Original Organics

This one almost passed me by!  Whilst standing around in a newsagents’ waiting for my fiancée to decide what to buy, I took a browse through this months edition of the BBC Countryfile magazine.

I was delighted to see that the Classic Rotol Compost Convertor was listed as one of the “Top 10 Eco-Buys”!  I must admit to being a little surprised that no Wormeries were mentioned, but we can’t have everything can we?

Of course, I did purchase this magazine… the remains of which, by the way, will soon be in my Classic Rotol

Hi all,

We’re currently experiencing a hardware failure with our primary website server (this is the computer that hosts our website so it is visible on the internet). Because of this, our websites are not currently available.

This also means that our staff are unable to view orders placed by customers online. Telephone orders are unaffected.

We’re working as hard as we can to bring them back online, but it may be some time as it is likely to requre a trip to London (where the server is) to replace the faulty hardware.

If you would like to be informed when the website is back online - please subscribe to this Blog or keep checking for updates!

In the meantime, don’t forget you can find out all about our products and buy by phone by calling our friendly customer service team on :-

Freephone 0808 120 9676

Many Thanks,

Liam Martin

UPDATE 10:30 AM :- Engineers are currently replacing the faulty hardware and reconfiguring and installing the server software on our primary website server. @originalorganics.co.uk email is currently functioning as we have failed over to a secondady email server, however, general customer mail is not yet accessible by our customer service team.

UPDATE 11:45 AM :- The affected hardware (primary hard disk) has been replaced and the server is now being configured. It is likely to take a little while for the configuration to take place (customer and website data is intact) but we hope to be back online by the end of play today.

UPDATE 16:15 PM :- We are continuing to work hard on re-enabling our websites and email. The server is now installad and we are in the process of restoring backups and finishing off the configuration. We will then need to perform some performance, error and security tests to ensure the server is ready to go live. We are aiming to restore access within the next few hours.

UPDATE 22:30 PM :- We are pleased to report that we are 85% back online and have been for a good few hours.  Depending on your internet provider it may take a few more hours before the website is shown for you again.  Staff Members can now access orders placed online.  We apologise for the inconvenience this outage may have caused you.

Do you love worms? Is your Wormery your pride and joy? Do you have a passion for great customer service?

If so, this position might be right up your street!

We’re busier than ever right now, which, whilst great for business, unfortunately means that we’re currently not answering calls as quickly as we’d like (no wait whatsoever) during the most busy periods of the day and emails may take a little longer than the usual 20 minutes we aim for for a reply!

Although our super-fancy, high-tech, new telephone system does allow you to listen to some relaxing classical music whilst you wait a moment to speak to us, we know how annoying it can be having to hold on - even if it is for just a couple of minutes. So, as only the best customer service will do for our customers (how cheesy is that?) we’re recruiting for our friendly office team!

The ad does say “Sense of humour essential to personal sanity” and its not wrong. We are all a bit crazy here!

Any interested applicants follow the instructions on the ad

I wonder if any of you caught “Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory” on Channel 4 recently.  One day, a few months ago, I popped up to the food trailer on our quiet little Business Park only to find a fully blown film crew marvelling over Mags (that’s the lady that runs the trailer) grating a block of 100% Cacao chocolate over her Chili-Con-Carne.  All I wanted was a Tuna & Sweetcorn baguette!

What later followed was a 4-part television documentary series on a guy called Willie and his quest to make the first 100% Cacao chocolate block.  How amazing (or perhaps dangerous?!?) that his chocolate factory is just over the road from Original Organics!

I don’t profess to be the best cook (far from it!), but I wanted to try this stuff out for myself.  His product is now sold in Selfridges and Waitrose to name a couple of stores, but being from a small Devon village neither of those establishments are close by.

So, the other day I excitedly popped over to Willie’s Chocolate Factory to purchase myself some of his finest Venezuelan Black.  Strangely, though I don’t know Willie at all, I feel ‘proud‘ of his acheivement and I really enjoy supporting another local business - so away I came with a full case.

Inside, a gorgeous recipe for some truly scrumptious truffles and a recipe for a tasty Chocolate Cake.  Though I’m sure my worms would love both of those items, neither will manage to get anywhere near as far as going into my Wormery!

If you too were excited about the programme and want to find out more - his website is at www.venezuelanblack.com where, I am told, you will soon be able to order online!

… to the all new Original Organics Blog.

We’ve moved the Blog to a new location using wordpress.com.  Fortunately, it was easy for us to import all the old Blog posts into this new Blog - so the history is all still available.  We’ve neglected the Blog recently as it has been really busy at Original Organics Towers.  I am hoping I will get some spare time more regularly to allow me to keep this Blog relatively updated.  A challenge for a busy person like me!

