34 and HP351 £16.62. We also have the XL cartridges and of course the refilled cartridges as well here is a link http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/index.php?p=toner_ink_finder&cid=362&pmid=465 I hope this is helpful!

Things to make us happy!

I can't tell you how happy it makes us all here at KC Inks to get feed back (bad and good, but hopefully good!) So when we get an email like this one it makes our day! Here is what a lovely customer had to say.

Hello

I recently bought an HP printer and went to your site to see if you stocked the relevant inks. I found that you do. Now here is the good part! Before I could order them my printer ran out of ink so I ordered them around 5pm. I was amazed and truly grateful when the order turned up the following morning.

Thank you so much for your amazing service. I look forward to many years happy trading with you and I'll pass on your company details to my daughters and encourage them to use you too.

HK

We really do try very hard to give the best service we possibly can!

Our first BIG test...

If only the road ahead was as straight and clear as this one! We have had our first BIG TEST. I know you all think that surely it is the second one after all I wrote about a hiccup with Ginger just the other day.... Ginger can be mended! The tour company that we had booked the trip with have just cancelled! So we were faced with a decision to either give up or get on with it and organise it ourselves. Well we are not ones for giving up so we have started with the preparations! I am feeling a little daunted because now I have to plan routes, find hotels etc as well as organising all fund raising side! At least we have a bit of time between now and July, it will fly past though! We also have a charity blog page on our website now there is not much up there yet (yes it is another thing for yours truly) I will be posting all sorts of things on there in the coming weeks. Here's a link http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Blog.html Let me know what you think!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I thought I would go with a not so typical picture - it is from Cheltenham Festival! Four days of racing and hopefully good weather. With Danny in New Zealand we are not following as closely as we normally would be (he is John's son and a jockey in case you didn't know) The rivalry between who wins the most between English and Irish trainers is legendary at Cheltenham, so far this year Ireland are in the lead....

Introducing Ginger and our first hiccup...

I thought it was about time to introduce you to the most important(!) part of our team, meet GINGER! She is a 1974 MK1 Ford Granada and is John's pride and joy. She came into John's life last spring and he has lavished much love and car polish on her, he polishes the top and I do the bottom bits that he can't manage! And yes it is the same car that was in the Sweeney, we get lots of comments about that! Alas though we have had our first hiccup. We decided to put a new engine in Ginger and went to pick her up last Saturday. John was very excited, he hadn't even SEEN his car for a couple of months! We stopped to fill up with petrol and just as we started again we had an enormous backfire which managed to blow the exhaust apart at the seams! Luckily we were two seconds from the garage so it was straight back in, sounding like a tank! The engine seemed to be running fine but there must have been a reason for a buildup to cause such a big backfire so she is staying in the garage to find out the problem. Ah well thats old cars for you! Have a look at our charity page to find out why I am telling you about an old car! http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Drive.html

This week I have needed the matchsticks....

I am very sorry for the complete lack of any sort of communication via social media this week. I have not been slacking honestly! In fact the complete opposite, we have been working very hard on the website. The bad thing is that it is all "behind the scenes" work so you can't see what we've been doing.... but we have done a LOT!

I took a picture of my computer screen just to prove I am not making it up! This is a peek at what the back of the website looks like, we have been adding links onto each and every page on the website - every single cartridge and printer!

It is very boring repetitive work, we started last Sunday and have been coming into work early everyday since as well, this morning I was here before the car park opened! Luckily I didn't have to wait long. We are about half way through, roll on the weekend! Next week will be fun as well it is STOCK TAKE!!

We have just pressed the button and sent out our latest email about our BIG ADVENTURE in July! One thing that I think is very important to point out is that the actual journey has been paid for by ourselves. All the money you donate will be divided equally between Spinal Research and The RFU Injured Players Foundation. And of course if you have received your email you will know about the exciting prize draw we have put together! A YEARS FREE INK!!!! Now you can't get better than that! So get going and fingers crossed you are the lucky winner!
Here are the links to our Just Giving pages http://www.justgiving.com/KC-Inks-Ltd http://www.justgiving.com/KC-INKS I know the links look the same but they are to different pages, one for each charity. Also here is the link to the charity blog page on our website http://www.kc-inks.co.uk/pages/Charity_Drive.html I know it is a long way from July but there will be plenty of background work going on before then!

Happy St Davids day!

Happy St Davids Day! And what a glorious spring day it is to celebrate it! Beautiful blue skies with hardly a cloud in sight! Of course with us being in the Lake District we are famous for our daffodils too (thanks to the poet William Wordsworth) we even have daffodil watch on the local news! Hope you are having a lovely day that feels like the beginning of Spring!

