Customers

Last week I spoke at the May meeting of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Society of Government Meeting Professionals (SGMP).  The topic was "Recognizing Excellence", where I spoke on ways organizations and workplaces can take their recognition to the next level!  It was wonderful to meet government professionals and suppliers at this event and help them with creating meaningful recognition for their employees.

Jan Thor, Trustee of the Board for SGMP and Jessica at the May meeting.

About Society of Government Meeting Professionals:

SGMP is the only meeting planning and management organization that addresses the specific needs of the Government meeting professional.  The Pacific Northwest Chapter of SGMP provides a common forum for meeting planners and suppliers as a means of facilitating improvements in the quality and cost effectiveness of government meetings.  They do this through benefits SGMP offers - Education, Networking, and Resources.

By getting connected to SGMP, planners and suppliers have the opportunity to receive and take advantage of all the benefits the organization offers, including:

1. 1. State of the art meeting planning educational programs presented by experts in the field.
2. 2. Networking opportunities with their industry partners giving them the opportunity to build strong working relationships and
3. 3. A host of resources that SGMP provides both its meeting planner and supplier members to do their jobs better.

Education is the main purpose of their organization, and their educational theme for the year is "Planning for Excellence".  Through educational programming they provide their members with all the tools necessary to create "Excellent" meetings and conferences for their agencies, departments, and companies.

To read more about SGMP, see their national website or local Pacific Northwest Chapter .  This is a great organization for our customers who work for Government Agencies and plan events; I would highly encourage you to check them out!

Thank you to SGMP for the opportunity to share my passion around awards!  If you would like to me to speak for your organization, feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Cheers!

Jessica

This morning I received an email from customer Tom Edwards who sent me a photo of his "Top Mixer" Trophy along with an article he wrote for the Audio Engineering Society Journal.  I am sharing it below so you can find out all about the AES Nashville event, this amazing trophy and what it represents!  Here's Tom:

AES Nashville – 13th Annual “Spring Mixer”

The "Top Mixer" perpetual trophy.

"The Nashville Section of the AES held its thirteenth annual “Spring Mixer” competition on April 28. Area schools with audio recording programs were invited to participate in the annual student mixing competition. Participating from area schools were students from Belmont University, Middle Tennessee State University, SAE Institute-Nashville, The Art Institute of Tennessee – Nashville, The Blackbird Academy, and University of North Alabama.

Each team was given identical raw original studio tracks recorded at Blue Grotto Sound studio in Nashville, identical mixing environments, and eight hours to create a stereo mix and complete the paperwork as recommended by the AES and the Producer / Engineer Wing of NARAS. Entering the competition, the students were only informed of the judging criteria and what equipment they would be using. The mixing was performed on April 23 and 24 in six identical Pro Tools HD mixing rooms at the Country Music Television audio post rooms in Nashville, TN. The students were informed as to what version of software to expect on the Pro Tools, room monitoring equipment, and what plug-ins would be available on those systems.

Rules prohibited any materials being brought in, re-recording of any new material outside of the Pro Tools systems, or any outside assistance.

The final mix created by each team, using tracks from a recording session of “Summer Days” by the group Track 45, was judged on six elements, Fidelity, Imaging – Width/Depth, Dynamic Range, Mix Balance, Preparation for Mastering and Documentation-completion of page 5 of AES/P&E Wing Session Documentation.

This year the mixing engineer, Sean Spence, spoke to the students before the session and made them aware of the sound he was going for on the finished mix and emphasized the feeling of the song.

Jill Courtney served as Mistress of Ceremonies. A panel of judges comprised of industry professionals graded the mixes and presented their critiques at the April 28 meeting. We returned to the West End United Methodist Church’s “Fourth Floor Theater” in Nashville. The judges included – Writer, Producer, Mixer – John Jaszcz, Sales, Promotion and Record Executive – Dick Williams, Live Sound and recording engineer – Randy Gardner, Producer, Engineer, & Mixer – David Thoener, Studio Designer and accomplished Engineer, Producer, and Studio Owner – Carl Tatz, and Recording Eand Mixing Engineer – Adam Smith. The judges were not told what mix went with which school.

