First off, I would like to thank those many kind souls who communicated with me following the announcement of my new role in vending - here at VI. It was particularly gratifying as I have been enjoying a six-month gap year (there was no such thing as a gap year when I was a student!), my only link with vending, apart from some consultancy work, being the revered Vending 21 Club, of which I am a proud member, more of which later.

While this is ‘my' page, I should point out that I will be delighted to receive comment or observation from anyone in the industry that may ‘set me off'.

In fact, I have been contributing to this magazine off and on since about 1980, on behalf of esteemed organisations like Nestlé, the AVA and Save a Cup. Moreover, I count past owner Neil Hird as a friend and knew the founder Roy Pearl, who also founded the Vending 21 Club - which is a cunning way of getting back to that subject.

It is interesting that, whereas members of the club were once considered to be, let's say, of senior years and removed from the current cut-and-thrust of the industry, nowadays the average age of members seems to have dropped to the point where, in quiet moments, some members have shown signs of hesitancy in admitting that they're old enough to be members! Joking aside, it is a great institution and I am eternally grateful to those who nominated me for membership a few years ago.

It's good to see that, like me, Simon Heath (ex-Teknowledge and Apollo Vending) is back in the industry with a vengeance, as Sales Director with Crane Merchandising Systems. More of that in another issue...

I was also interested to learn that Andy Smith, previously of Wilkes Vending, has set up his own business in Huddersfield, X7 Vending.

No apologies for the seemingly ‘heavy' two-part feature, starting in this issue, on the pros and cons of carbon foot-printing. Fact is guys, like it or not, it affects us all and I thought that it might be helpful to some in vending to get perhaps a wider view on what can be done and how it might be afforded.

Here's an observation - with no particular axe to grind - but around the time of putting this page together, I had the need to travel by rail to London from Chatham - for my sins ‘my' local mainline station. Waiting on the ‘up-line- platform' my attention was taken by the twin, red Selecta confectionery/snack vending machines, boasting very effective back-lit advertising panels on the sides.

Being something of a Bounty-freak, I felt the urge and approached one of the machines, only to find that there were only four spirals with anything in them, and only about three in each. So tried the other one, and the story was much the same.

Come on Selecta, the vending industry is trying hard with new machine and other technology, new product ranges, people training, positive promotion, innovation, operator and recycling schemes, etc. It all goes to waste, though, if the customer is let down at point of purchase - particularly when the purchase, like mine would have been, was on impulse.

John Sewell