John

I promised I would tell you about John and why we are going to be raising money for Spinal Research and RFU Injured Players Foundation. As you probably know by now John is the boss here at KC Inks. I am his wife Sally, John likes to tell everyone that I am the real boss but it isn't true! The RFU Injured Players Foundation in partricular is a charity very close to our hearts and for a very good reason. John suffered a devastating injury playing rugby when he was still at school (a month after his sixteenth birthday) and was told he would be completely paralysed. This happened in 1980 before the time of MRIs etc. In those dark old days the doctors really struggled with this type of injury because the equipment needed just wasn't available. Fortunately for John his spinal cord was crushed not severed so he did regain movement. It was a very long hard struggle and even now he doesn't talk that much about his time in hospital (Lodge Moor near Sheffield - it's not there now!) John had to relearn how to do everything and can walk, tie his own bootlaces, write, drive a car and answer the phone to talk to all our lovely customers. He was in hospital for a year and came out in a wheelchair. He has extensive nerve damage and therefore has very little sensation anywhere on his body apart from the top of his shoulders and head. He was incredibly determined and a year after he came out of hospital (when he was nearly eighteen) he attended Kendal College and did a Business Studies course - all without his wheelchair! I have included some pictures but they are all from more recent times.

John and the other love of his life Kara. She is Belgian/German Shepherd and when you phone John at work she is right by his side!

John and his greatest achievments in life - his two sons Danny and Ben. They are sitting in what John calls his "off road golf buggy" John can go places that would not otherwise be possible without it!

This picture really does show how determined John is! He is sitting in a digger! It was a real operation getting John into the digger as it had REALLY high steps but he wanted to do it so he got on with it (we helped!) He was a dab hand at driving it as well!

Now I think John might love this car more than he loves me. It is a 1974 Ford Granada. It is perfect for John as it is automatic and has loads of space. John is 6'1 so needs that extra legroom! This is the car that we will be driving this summer and I will tell you more about the EPIC DRIVE in another post.

I have not gone into huge detail about John's injury on purpose because words cannot really convey the enormity of what happened. It also cannot begin to give you an idea of the struggle John faces doing things that you and I take for granted. His "official title" is C4/C5 Quadriplegic. It is an amazing achievment that he gets to work in the morning (and that he is working at all!) Spinal Research is doing amazing work and the RFU Injured Players Foundation has helped us and we feel that we could try and give something back and this is something John can do so we are going for it!

A sneak preview of the road ahead

Some of you may remember John and I decided to go on a driving holiday last year. Well we have decided to do the same again this year but this time we are going to raise money for charity at the same time. WHAT?!?! I hear you all say - why would anyone pay good money for you to go on holiday? We are going to raise money for two charities, Spinal Research and RFU Injured Players Foundation. I will tell you the reasons why and John's story in the next post. We are setting off in July on the drive of a lifetime across Europe. You will be hearing a lot about it in the next few months!

Teacher's Pet!

John really is the teacher's pet this week. Quite honestly he is in danger of becoming a bore with the amount he goes on about the Youtube channel. You see John is in charge of it and we in the office have been hearing about everything he is learning. John is very committed and is very excited about the whole thing - he nearly hit the roof when he managed to turn the background orange! So for the love of all things orange (and my sanity!) take a look at our channel and maybe leave a comment? When John got the first comment on a video it was like Christmas! So make his day, have a look and write something nice! http://www.youtube.com/user/KCinksLtd

Yay! We have progress!

John has worked miracles and we have videos up on our Youtube channel!!!! I made a short and sweet video this morning (with the help of Tommy) about how to change a cartridge in a Brother printer and now its out there for the world to see!!! John has put up three videos, two helpful, one with nothing to do with cartridges, but it should make you laugh..... and yes that is me having a bit of a panic! Here is the link so you can have a look. http://www.youtube.com/user/KCinksLtd

Working it out slowly...

Like the tortoise our latest venture is progressing slowly as we learn "on the job" We are now the proud owners of a channel on Youtube, the challenge is actually getting some more videos up! We have lots of great ideas in the pipeline, and hopefully you will find our videos to be useful and maybe even fun too! If you have any ideas for videos you would like us to do let us know! Email sally@kc-inks.co.uk and I will do my best to get it done! Here is the link to our Youtube channel, we will make it look all lot more exciting over the next few days! http://www.youtube.com/KCinksLtd