This is quite likely the only chance for the students to be critiqued in a completely subjective environment. The winner of this year's competition was the team from Belmont University, comprised of Shawn Gough, Kevin Freund, and Tat Sablatura. Second place went to the Art Institute of Tennessee-Nashville, and third place was SAE Institute – Nashville. The winning school received a MikTek CV3 microphone and each winning team member received a MikTek C1 microphone, Avid Pro Tools, Slate Digital Everything Bundle, Auralex Roominators, Auralex MOPAD, and a half day mix session at Ble Grotto Sound studios. Other prizes that were so generously supplied by our sponsors – Fabfilter Pro-Q2, Presonus Studio One Professional and Presonus R80 speakers. Iron Mountain Entertainment Services partnered with the AES Nashville Section to furnish finely tailored upper torso custom garments (event T-Shirts).

Belmont University took home the coveted "Top Mixer" perpetual trophy that will be proudly displayed with appropriate bragging rights until next year."

Thank you Tom for sharing your story with us!  What an awesome event and can't wait to hear about next year's competition!

Cheers,
Jessica

Sue Maybee accepts the 2015 Customer of the Year Award for the Issaquah School District.

Each year we choose one customer to honor as our 'Customer Of The Year'.  However this year we are honoring a group of very special customers at an organization we love.  The Trophies2Go 2015 'Customer of the Year' is the Issaquah School District.

ISD was nominated by our engraver, Paul, and at our annual holiday party in December, our staff unanimously voted to honor the district.

Each year the Issaquah School District celebrates student, athletes, teachers, staff and volunteers with meaningful recognition for their recipients. We make name badges for district employees and ribbons for the Issaquah Schools Foundation annual luncheon.  When the district celebrates their retirees, we create engraved clocks for their ceremonies.

At the Issaquah middle and high schools, coaches and teachers often order plaques and trophies for athletics and scholarship winners.  Each May we create awards for the music programs at the middle and high schools.  We love to help elementary school PTAs with Reflections ribbons, Science Fair awards, and Golden Acorn Plaques.  And there's many more orders that the school district brings our way.

Not only is the Issaquah School District an important customer, but it is also extremely important to our families.  Many of our employees either have children who have attended Issaquah schools (Janice, Mika, Jessica and Mike) or even graduated from the district themselves (Jeff and Laurie).  Both of my daughters attend Issaquah Schools and their education is top-notch.

We are honored to help celebrate achievements in the Issaquah, Sammamish, Bellevue and Renton communities through our award-winning public schools.  Thank you Issaquah School District for being an awesome customer and for doing a fantastic job of educating our community's children!

Cheers!
Jessica

At today's blog I would like to share a customer story about how our awards are used for their organization. This comes from Quin T. at Education Through Music in California.  They are a small non-profit group of educators whose mission statement includes the phrase: "Fosters the development and well-being of children through song, play and the study of artful teaching.”  Here is what Quin says about giving the Shining Star Paperweight award:

Twinkle twinkle little star is the inspiration for giving this award. The engraving says "EMT and children everywhere Thank You!"

"Our Board of Directors serves to guide our group.  As a board member rotates off their years of service, they are honored with the Star Paperweight such as the ones I just ordered.

As we serve teachers and try to keep our tuition costs low, we are a very low-budget group without a physical headquarters.  We lovingly call ourselves a “just add water” Institute of Education and Research since members of our teaching staff arrive at a course site and launch a course of study for that particular group of educators.

We currently sponsor courses in Michigan, Illinois, Texas and California.  This July we gather in Chicago for our annual week of summer study.

The star paperweight is significant to our group since one of the 130 or so songs we use in our study includes, “Twinkle, twinkle little star.”  While I used to think of this song as just simply child’s play, I have come to know that given the right setting, Twinkle can become a lovely work of art.

Thank you for your prompt service."

It's an honor for us to create awards for an organization making a positive difference in children's lives!  We are humbled to be making awards for the special people serving on their board.

To find out more about Education Through Music and the work they do for teachers and students, visit their website.  Thank you Quin for sharing your story!

Cheers!
Jessica

We love all of our customers, but some repeat customers that we help on an ongoing basis become extra special to us.  We get to know them well, which creates a meaningful relationship. This award honors such a customer!

Congrats to our Customer of the Year!

The Trophies2Go 2014 "Customer of the Year" Award goes to Jodi Warren at the City of Snoqualmie.

Jodi was nominated by Margene on our customer service team, but all of our staff agrees that she is deserving of this outstanding award!  Jodi is THE ideal customer.  Qualities used to describe her include sweet, understanding, and flexible.  Our staff loves working with Jodi and the City of Snoqualmie, WA to recognize excellence within their organization!

Congrats Jodi and thank you customers for making our day. We love working with you to deliver kudos throughout your organization!

Cheers,
Jessica