Monday, 29 Sep 2014 13:14 GMT

Charity invests sign-making future

A military charity which raises money through its own manufacturing enterprises has made an investment in specialised sign-making equipment.

The Royal British Legion Industries (RBLI)—a charity founded in 1919 to support injured service men and women—invested £350,000 in a new, cutting-edge print outfit, including a Mutoh Zephyr digital printer, a Zund flatbed plotter and a fully climate-controlled printing and graphics room.

This has allowed the charity to become one of only four organisations in the UK to produce the new, more vibrant Gatway tourism and heritage signs, which are slowly replacing the old brown and white signs across the country.

The Aylesford-based charity welcomed a visit from the secretary of state for transport, Patrick McLoughlin MP, who unveiled a plaque marking the factory’s modernisation. He said to the charity: “In the future, people will come to you not because you’re a social enterprise but because you have built a reputation for providing first-class products and services to the market.”

This modernisation programme has put us in a better position to provide our public sector and company clients with a competitive social value partner”

RBLI’s modernisation means it can offer itself as a ‘social value’ partner to public sector bodies, where their commissioning choices must now be based on the social value created rather than simply cost alone.

RBLI’s chief executive, Steve Sherry, says: “This modernisation programme has put us in a better position to provide our public sector and company clients with a competitive social value partner. And in fact, in twelve short months we’ve seen a 35 percent increase in orders and recruited an extra member of staff.”