Celebrating 21 Years in 2020

2019 was a significant year for me personally, I celebrated my third anniversary at Vinyl Solutions in the summer, two of my children started new schools in September and I celebrated a milestone birthday!

For Vinyl Solutions 2019 was a very busy, but challenging, year. The holiday park industry as a whole has been affected by the backdrop of political and economic uncertainties. In spite of this, I’m proud to say that we have still been able to achieve year on year growth at Vinyl Solutions, due to the hard work of the entire team.

In addition we’ve been developing our business in new regions, have built on some of our fantastic partnerships, and developed major new partnerships with park operators across the UK. 

Growth of our team

We continued to invest in our team in 2019 so we can continue growing as a business and are better able to serve all of our customers.

Earlier in the year we welcomed Tracy Kemp as a Regional Account Manager for West Sussex, Surrey and the Isle of Wight and we also recruited Darron Wilson, who has become our first Regional Account Manager covering the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire region. We also welcomed Greg Campbell to the Greater Manchester region, acting as both a Regional Account Manager and installer for some key parks in that region. All of them have already made a very positive impact in their respective areas.

Matt Andrews, in our Commercial team, was promoted to the new position of Head of Commercial. This is a key new role for our business; Matt will support me with important commercial activities with our park operator partners whilst also seeking new business opportunities.

This year has also seen the growth of our Finance Team. Andy Moore joined us as Head of Finance in the summer and is looking at business strategy and reviewing our processes. He was closely followed by Mike Nicholls who is providing accounting support for the business.

We’ve recently appointed new HR partners, View HR. With our ever-growing team, it is important that we continue the focus on our people and ensure we’re supporting and developing our whole team. We’re looking forward to working closely with Heidi Roper (her initials even spell HR!) from View HR and her team next year. 

Building on our key partnerships

2019 was also an important year for us in developing our relationships with our key park operator partners.

Earlier in the year we were successfully selected as preferred suppliers for Parkdean Resorts, Bourne Leisure and Park Holidays UK. The fact that some of the biggest park operators in the UK see us as a key decking supplier is hugely significant, and we hope to provide them with an excellent service for years to come.

We were also selected as the exclusive decking supplier for a major new development of over 100 units for Away Resorts at Sandy Balls in Hampshire. This was a huge success and it was fantastic to partner with them on this project. With further developments planned at this key park in the region, we hope to work more with them in 2020.

New partnerships

Not only have we continued the development of our relationships with our existing partners, we have also established new partnerships with other leading operators.

We were delighted to be selected by Park Leisure as one of their preferred decking partners earlier in the year, to work across their 12 holiday parks around the country. 

Excitingly, Cosgrove Leisure Parks UK have chosen us to be their sole decking supplier across their 6 holiday parks. As part of this key new partnership we will be supplying decking for all of the new units at a major 25 home development at the stunning Thames Retreat in Middlesex.

In addition, we will be announcing that we’ve been selected as a preferred decking supplier for another major park operator, so watch out for news on this in the New Year…

All of these new partnerships are significant and mean a lot to us as a business. I remain convinced that we are being chosen on the premium quality of our products and our high level customer service.

Supporting Julia’s House

Our partnerships don’t stop at park operators and holiday parks, this year has seen us get close to Julia’s House, our Charity of the Year.

I’m very pleased to announce we raised over £3,700 for this charity through various fundraising activities this year. It has been fantastic to see our whole team get involved. We will continuing to support Julia’s House in 2020 and very much hope to exceed this year’s total!

Looking ahead to our 21^st Birthday!

Vinyl Solutions comes of age in 2020 and it is set to be a very busy year for us all. There are a number of exciting opportunities that lie ahead, and we are keen to keep building on our recent successes. Despite the economic uncertainties, we are optimistic about 2020, with a great team in place and some fantastic partnerships we are very much looking forward to it!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year, and to thank you all for your continued support.