Let’s see how it goes!

We thought something strange was going on when suddenly we received more singleton orders for a Compost Aeration Tool than ever before! Turns out subscribers to Gardeners World had their February edition land on their doorsteps and the GW folks have given it a deservedly excellent write up.

“Simple, easy, and well worth the effort” is how they describe it. Couldn’t put it better myself - it is indeed an excellent (and not to mention useful) tool! Available from our Online Shop, the Compost Aeration Tool is plunged down into your Composter or Wormery and when pulled back out the wings at the tip fold open to aerate and mix the contents.

Liam Martin
liam [at] originalorganics [dot] co [dot] uk

Because we’re friendly folks here at Original Organics, all our staff will be taking an extended (and very well deserved!) break between Christmas and New Year. That means that our offices and telephone lines are shut down from Christmas Eve right through to the 2nd January, 2008.

All orders placed between now and the 2nd January will be despatched as soon as we’re back. If you would like to leave us a message or send us an email, please bear with us and we will get back to you. The first week back is very hectic, so your patience would very much be appreciated whilst we get back into the swing of things after the Christmas break!

We would like to sincerely thank all our customers for their business in 2007 and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2008!

NB. CHRISTMAS DELIVERIES NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Wormeries make a fascinating, exciting (and not to mention different) present for Christmas and they appear to be a very popular choice for 2007! Don’t despair if you’ve not yet ordered - if you’re on the UK Mainland and not in the Scottish Highlands or Grampians, our last order date for Christmas Despatch is :-

Friday 21st December at 11:30 AM (Delivery Christmas Eve)

For customers in the Scottish Highlands, or Grampians, on an offshore Island or in Northern Ireland, our last order date for Christmas Despatch is :-

Thursday 20th December at 09:00 AM (Delivery Christmas Eve)

Unfortunately, in order to guarantee despatch for Christmas delivery to non-UK Mainland locations and the Scottish Highlands and Grampians, there is an increased delivery charge of £12.95. This is because we will be despatching by BusinessPost instead of Royal Mail. If you are happy to wait, or if you are not ordering for Christmas, you can select our usual despatch method at the usual price.

From this week, we will be despatching all orders to the UK Mainland (excluding Highlands / Grampians) by courier to avoid potential postal delay. If you wish to avail of Courier Delivery outside the Mainland you can select the Xmas Delivery option when you checkout.

Please note that whilst we will do all we can to get your order to you by Christmas, we do rely on our couriers. Wormeries delivered for Christmas will be sent by BusinessPost on an express overnight service. Larger items are despatched by NightFreight. Whilst we can guarantee despatch in time for Christmas, we have no control over any potential delays once the item is within the network of our couriers. Our couriers are usually very reliable (over 99% overnight success rate on our goods) however, to avoid disappointment - order as early as possible! Please also remember to let us have a contact telephone number so the driver can contact you if he/she cannot locate you!

I’m pleased to announce that we’ve introduced a Freephone number for our team here at Original Organics. That means you don’t pay a penny if you need to call us for help with your Worms, wish to place an order, or just fancy a chat - the call is on us!

In the past we have avoided national rate numbers, always using our local Devon village (geographical) number for people to contact us on - but we’re now taking it a step further by paying for the call for you. Our new freephone number can be called at no charge from any UK landline or Payphone. The costs from mobiles may vary, but if you have included minutes with your tariff you might be better off using our geographical (01884) number anyway!

Of course, for some time customers have been able to request a callback via our website, talk to us via our Forums, send us an email or send a letter to us (the old fashioned way) by snail mail.

Our old number will always continue to operate, but over time we’ll update our product instructions and literature with the Freephone number as they come up for reprinting.

We also thought we’d choose a fun, relevant, number too… We think you’ll like it (and perhaps our regulars will be able to remember it?) :-

0808 120 WORM
(0808 120 9676)

What do you think? Always great to hear your thoughts (liam@originalorganics.co.uk)!

Regards,

Liam Martin
Director

We’re very pleased to announce the launch of our Irish division offering our product range directly to customers in the Republic of Ireland.

So far so good, we’ve already served over a hundred Irish customers since the launch of our website in November - and the feedback has been exceptional. All products are priced in Euros with delivery direct to customers doors’ anywhere in Eire within just 48 hours.

Residents can also call our Dublin number direct for Help and Advice (+353) 01 524 1904 and we’ll soon be accept Euro payments by phone as well as online.

