APN Print’s Edmond Huch was named SWUG NZ apprentice of the year at a gala dinner at the close of the group’s annual conference.

The event was the climax of a three-day event in Greenlane, being hailed as its best ever, attended by 74 user delegates and 52 sponsor representatives, including several from overseas.

“That is a fantastic response from the industry,” chairman Dan Blackbourn says. “It shows we are in good stead.

“When we restarted SWUG in 2010, we held it in Taupo on the back of the PrintNZ conference to save costs and a lot of people suggested it wouldn’t succeed. But when you look at so many people here – and so many sponsors backing SWUG – it sends the message we have a real belief in print.”

Blackbourn says the line-up of technical and professional speakers helped underpin the core conference message that ‘print endures’ in the magazine and newspaper sectors.

The programme of 16 speakers gained a humorous lift from celebrity speaker Billy Graham. A further highlight was a visit to the new PMP headquarters in Manukau, to which the company relocated in 2011.

The final dinner included the naming of Huch of APN Print Ellerslie, as apprentice of the year, the raffle of a wooden Maori taonga carved by APN Print Ellerslie’s Phil Ost – which raised $2700 for the Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland – and presentation of SWUG Quality Awards.

Winners were:

Coldset tabloid 42gsm: Gold Gisborne Herald for the Wairoa Star; Silver APN Print Hastings for Hawkes Bay Today; Bronze Gisborne Herald for the Gisborne Herald.

Coldset broadsheet: Gold The Dominion Post for the Dominion Post; Silver Allied Press for the Southland Times 20/5/13; Bronze Allied Press for the Southland Times 21/5/13.

Coldset tabloid enhanced: Horton Media for Platinum Sports Co; Gisborne Herald for the Weekender; APN Print Ellerslie for Kuk Punjabi.

Heatset retail catalogue: Gold PMP for Land & Lifestyle; Silver Webstar for Warehouse Winter Bargains; Bronze Webstar for Warehouse Stationery.

Heatset tabloid: Gold PMP for Prestige Property; Silver PMP for AG Trader; Bronze PMP for Straight Furrow.

Pictured: SWUG committee member John Green (left) and celebrity speaker Billy Graham congratulate Apprentice of the Year Edmond Huch