North Richmond printers star at SWUG

Newspaper printers gathered at the home of C&W music in NSW to discover who is the best single width newspaper printer of the year. Print21 editor, Simon Enticknap, was there.

The big winner at this year’s Single Width Users Group annual awards held in Tamworth over the weekend was the Fairfax Media North Richmond site which picked up two of the major prizes on offer.

The print site at the base of the Blue Mountains won the Art Roller Shield for Best Overall Print Quality, presented by Terry Brissett of Brissett Rollers, for its production of the Hawkesbury Gazette.

It followed this up by taking out the Coates Australia Shield for Best Four Colour Newspaper, presented by Meredith Darke of DIC Australia, which it won for its production of the Illawarra Mercury newspaper. The site was also runner-up in this category with its production of the Blue Mountains Gazette.

Pictured: The victorious North Richmond team which picked up two major awards at the weekend SWUG conference (l-r) Troy McGuiness, Sean Tait, Chris Jackson and Michael Gee.

In the category of Best Coldset Commercial Publication, presented by Flint Ink, the honours went to New Zealand with Horton Media taking out both the winners and runners-up places.

The SWUG apprentice of the year award went to Ricky Lillywhite from APN Print’s Rockhampton site, while the bi-annual $20,000 SWUG leadership scholarship was awarded Sean Tait, manager of the North Richmond site, who will use the award to undertake a worldwide tour of printing sites.

Around 220 delegates from 35 printing sites, as well as numerous suppliers, attended this year’s conference which was hosted by the Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth.

Presentations this year focused more closely on environmental concerns than in previous years as delegates heard from a range of speakers including international guests from New Zealand, Belgium and the US.