Joyce's Column: January

Christmas seems ages ago but really it is only just over 4 weeks since we were celebrating, and I hope that you enjoyed it and didn’t indulge too much on the food and drink. It is very difficult sometimes to refuse especially when someone is standing in front of you with a delicious box of chocolates and says oh one more won’t hurt you or the extra glass of wine, beer or champagne  and say oh one for the road, but it is not them that end up with the extra pounds or the bad head, and you are then wishing you had refused.

I spent Christmas Eve helping out at a homeless shelter and it brought tears to my eyes to see so many people in such sorry states, and on Christmas Day I invited 6 people to dinner who would have spent the day on their own had I not invited them to spend it with us, so I feel that I did my bit for the Christmas Spirit. It again maybe a little late, but I would like to wish you one and all a Happy New Year.

We have our first exhibition of 2024 EAG under our belts and I hope this was a success for you, chat from EAG will be in February chat column.

In one of my earlier chat columns I mentioned that Innovative Technology’s  David Bellis had been invited as an honorary guest and speaker by Mr Hiroshi Abe of Asahi Seiko to celebrate the company’s 55th Anniversary, and David was very pleased to accept the invite. Going back in time when David was at Coin Controls he had been trying to import some of their product into Japan, but there was so much red tape to try to do this as Japan had an Import Authority named MITI and they really did not want to import products into Japan. David went to a show in Japan and it was here he met Mr Abe of Asahi Seiko who at the time was manufacturing black model steam engines, they got talking together and they struck up a deal for Asahi Seiko to manufacture Coin Hoppers for the Japanese Market, and the deal was that Coin Controls received 20pence each for each one manufactured, and in no time at all they had manufactured 1,000,000. Following Coin Hoppers they started to manufacture Coin Selectors, Card Dispensing Mechanisms and Card Management Systems.

The 55th Anniversary Celebrations were held at the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo and David as an invited guest and speaker was expected to take part in some Japanese customs, and he among other guests were each given a type of wooden mallet and they had to knock 3 times on a central decorated box like item on the centre of the stage and then they had to drink Saki from a wooden box, which he quite enjoyed. As regards his speech, no he did not speak this in Japanese, he had to send it beforehand and this was then translated into Japanese for the 200 guests who were attended the Anniversary Celebrations.

Mr Abe has now reached the grand age of 95 years and has decided the time has come to hand the reins over to his son, but he still goes into the company every day, I suppose it would be difficult for him just to walk away from it after all these years. During his business years Mr Abe was presented with 3 awards:

1992 received Director General of Science and Technology Award

April 2002 received the Medal with Yellow Ribbon from the Emperor

November 2012 received the Order Of The Rising Sun from the Emperor.

David stated it was a great honour and privilege to be invited to Asahi Seiko’s 55th Anniversary Celebrations and it had strengthened the bond between the company and Mr Abe and himself even more.

I was recently in contact with Andrew Murden ex BFM and Electrocoin and was checking if he was coming to EAG, but oh no our Andrew was off on a 14 night Caribbean Cruise with his family. Some of the places they visited included Barbados, Antigua, St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent and some others, I was quite envious of you the choice of a Caribbean Cruise or EAG, well obviously the Caribbean Cruise winds hands down every time. It would not surprise me if Andrew didn’t find his way of managing to get on the drums during the onboard entertainment, and I don’t blame you in fact I am quite envious that you chose the cruise rather than EAG, hope you all had a great time. The photo shows Andrew and his son Oliver in a more charitable role before Christmas setting off on the Derbyshire toy run in aid of abused children, hope you got lots of toys for your sacks, and well done for doing your bit. 

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24 January 2024

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