September 2009

Another fantastic opportunity came our way in the summer. We were approached by the organisers of a premier event here in Pembrokeshire to print shirts and safety wear for the VMCC Saundersfoot Run 2009. The Saundersfoot 75 Rally is THE National Motorcycle road trial event for Vintage Veteran and Classic Motorcycles in Wales. The event is held around middle of September each year go to www.saundersfootrun.co.uk for details.

This is the kind of business we thrive on, with an interest in the event which we have visited for the last few years.
We already had customers involved in motorcycle businesses who enter the rally and have a very good friend entering the rally this year and staying with us down here in Pembs.

We just had to get involved!

The weekend was Spectacular! the weather was absolutely perfect and the makes and models of entries for the rally were many and varied and of an excellent standard.
Well done to Mary, Huw and all the team who make this event a fantastic success and a must on any bikers calendar.

This just a small selection of our pics from the weekend.

Summer 2009

We had the call from a very good friend of ours. ‘Me & the boys are going to York for our bike tour this year, we need a great T-Shirt design for the trip’. We thought, what an opportunity to use some of the new metallic films on the market and show how good they are.

We created a design using several colours of film with a Viking theme (of course). I am pleased to say they loved it, and had a great weekend in the beautiful historic city of York.

The print medium is thin film in Gold, Silver and Copper. The finish is a soft sheen/lustre not a mirror or chrome finish, we thought it looked more authentic for the design.
What do you think?

September 2009

Chevron Pembrokeshire Team Challenge and British Quadrathlon 2009, September 12th.
Another big event in the Pembrokeshire Calendar. The Team challenges consist of cycle, Longboat rowing and run.  
We were fortunate again this year to supply T-Shirts for the event. Each competitor receives a T-shirt at the finish, and they really deserve it!

It’s always a challenge for us too as the competition entry closes on 30th August we have just 12 days to complete the order, but we relish a challenge and look forward to these events.
The weather even behaved beautifully for the weekend, as weather and sea conditions are very important for a successful competition.
For photos and results pop to  www.ptcq.co.uk

These are our outstanding Sublimation T-Shirts where the image is dyed onto the shirt permanently, they can’t possibly peel, crack or fade and make a great momento of the day.

Pembs Team Challenge 2009 Tees

August 2009

Mid August is always a busy week in Pembrokeshire, Its County Show week! It’s the biggest event in the county calendar.
It seems as if the whole county is buzzing in the weeks prior to the show with preparations and plans for the pitch.
We are always busy taking orders from customers who want nice new shirts, or T-shirts to promote their business, name badges, bags and all manner of things to get them ship shape for the big event.
Phew! by show week we are on our last legs and ready for a break.
Which is why we just enjoy visiting the show as spectators and catching up with customers to say hello and are they all happy and having a good show.
Even though the weather wasn’t so good this year, it didn’t seem to put a damper on these folks and the 3 days of the show were as busy as ever.

Here are some of the folks we caught up with in a quiet moment.

August 2009

Back in the Summer (yes we did get a few days) we got a call from a youth group doing great work with local kids down here.  They had a special event planned and wanted to kit out the whole crew with T-Shirts.  We were happy to help.
It turned out to be an open weekend at Griff Rhys Jones’ Pembrokeshire Farm near Strumble Head.  He had kindly arranged a fundraising weekend for the youth club.  Fantastic, can we come?

Saturday morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed

The Lemon & Lime colour scheme for the shirts went across really well, and even the weather was spectacular, well done for booking that too Griff.
The man himself was on hand to show folks around the farm and answer questions and he posed for a photo with some of the youth club girls. Thanks Griff for your patience, he’s a thoroughly good egg..

The weekend was a great success there was lots going on from the art gallery in the barn and restored showmans wagon to theatre and music in the evening. The turn out was excellent and I believe over £11,000 was raised for the group, quite a result!

Thanks for the pose Griff, smile everyone!

What we found out later was that the BBC were filming the weekend for episode5 of ‘Return to Pembrokeshire Farm’ screened recently and included a small feature from the event. The kids were filmed helping out and looking after visitors and even yours truly got in the frame a couple of times (but I’m not saying where). What a fantastic surprise!! Smart-Tees are now ‘As seen on TV’
As a thankyou to the group I printed and laminated some of the best pics for the club room as a reminder of a really special event.

Point Group Tees

We are lucky enough to have a great local dance group who use us regularly to provide gear for club members and competitions.

