We are excited to announce we have officially launched “Vision 2022”, our next strategic plan to carry us forward during the next four years. It is our ambition to build on the progress that was made by strengthening existing strategies and to identify new opportunities.

A vision built together

The journey towards the launch of the strategic plan began in September, 2017 with the organisation of several workshop between Mike Ayres, CEO of Advance Tapes, and every employee in order for them to give feedback and ideas to help create a common vision for the future.

The workshops session were both positive and constructive and it has been decided that the Direction will repeat this consultation on an annual basis. A summary of the feedback received was made available once all workshops were completed and the improvement started in November 2017.

Official Launch

The Vision 2022 was presented to 150 UK employees in entertaining style by the senior leadership team Mike Ayres, Sharon Boyle, Kym Ellington and Gil Woodward. The first event took place on the 9^th of March 2018 at the headquarters in Leicester, England and marked the start of the Vision 2022 plan by answering the question “Why should I work for Advance Tapes?

After the presentation, food and drinks were served providing the opportunity for questions and conversations. It was also the opportunity for them to sign the Commitment Board and become part of the next chapter in our history.

A great few days for Advance were rounded off when we shared Vision 2022 with our fantastic French team. The Advance Tapes leadership team did a brilliant job delivering the presentation in French. The response has been fantastic and we are excited to begin building our Vision 2022.,

We’re good to grow!

Advance Tapes specialise in the manufacturing of adhesive tapes such as cloth coated tape, aluminum foil and many more for many different industry applications and uses.

We are highly delighted to announce that Advance Tapes is sponsoring Steps and Marches, the 2017 exhibition by artist Marcin Dudek, which will be on view from 22 September through 4 November 2017 at Edel Assanti art gallery in central London.

Marcin Dudek has used adhesives from the start of his professional artistic career. The idea to use tape in his practice emerged from his role as a technician in art galleries across London, building exhibitions and professionally packing artworks.

Marcin Dudek discovered collages as an advantageous medium for exploring and mapping space. Using amalgams of adhesive tape, the collages explore concepts of line and space from organic forms to man-made structures. Many of them seem to be three-dimensional, as they map out space above and below ground. At Advance Tapes, we are committed to supporting artists, schools, charities and local community organisations every year, helping them to successfully deliver their projects.

We have been particularly impressed by Marcin Dudek’s exceptionally artistic use of our cloth and PVC tapes, therefore, it seemed natural for Advance to become a supporter and to contribute to his excellent work.

Steps and Marches

Marcin Dudek explores the politics of identity and space, conflating hooliganism, memory and the architecture of social experience. An autobiographical dialogue with his own past underpins this discussion, drawing on his own experiences of violent football subculture and post-Soviet societal climate as a point of departure.

Dudek’s youth as a fanatical football supporter provides an autobiographical springboard for this exhibition, which explores the stadium as a metaphor for social reality, spectacle, and the kind of polarization techniques prevalent in all forms of socio-political rivalry. The exhibition takes place at Edel Assanti (London) and Harlan Levey Projects (Brussels) expanding on two prior exhibitions in each gallery. Works in the exhibition demonstrate the relationship between one and many in a cross-chunnel dialogue.

The London exhibition dives into the march of mass movements, whilst the Brussels chapter zooms in on the steps of individuals who shaped those spectacles. Centrefold in London is a monumental installation comprised of freestanding geometric MDF blocks, each referencing specific historic crowd disasters through statistical representation. Monitors embedded within this modular landscape play looped black and white footage, alternating between exercises in coordinated demonstrations and violent explosions of crowd violence.

Inanimate sculptural objects construed from materials that evidence these same disasters or authoritative bodies’ attempts to curtail them. The exhibition will open at Harlan Levey Projects on 7th September during Brussels Gallery Weekend, and on 21st September at Edel Assanti, remaining open throughout Frieze in London.

Venue

Edel Assanti 74A Newman St, Fitzrovia London W1T 3DB www.edelassanti.com Tube: Oxford Circus

About Marcin Dudek

Born in 1979 in Krakow, Dudek left Poland at the age of 21, in order to study at the Mozarteum Art School in Salzburg (from which he graduated in 2005) as well as Central Saint Martins in London (from which he graduated in 2007). He currently divides his living and working life between Brussels and Krakow. His work has been exhibited in such international institutions as the Musuem of Modern Art in Moscow, the Strasbourg Künstlerhaus, the Arad Art Museum, the Bunkier Sztuki in Krakow and Kiev’s Goethe Institut.