For more information, say hello to www.Wormery.ie!

From icWales.co.uk :

A printing firm is leading the way in sustainable business development – even employing on-site worms to get rid of food waste.

Aberystwyth-based Cambrian Printers recycles printing plates and recycles 90% of its waste.

The company has been named environmental printer of the year by specialist publication, Print Week.

Cambrian Printers says it takes its environmental role “very seriously” and is always looking for ways to improve environmental performance.

It has installed one central vacuum system for printing machinery – replacing 14 individual ones, saving on energy and providing a healthier working environment for staff.

An on-site wormery turns tea bags and waste food into plant food. [Ed: and compost!]

Robert Read, chairman and managing director of Cambrian, said, “This is a huge award for us which really puts us at the forefront of our industry.“We’ve taken major steps to improve our performance as a business and have considered the environment as a core part of this long term strategy.”

Coming Soon!

We’re really sorry that we’ve not been able to announce the winners of the Wormery Photo Competition just yet. The response was unprecedented and we’ve had over 300 entries - some of which will make it onto the website but just 1 that will be crowned king!

We’ll be arranging the judging this afternoon and announcing the winners early next week - right here!

Regards,

Liam Martin
Director

We sent the following email to customers who have ordered a Wormery online with us last week, with a similar email sent to WaterButtsDirect customers.  We regularly hear from customers happiyly using our products but we thought it would be nice to feature products in customers’ gardens on our website - rather than ‘boring’ looking standard images!

We’re currently looking for new photographs to use on our websites and there is nothing better than a ‘real-life’ photograph with the products in situe. That is why we’re asking our customers to send us in a photograph of their Wormery - with the best picture winning a cheque back for the value of their original order (upto £100!) and five runners up each receiving a 25% off voucher for our sister website www.GreenGardenShop.co.uk.

To enter, all you need to do is muster up some photographic flair and send us in a snap of your Wormery (with a short testimonial) to mywormery@originalorganics.co.uk by Friday 2nd November 2007. The competition will be judged by a panel of independent representatives from 3 local businesses and a winner announced on our website on Monday 5th November 2007.

A maximum of 3 photographs per household may be entered and if you would prefer to submit your photograph to us by post, you can send it to the address below.

Even if you don’t win a prize, you may still feel proud in the fact your photograph could be used on our website, in our gallery, or in future advertising material for our products. So - get snapping. We look forward to receiving your entry!

Kind Regards,

Liam Martin
Director

I’ll post up some pictures (including one of mine - though I can’t win!) later this week.

Due to the Postal Strike Action due to commence tomorrow, we regret to inform customers that we will not be able to despatch anything by Royal Mail post for the next week. This includes Orders for Worms only, Local Authority Composter Collection Vouchers, all orders for delivery outside the UK Mainland (South of Glasgow) and any other orders normally despatched by Royal Mail (small postable items).

The strike action will also affect our incoming mail, so there may be a delay to receiving and processing your order if you are sending it through the post. Where possible, we would advise customers to place orders and/or contact us by e-mail or telephone.

Following the action, we expect there to be severe delays to the delivery of mail as we and the Royal Mail catch up with backlogs. The CWU have also warned that further action may be taken by Postal Staff on a weekly basis until resolution of their dispute.

Orders despatched by courier (Wormeries, Compost Bins, Waterbutts, Larger Orders etc…) should be unaffected.

We apologise for any delay to the despatch and processing of customer orders, but these strikes are well outside our control and will affect all Postal Services across the UK. We will recommence sending items by post as soon as it is confirmed by the Royal Mail that the action has been suspended (expected next Wednesday, 10th October).

Telephone : 01884 841515
E-Mail : sales@originalorganics.co.uk

Regards,

Liam Martin
Director

Did anyone see “The Butt Waterbutt” on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross last Friday?

We’ve been thinking about whether or not we should offer The Butt for sale on our Water Butts Direct site and it’s caused a bit of a stir. We do aim to have the biggest and best range of Butts (almost every one made!), but the office seem to be quite divided about whether or not “The Butt - Butt” is something a respectable company like ours want to be selling!

I’ve got to admit - I can see the funny side. As a functional garden novelty item, I think there are certainly people out there who would opt for such an ‘alternative’, err… Butt.

I think we probably will end up offering them shortly, via WaterButtsDirect. So - if you do want one - keep your eyes peeled. Do feel free to drop by our forums, or comment on this post, letting us know what you think of the Butt Butt Waterbutt - I’d certainly be very interested to hear your views!

Liam Martin
Director