They asked us recently to help out with a couple of outfits for an up-coming competition, they had an idea of the theme for the outfits, but then let us loose to create the design.
The result was a great success, everyone loved the outfits and I hope they went some way to helping the girls win 2 Gold and 3 Silver medals. Well Done Unison Dance!

This job was a while ago now, but we liked the design so much I just had to include it here.
The project was for a Youth Theatre Group in South Wales, they already had the design, which we traced all round for cutting in bright Yellow vinyl.
I think the result speaks for itself and the kids were really thrilled with their new hoodies, and they also have Polo shirts to match.
www.messupthemess.co.uk

We really enjoy creating T-shirts for showbiz types. These good folks asked us to create a design for the band and wanted something to stand out on stage.
Immediately we thought GLITTER, well actually it’s called Sparkle vinyl, and in Silver metallic the effect is fantastic under lights.
The design is ours but can you spot the inspiration for the background, (that’s dates us abit).

And I should say that if anyone out there runs or plays in a band, a custom T-shirt design in any one of our great special effect vinyls looks great and will of course make everyone play to their best, LOL.

A couple of chaps (David & Graham) visited our business group earlier in 2008, to tell us about an event they were going on in October. It sounded like madness but they were definately going for it!

The event is the Enduro Africa Ride for Life Rally, it’s a charity motorcycle ride in South Africa organised to raise money for African projects.  You may have heard of this one now, as 2 very special guests are taking part, none other than Princes William and Harry.
The event raises money to buy and maintain off-road motorcycles to be used by Unicef workers taking desperately need medicine to outlying areas. Sentebale, the Princes favoured charity and the Nelson Mandela fund for Children also benefit.
The race is 8 days of gruelling off-road motorcycle riding through bush and wild-country, not for the faint-hearted, I suspect.
Anyway the chaps, asked us to support them by providing T-shirts for the trip based on the banner on their website, and we were delighted to oblige. We also put the t-shirts on our website to sell a few and donate profits to the cause.
The event has just started and everyone here at Smart-Tees wishes them good rides and not too many bruises.

http://www.thedaftwayround.com/blog.html

www.enduroafrica.com/home.htm

STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS

update 28/10/08

Good News, we have just heard the guys made it back from the Rally safe and sound. With a few tales to tell, including rubbing shoulders with a couple of very special Royal chaps, who took part in the Ride.
I am pleased to add that our friends reached their target of £10.000 raised, a fantastic achievement!
Well done to both of you and we look forward to supporting you next year!! (LOL)

Don’t forget to checkout their blog which is soon to be updated with photos of the guilty.

T-shirts are still available for a limited period (probably until year-end) and now we are pleased to offer FREE POSTAGE to UK mainland.

Here’s a comment from David now he’s recovered and had time to think about the experience…

 Author : David aka Fat Bert
E-mail : david@thedaftwayround.com
URL :

Comment:

The hardest part I suspect was the start of day 4 - we’d endured a 13 hour ride the previous day across some fairly tough terrain - but Day 4 started at 5.30am and we had 12 hours in front of us to cover just 47 miles - now thats tough terrain

Add into that Salmonella Posioning and Dysentry - just to spice things up a bit - then sleep outdoors with just one lavatory for 80 blokes - not easy!!

The rate of attrition was quite high approx 20% of riders suffered some injury but despite broken collar bones and wrists, 77 of the 80 that started made it across the finish line

Then to cap it all - the flights and transfers back from Port Elizabeth to Tenby took a mere 30 hours - walk in the park!!

Whilst I was over there, on one of the long dusty and bumpy gravel dirt roads, I began to thinking about home, the family, my 3 nippers who got out of bed very early on that first day to wave us off from Tenby, the beach walks with my springer spaniel, Reverand James and other like-minded foaming ales - and thought about how to convey the challenge that we were facing and sum up the images that we had witnessed  at the end is the link to over 1100 photo’s taken by lots of the riders including some taken by the 2 x HRH’s - enjoy

http://s466.photobucket.com/albums/rr23/enduroafrica2008/

We were asked to supply and print T-shirts for the competition, each team member receives a goody-bag for the event including a T-shirt.
We were given a list of the logos to be included and a list of all the teams and members, these had to be designed, approved and printed within 5 days! from registration closing to the event start, PHEW! it was a challenge for us, but we did it with time to spare, thanks to our helpers by the way.

We used the very best Vapor Apparel T-shirts because they are built for sports and we knew they would take the punishment. And although the weather over here hasn’t been great like everywhere else this summer, the rain held off, and everyone had a good day.
If you fancy a go next year visit their website - www.ptcq.co.uk