Sept 9/10th 2008 became the inaugural date for Palamatic Handing Systems Inc.

distributor training event. Set in Sunny (and rainy) Garner, North Carolina the event spanned two days; focusing on both classroom time and hands-on demonstrations of working equipment in the (currently) shared factory facility.

The event was attended in total by 15 distributors from all across the country. Delegates came from as far west as Irvine, CA and Phoenix AZ, from the north in Chicago IL and Indianapolis and as close as Greenville SC. International visitors also attended from Montreal.

Showing our commitment to successful emergence in the US market, three key staff visited from Palamatic's UK base. These included Materials Handling Divisional Manager Rob Andrews, Engineering and Production Team Leader Darren Boden and IT Business Systems Manager Michelle (Shelly) Partridge.

All delegates were lodged in the Hampton Inn Raleigh/Clayton, which has excellent conferencing facilities and is conveniently positioned just a mile from the factory and just a half hour from RDU airport. After a Tuesday afternoon run of airport collections, everyone gathered together for the first time for dinner at local restaurant Chops Steakhouse, a very nice eatery with great service and atmosphere.

The Wednesday morning session kicked off in the Hampton Inn meeting room, Rob Andrews presented delegates with a new pack of sales and marketing materials, included Palamatic's latest product range brochure and a CD ROM containing a variety of electronic media.

Following a pork BBQ buffet lunch at the Hampton, delegates moved on to the factory. Here, Darren Boden went through demonstrations of a variety of vacuum tube lifting equipment, including a 90 degree panel rotator, film reel manipulator (lift and rotate 90 degrees). Delegates also got a chance to test and offer feedback on Palamatic's latest range of vacuum control valves, tagged the NXG range. Also on show was Palamatic's new lightweight aluminium jib crane and bridge crane systems, which will be available direct from the NC facility from January 2009.

Returning to the meeting room for a Q&A session, delegates commented on their feelings of our first ever direct training event. Warm applause rang round the room, as to a man (and lady) everyone showed their appreciation. The main point raised by all parties was a better understanding of Palamatic's future plans for sales growth and presence in the US. We can reveal exclusively now that Palamatic Handing Systems Inc. will be remaining in the facility at 595 Old Drug Store Rd, which is great news in terms of logistics and livery, but it also means that Sue Bingley, our excellent Office Administrator, can remain working with Palamatic for the foreseeable future. The day was finished off with a goodie bag of local NC foods, containing hand made chocolate and Yam sauce.

On Wednesday night attendees were treated to a relaxed evening of live entertainment at The Flipside. Our friend and colleague Kevin Bingley of Process Technical Sales and his band Mr Mustard played a session of well know tunes while everyone mixed and chatted about the days events – which all agreed had been a great success and truly worth while! And what better way to finish than with several distributor PO's totalling over $10K.