St Giles Furniture in the Community
Penn School says 'Thank You St Giles Furniture'Thank you for your continued support of the school, Toby and Donna have made a real difference to the lives of the children at Penn and the pupils continue to benefit from this each and every day Sally Thurlbeck Don’t forget |
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Penn School, High WycombeSt Giles Furniture has been raising money to help children at the Penn School in High Wycombe and Toby was rewarded with some happy faces when he arrived at a morning assembly to present a cheque for £4,077.20! Art work from the students at Penn School has been displayed in our Gerrards Cross showroom recently with several pieces being sold to our customers’ to boost fund raising efforts. Contributions to the school funds also come from all Red Fatboy Original bean bags sold through us since red represents the school colours! A large part of our recent cheque donation to the school came from Tobys’ London Marathon achievement this year however, and he is hoping to repeat this in the future! Penn School is a non-maintained school for 11-19 year old students with communication difficulties and is dedicated to helping all students achieve the highest level possible in individual abilities, enabling them to maximise achievements in their adult life. |
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Bucks Budding New DesignersAS FEATURED IN GERRARDS CROSS LIFE MAGAZINE JUNE 2011 IT’S A FACT – ST GILES FURNITURE ALLOWS ME TO INDULGE MY PASSION FOR FURNITURE DESIGN! BY TOBY SMITH Having our own factory enables us to design and manufacture a highly diverse range of both traditional and contemporary styles of furniture. It’s always exciting to get involved in new projects and see them through to completion in a customers’ home. My own father went to the college in High Wycombe to learn the skills he has today for cabinetry and French polishing and it prompted me to start thinking how as a locally based company we may be able to work together with the students at Bucks new University taking furniture design courses. High Wycombe has long been known as an important centre for furniture research and manufacture with a strong heritage indicated by the number of furniture makers who historically came to the area,many of whom still exist today. Over the years a rich and diverse programme has been developed for students at the local college now known as Bucks New University, which enables them to work together and acquire many furniture making skills whilst indulging their creativity for design at the same time. This particular course already boasts an alumni which includes many leading designers and cabinet makers now running their own businesses. A passion for design and making beautiful furniture is what binds us all together and inspired me to contact the course leader Andrew Shenton recently to see just how our company could become an integral part of various aspects of his course. I am very happy that as a result of recent events we will now be sponsoring a competition to support a project for the second year students taking part in the Furniture Design and Craft course. This part of the course historically requires some form of desk to be made so the brief for the students will be “Working From Home” whereby all students will need to work on the design brief and present a comprehensive set of drawings documenting their design journey. We will then choose five designs which will be directly sponsored by St Giles Furniture who will cover a large part of the building costs for these students. These designs will then be exhibited in our own showroom in Gerrards Cross and showcased at a special evening for the local press and our customers’ who will vote for their favourite design. We feel that this is a very topical choice for the students since these days traditional working practices no longer apply for many people and a large proportion of the working population often now work from home. Personally I was also delighted to be invited to the Summer End of Year Show at the National School of Furniture this month. To celebrate this event I have set up a “St Giles Furniture Award” to be presented each year to the winning designer. THIS YEAR OUR WINNING DESIGNS WERE A STUNNING CHAIR BY HARRY WILLIAMS, ALONG WITH AN IMAGINATIVE DESK BY JACK PEARSON WHO ALSO WON “RUNNER UP” WITH HIS VERY DIFFERENT HALL STAND! The criteria for selection this year was “excellence of design combined with excellence of craft” and the designs exhibited were stunning showing huge talent and attention to detail in furniture design. I am thrilled that the St Giles Furniture name will be linked to this event with an annual award for the winning piece which I had great difficulty in choosing this time round and actually had to select two winners and a runner up!! These pieces will also be exhibited in our showroom and we are looking forward to having them on display to promote young talent in this area and the next generation of furniture designers’ in South Bucks! |
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