New Year's Pie Messages

This event was an opportunity for the members and the indirect sector’s collaborators (providers and others) to be informed about the ELSET’s initiatives and next targets.

President of ELSET, Mr. Augerinos Chatzicrysos, announced the changes that the General Meeting decided to make on ELSET’s statement, in order to make ELSET more versatile and productive.

Apart from changes of a procedural nature, such as change of headquarters and name, there are also two essential changes.

The first change is that the pensioners Labelers can become members, in order to help ELSET’s efforts, through their experience and professional wisdom.

The second change concerns the providers and other collaborators, who will be able to become members, without the right to vote and stand. In a lot of cases, matters, problems and targets are common for Labelers and their collaborators. So, their route has to be common, too.

Also, providers and collaborators who will become members will be promoted by advertisements or informational banners from ELSET’s site at a much lower price than the non-members.

Next, FINAT announced the conclusion it came to from a previous event which concerned new employees and employers in Label industry (those conclusions will be presented later).

The second part of the event concerned exclusively the Labelers. Mr. Thodoros Kalkavouras, General Secretary of ELSET, made the general briefing and the labelers exchanged their opinions about the sector’s burning issues.

Two events are about to get fixed, the one in Athens and the other in Salonica. In those events, even more Labelers should be able to express their opinions, be informed about ELSET issues and look up for constructive results.

On the New Year’s Pie event, a ballot took place, in which five presents were given. The first present was a 3-day excursion to Plastira Lake, at Andromeda Hotel, an offer from travel agent “Ask2travel”. The other presents were four error detector softwares for businesses which are using preprint methods, an offer from Unimag. ELSET deeply feels the need to give thanks to the sponsors for their offers.

FINAT’s event

 FINAT, the International Label Association, invited youth from the wider label sector of Europe, in order to exchange opinions concerning the offer, the role and the future of the Label industry.

In this event, 21 youth participated. 13 were Germans, 2 were French, 2 were British and Greece, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium had send one representative each. Supervisor of the event was Mr. Jules Lejeune, FINAT’s Managing Director.

Mrs. Sotiria Athanasiou, a sector’s employee, was the representative of Greece.

The event was held by FINAT and national label associations' Young Talent brainstorm and took place in Berlin on January 23^rd-24^th of 2017.

Average age of the participants was 22-23 years, while there were also youth under the age of 20.

The majority of them were the children of current owners, the ones who will take charge of the companies in a couple of years. The participants were a priori called to answer some questions and, according to their answers, a “brainstorming” was created.

The questions were the following:

• What would the world be without labels? (Please, describe on your own words how labels add value in work and life).
• What exhorted you to work in this sector?
• How would you try to persuade your little cousin to work on label industry?

On the first day, the participants attended 3 speeches, while on the second day they took part on a conversation and some “role-playing games”, based on the things that already has been presented and discussed.

The first speech was concentrated exclusively on communication. There was an analysis of the media triptych “TRANSMITTER – MEANS – RECIPIENT”. Once more, it became commonly accepted that “everything is communication” and that “the limits of the world are the limits of our language”. Another milestone of the speech was the following phrase : “If I can say something, I also can think of it”.

A question which was linked to the first speech was the following : “What kind of message do we transfer through a label? What kind of message would you like to transfer as a business?”.

Participants reverted to this speech the next day, announcing the answers of the question : “What would the world be without labels?”. Their resumed statement was the following : “A world without labels would be seen as naked and dangerous, because there would be a lack of information towards the consumer and inefficient support of the product, who would be a product without identity, color, or shape”. The conclusion ended up with a phrase which was answering to the question concerning the message : “Label makes the connection with the Market”.

The second speech concerned the second (What exhorted you to work in this sector?) and the third (How would you try to persuade your little cousin to work on label industry?) questions. Everyone was concentrated on the sector’s demands from its executives, for example who are they and which qualifications show them off in this positions.

Greece representative’s answer on the third question concerned the creativity, the opportunities and the way someone can gradually set up his career path.

The employees were called to explain the reasons that provoked their interest to work in this sector and which specialties they see as necessary, in order to work on the Label Industry. At the first issues, explaining was of a very personal nature and there were plenty of them. At the second issue, they referred to the following specialties : Graphic designers, developers and salespersons.

The third speech concerned a research which took place in Europe. Its subject was the employees’ demands from their jobs. Top 3 answers were the following: satisfactory salary, good working environment and job safety. Greece wasn’t included in the research.

In conclusion, the event, in a good atmosphere, was based on one central concept : “How can we be more innovative and effective, in order to create a kind of Label Factory, which won’t just produce labels, but, on contrary, will be something more than that?”.

Administrative Council would like to express its deepest wishes to the collaborators.

Athens, 17-02-2017

ELSET’s Administrative Council