New Zealand’s Single Width Users Group conference next month promises a mix of technology and talk, social events and social media.

The 13th annual conference is being held from July 17-18 at the Novotel in Ellerslie, Auckland.

Chairman Dan Blackbourn says everything is in place, and numbers are promising to be on par with last year’s event: “I am pretty excited about it – we are expecting about 115 registered delegates and suppliers,” he says.

The first day’s programme includes Phil O‘Reily of Business NZ on the country’s economy and prospects, and technical presentations from DIC Asia Pacific’s Singapore-based regional marketing manager Hayato Kashiwagi, Andy Louge of EnergyNZ on opportunities for cost-saving, Conti’s Jan Jungmann (sponsored by Hostmann Steinberg) on developments in printing blankets and

Ross Ackland of DS Chemport will be talking, not about press chemicals, but about the security risks associated with popular social media websites. There’s also a ‘who am I’ session from Craig Amos.

A visit to the nearby PMP site will be introduced by Charles Miller, with the evening including dinner, drinks and entertainment at the plant.

On the second day, Steve Cox of Norske Skog reprises the amusing (and very messy) demonstration he gave at Australian SWUG on ‘making paper’, Sam Ricardo of FM Global talks about loss prevention for business resilience in the printing industry, Warren Hinder of Fujifilm about plate technology and chemistry, and Phil Lawrence on literacy/environment. Representatives of press makers Goss International and manroland Web Systems will discuss press installations around the world as part of a ‘what’s new’ session.

During the afternoon, motivational speaker Billy Graham has an interaction activity planned, last year’s SWUG Apprentice of the year Shane Baskiville talks about his experiences and the lessons learned during his travel prize, and Jenny Styles of Newsworks discusses newspapers in NZ and abroad.

A technical ‘questions and answers’ panel and final wrap-up rounds off the programme.

Social highlight of the conference, the SWUG Awards dinner that evening provides a chance to network with other members from around the country, and includes the awards presentation and naming of the 2013 Apprentice of the year.

Suppliers registrations include Norske Skog Tasman, Goss International, CPI Graphics NZ, Hostmann Steinberg NZ, DS Chemport, DIC ANZ, Bottcher Australia, FujiFilm NZ; Oceanic Multitrading, Kodak; Agfa-Gevaert NZ, Ferag, Compass Print Technology, Green Graphics, Muller Martini, manroland Australasia, Richard Carr Limited, Technotrans, Webco and Megtech Systems.

More details from Blackbourn at Dan.Blackbourn@apnprint.co.nz or the SWUG NZ website www.swug.co.nz.