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INDUSTRY NEWS
CPSC, WCSC AGAIN CO-SPONSOR NATIONAL WINDOW
COVERING SAFETY MONTH
For the third year in a row, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
(CPSC) and the Window Covering Safety Council (WCSC), New York,
NY, are joining forces to declare October National Window Covering
Safety Month.
The month-long, nationwide campaign is designed to increase consumer
awareness of cord-safety concerns and to urge parents with young
children to repair or replace pre-2001 corded blinds, shades and
draperies with today’s safer products.
To simplify industry participation, the “Kids, Cords, Caution”
safety slogan will be used again as the unifying theme for the promotional
campaign, as will the optional logo that depicts a child’s
hand grabbing the cords of a window blind.
The WCSC will carry out umbrella public relations and safety-month
marketing activities on behalf of the industry. This includes news
releases and feature stories for the print and broadcast media,
a special safety-month page on the WCSC Web site, and cooperative
promotional efforts with safety, health and housing groups.
In addition, WCSC is providing artwork, ad templates and cord-safety
information for reproduction and use by industry members and retailers
in promoting the safety month. Materials can be downloaded at no
charge from the Internet at www.windowcoverings.org/industry. Access
requires a user name and password. The user name is Industry. The
password is October.
DELAWARE RESIDENT WINS COMFORTEX ULTIMATE
WINDOW SHADE MAKEOVER
Comfortex Window Fashions, Maplewood, NY, announces Claire Turrisi,
North Bowers, DE, was the grand prize winner of its Ultimate Window
Shade Makeover Sweepstakes. Running from September 1, 2004, to December
31, 2004, this nationwide sweepstakes gave consumers a chance to
enter to win up to $25,000 of free Comfortex custom window shades
at their local Comfortex BlindCrafter Center.
Turrisi receives free Comfortex custom window treatments for every
window in her home. She entered the sweepstakes at Blind Factory—Dover
on North Dupont Highway. An awards presentation was held at the
store on February 15, 2005. Owners Richard and Margaret Keith and
Comfortex representatives John Fitzgerald, executive vice president;
Scott Schroeder, vice president of sales; and Laura Baker, BlindCrafter
marketing assistant, were on hand to present Turrisi with her certificate
for $25,000 of new custom window treatments.
RM COCO TAKES TOP CUSTOMERS TO ATLANTIS
From April 27 to May 1, RM COCO’s owners, sales representatives
and customers enjoyed a tropical paradise at the Atlantis resort
in the Bahamas.
The biannual promotional trip began with a special tour of The Dig
and a history lesson about Atlantis. Following the tour was a welcome
reception hosted by the owners and sales representatives of RM COCO,
Cape Girardeau, MO.
“Everyone at RM COCO really goes all out for this trip. I like
meeting different people and my sales representative always makes
sure we are happy. It’s an adventure,” said Odelle Sherrard,
Aero Decorating Center, Gallatin, TN.
“The first day we had to move the festivities inside. But after
that, the weather was even better than we could have imagined. The
resort was great, the food was terrific and the company was even
better,” said Jim Rust, president of RM COCO.
For the remainder of the trip, the 400 guests enjoyed leisure time
and could take part in numerous activities, from golf to horseback
riding to deep-sea fishing. On Friday, RM COCO displayed some of
its newest products. On the final day, RM COCO hosted a reception
on the royal deck and guests enjoyed Caribbean dishes as well as
native entertainment.
The trip is open to any RM COCO customer. Customers are able to
earn their way on the trip by purchasing RM COCO products with assigned
point values. In 2007, RM COCO will invite customers on a seven-day
Mexican Riviera Cruise with Holland America.
HARTMANN & FORBES GOES GREEN
Hartmann & Forbes, Wilsonville, OR, has launched Project-Green™
in an effort to expand its environmental policies and procedures.
Founded in 1998, the company specializes in fine, hand-woven Roman
shades, bamboo cornices, hand-woven draperies and panel screen.
With the support of the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College
of Business Sustainable Supply Chain Management initiative, the
company will develop a strategy to close the loop in its manufacturing
process so that responsibly harvested organic products end their
life-cycles by being returned to the ambient environment.
In its first major endeavor under Project-Green, Hartmann &
Forbes is developing a take-back initiative in which customers can
send back used organic window coverings so the company can turn
the material into compost at a local Oregon recycling facility.
This means the company’s products will have a life-cycle that
begins with natural, organic materials such as bamboos, grasses,
jutes and river reeds; are grown and harvested exclusively from
well-managed, sustainable eco-systems; are woven by hand and made
into custom window coverings; and, in the end, are disposed of in
a manner that is equally respectful of the environment, the company
stated. “This takes our product from cradle to cradle,”
said Michael Jones, Hartmann & Forbes founder and president.
The first product launch under Project-Green is the release of nine
new weaves specifically designed with environmental sustainability
in mind. The weaves are made from rapidly renewable materials that
either are harvested after being naturally seasoned to specific
colors or are organically cured.
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