Waltons shines at Mondi Office Products Awards

Held in Cape Town on Tuesday night, the awards ceremony was hosted by shop-sa (Southern African Association for Stationery, Home and Office Products) and Mondi Business Paper.

The newly branded awards have focused on 'celebrating excellence' within the stationery and office products sector and have sought to reinvent the 14-year-old awards programme, creating a transparent and credible judging process.

The winners were selected by a 12-strong judging panel, chaired by CEO of The Tipping Point Nici Stathacopoulos and consisted of a number of industry specialists as well as independent representatives. Entries were scrutinised against strict criteria and according to the information supplied on the entry forms.

Coming up trumps in the Western Cape Commercial Stationer of the Year category is Waltons Hermanus, a branch of Waltons Stationery Company's Western Cape division. Waltons was founded as a small family business in Cape Town 56 years ago. Today, it is one of the leading suppliers of stationery and office equipment in South Africa.

Cape Town-based Flip File clinches top spot in the Western Cape Supplier of the Year category. It is also a national finalist in the Local Manufacturer of the Year category.

PenCafé Stationers, based in Durbanville, is the Western Cape's Storefront Retailer of the Year.

Although there were no gold award winners in the Western Cape Black Business of the Year, Maitland-based Key Stationers was nominated as a finalist in this category. The company's managing director, Delores Kilshaw, also deserves a special mention as she has been nominated as a finalist for National Black Executive of the Year as well as National Company Achiever of the Year.

Milnerton-based Redfern Print Services is a national finalist in the Transformed Company of the Year along with Bloem Stationery Ithuteng, which is situated in Bloemfontein.

The Western Cape Internal Salesperson of the Year goes to Jenny Henrick of Parrot Products who joined the company in January 2005.

Winning in the category for Western Cape Sales Representative of the Year is Deanne Anderson from Interstat Agencies, one of the leading distributors of major brand stationery items to the stationery trade.

The Western Cape's Company Achiever of the Year is Debbie Miller, product manager for Pyrotechnical Marketing (Pyrotec), a Cape Town-based company which offers on-pack product identification solutions such as self-adhesive labels, coding and labeling equipment.

The KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape winners will be acknowledged this week at the Sun Coast Convention Centre, while the inland and national winners will be recognised at an event in Johannesburg on 16 November.