Website: www.marcin-dudek.com   About Edel Assanti Edel Assanti, established in 2009 in central London as an itinerant project space, opened its permanent exhibition space in Victoria in 2010. The gallery aims to establish a dynamic cultural hub for a new generation of arts practitioners. Since its opening, Edel Assanti has presented twenty three onsite exhibitions, worked with over one hundred international artists, and participated regularly in international fairs. The gallery continues to exhibit works by both mid-career and emergent artists and, especially this year, to provide a platform for contemporary art from Latin America. Website: www.edelassanti.com

Earlier this month, along with 1300 other participants, Mike Ayres CEO of Advance Tapes took part in the second edition of the Outlaw Half at Holkham, North Norfolk in UK.

Mike raced along with Emilie Ayres of MMR and Robin Brookes of Storage Concepts to complete a half iron man relay, covering the distances of 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run.

Overview of the course:

Robin Brookes began with a 1.2-mile swim in the fresh water of the lake on a simple out and back swim course. Mike Ayres completed a 56 mile bike course which was a single loop taking in the coastal road as well as passing the Queen’s residence, at Sandringham. Emilie Ayres finished the Triathlon Relay with a 13.1 mile run course which was three laps of a 4.3 mile loop around the Estate, passing and finishing in front of the beautiful house.

Congratulations to them for this amazing performance!

The below video gives a taste of the wonderful atmosphere during the event: https://youtu.be/OREYv_W48qk

Advance Tapes was honoured to be chosen to host the very first Concannon Connection Breakfast Forum on the 16th of June 2017 at their headquarters in Leicester, England, which has been hailed as a great success by all who attended.

A varied range of local business leaders, including HSBC and Mattioli Woods, were present at the forum and enjoyed a presentation by Cherie Concannon who is a Success Coach with a reputation as a leading expert in corporate progression for top level executives.

The event was planned by Cherie Concannon following previous discussions with the business community and by carefully listening to what their particular needs and interests were.

The breakfast forum consisted of a round table discussion. By extracting themselves from day to day operations participants were able to share their experiences . Valuable insights were gained enabling leaders to exchange ideas on meeting business challenges.

The attendees enjoyed a range of valuable feedback and also had the opportunity to network face-to-face with others in a warm and friendly environment.

Every guests received an Advance Tapes bag containing various gifts including a roll sample of the famous AT7 Electrical Insulation Tape and the brand new AT132 All Purpose Duct Tape.

Read more about the Concannon Connection events: https://www.cherieconcannon.co.uk/events

BBC Breakfast chose Advance Tapes for live broadcasts throughout the morning surrounding the speculation of the anticipated Bank of England cut in interest rates. The prediction was a reduction from 0.5% to 0.25% which would be a record low and the first cut since 2009. Ahead of this decision, the national broadcast aimed to find out how businesses might react and how this decision would affect individuals as well.

Advance Tapes was highlighted as an ideal representative UK Tape Manufacturer and exporter, and was chosen to host the show. The breakfast show was broadcast live from Advance Tapes’ Converting site located in Leicester, on Thursday 4th August 2016, with guests including Paul Forrest from Midlands Economic Forum, David Hollingworth from London and Country Mortgages, and Jasmine Birtles,  a personal finance expert. Ben Thompson from the BBC interviewed Mike Ayres, Chairman of Advance Tapes on the impact of interest rates for a UK Manufacturer.

What would the interest rates cut mean for Advance Tapes?

“For Advance Tapes, as an UK exporter, it is great news! It makes our product more competitive abroad because this is keeping the pound low and also making the cost of asset finance cheaper. So for a company intent on growth, that is a great short term.

The concern we have really is what is going to happen next. I think there is a lot of uncertainty about where it goes and what Brexit is going to mean going forward. With 80% of our business outside of the UK, we need to know about the trade deals that will be secured with Europe over the coming months” Explains Mike Ayres. While we await those decisions, Advance Tapes wants to reassure its customers that it is very much business as usual – the result brings no immediate changes or implications to the way in which it trades. Nor does the result alter Advance Tapes’ priority and commitment to its European customers and employees. Advance puts the customers’ interests first, offering the most appropriate product solutions, whatever the customer project, wherever customers are located.

Watch an extract of the live interview about the impact of Interest Rate Cuts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHz-j_OPnEo Mike Ayres also held an interview with BBC East Midlands Today, covering the same topic.

The interview can be viewed at 2:03min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAcgLV8loyM