A pie for… four years

Opening the ceremony, the President of the Administrative Council, Ms Denise Haitoglou, said that the festive character of the day leaves no room for reports and goals, but she made special reference to the Association’s efforts to brief students of Graphic Arts on the professional perspectives in the sector, saying: ‘As we have said in the past, one of ELSET’s actions is visiting academic schools to inform about the industry and its professional perspectives. We have now made the next step: we have invited students to visit companies and get to know label making in practice. Moreover, we asked our non-labeller members to invite students and show them their field of activity. Many members have accepted, for which we thank them.

The first visits have already been scheduled. And, of course, we invite any other members to participate in this programme if they wish.

Also, ELSET’s President mentioned two events that will happen soon and show that ELSET’s extroversion now has an impact.

Ms Haitoglou informed attendees that Boussias company asked our Association to have Future of Plastics Conference 2024 under its auspices. This year, the event will present new, sustainable plastic materials and reveal new methods of recuperating and recycling plastics. ELSET will be there, both by offering its support and by presenting its positions.

The second event is the one organised by FINAT, the international labeller association. Its annual conference in May will take place in Athens, and ELSET will be there to welcome our colleagues from other countries.

Ending her address, Ms Haitoglou expressed the hope that attendees at ELSET’s event will also attend those events.

Business Development Manager of Domino company, Mr Luuk van Baren, presented in brief a new digital label printing machine.

The lucky piece of our New Year’s pie went to Mr Nikos Orfanos of Paperia label company, who won a commemorative gift from the Association.

ELSET thanks sponsors (Domino, DL Lambridis Dionysis, Innvestio and LINO), Nikolaou Prepress Packaging Design Flexoplates for designing the pie cover and, of course, all members and friends who honoured us with their presence.

Bourantas: ‘Wins belong to teams’

A highlight of the event was when professor Dimitris Bourantas mesmerised the audience with his direct, meaningful and inventive speech.

Some important points he made are the following:

• Businesses that do not adapt fade away. Apathy, complacency, arrogance are a few causes of non-adaptation.
• To be continuously successful, a business must understand early on what is going on, adapt, realise if and when it needs to change something, find ways to apply more than one alternative options at the same time.
• It is necessary to have persons with organisational skills and continuous learning abilities in the right roles.
• Company culture imposes a system of common values that define what is right and wrong, what is important and what is not, what is suitable and what is not, and what the priorities are.
• A true leader, not a manager, is the one who wins the present and builds the future of a business.
• Following the rules and having a true leader to manage, convince, discuss, listen, participate and authorise is what creates a strong team of workers that will fight and bring good results. No one can succeed alone. Teams bring about wins.