Sharing ‘core values’

MARCH 11 2004. Not a date that means too much to the vast majority of us gathered here today. For a few, it is a date that can never be forgotten, and one that has changed the attitude of a nation.

At around 7am on the morning of March 11, bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid as they approached Atocha, the city’s busiest railway station. We now know that 198 innocent people lost their lives that morning. I was there, along with two publisher clients. I had the truly sombre experience of standing outside a hotel with a friend and colleague who manages our Spanish company, head bowed as we observed a minute’s silence. We saw the busses and hearses taking the victims to the main exhibition centre where they would eventually be identified by relatives. In all the terror and the uncertainty of the hours immediately following the atrocity, my mobile hardly stopped. At a time when business associates in Madrid had every right to be thinking about themselves, and their own families and friends, they were ringing me to check that I was ok. It was a small thing they did, but it had an enormous effect on me and reminded me that whatever the extreme difficulties in our professional or personal lives, core values are the essence of us all.

In welcoming you all today, I am particularly pleased to be able to welcome friends from companies like IPS, SGEL, Iberpress, Commercial Atheneum and Reed Aviation Spain, all of whom are involved in press distribution in Spain and who endured the terror of March 2004.

As I start my term as chairman of ACE, it is ‘core values’ that I wish to focus upon and ensure ACE upholds. In an increasingly demanding environment where more and more is expected of us, where often our business is becoming more marginal and relationships with suppliers and service providers more strained, ACE provides a social and pastoral outlet for its members where we can remember how to be colleagues, and just how good it is to be able to share experiences from time to time. ACE has always been about supporting its own and through events such as today’s luncheon, offers all of us a few hours where we can meet up with friends from the trade we see all too scarcely in the hurly burly of our everyday lives. The Association’s ongoing commitment to NewstrAid – Old Ben as some of us still know it – remains as relevant today as at any time in our history. Helping to provide funds for the good works undertaken by NewstrAid is one of our greatest core values. The few minutes at each Christmas Lunch when we acknowledge the recipient of The ACE Freedom of The Press Award is also a core value. From time to time it can do none of us harm to remember that we are the privileged ones, that however difficult we feel our work to be, we have comforts and safety not afforded to others of us in our industry. If we should ever fail to find the time for values such as these, I for one believe our trade would be the poorer and less vibrant. Today’s attendance, 1,200+, along with attendances at other events, suggests that ACE still has a role to fulfil and that its members still value the opportunity it presents for relaxed interaction and honest comradeship.

ACE has continued to move forward this past year under the chairmanship of Ken Moreton. In a year of great uncertainty for his company, and for himself personally, Ken has remained the focal point of an excellent committee that now sees the Association stronger than at any time in the past ten years. We launch our website today and continue to work with trade organisations like Distripress to heighten our profile with our international colleagues. David Bermingham and Mark O’Connor from TNT remain superb supporters of ACE and their ongoing contribution to the Association has been essential to our well being over the past years. We will continue our membership drive through the capable hands of our secretary Trevor Collier, whose unstinting work has played a major part in our resurgence. My heartfelt thanks to all these people, and to the committee who direct and advise with discretion and integrity. There is much work to be done; amendments to the rule book, the development of the website, the possibility of an ACE Forum in 2005, and the Press Awards... all this will be done with our members’ interests foremost in our minds. ACE is unique, built on the ethos of fellowship; it has no direct parallels within publishing in other countries, and is looked at with regard by many from overseas. We should be proud of ACE and its core values. I am deeply honoured to be your chairman for the coming year. I will endeavour to emulate Ken’s tenure by ensuring that ACE continues to provide a purpose for its members, that it continues to develop funds to support our own charity, NewstrAid, that it continues to be an outlet for friendship in our industry and that next year, we are once again met here, to enjoy an outstanding occasion. May I wish you all a Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year; enjoy today and, if you feel inclined, be very, very, merry.