HRH made a visit to our client Stannah to help the company mark the manufacture of their 500,000th stairlift and their imminent place in the Chinese market. Although we look after the commercial part of Stannah, I also manage their local PR and community projects - so I was invited along to join in the celebrations.

And what a celebration it was! With only three weeks notice of his visit the preparations were kick-started by The Palace and didn't stop until he departed on Monday afternoon.

With the rain descending a large crowd gathered outside the Stannah Head Office in Andover, all equipped with large branded umbrellas and Union flags and Stannah flags waving. The Prince

exited his car and went straight over to the crowd for an informal chat before making his way in to meet the Stannah family and all their staff (well as many as could fit into the stairlift factory!)

who gave him a very warm welcome.

He met three generations of the Stannah family, including the current joint chairmans 14 grand children before touring the factory and meeting many staff. An apprentice helped HRH to press the button to begin the manufacture of that 500,000th stairlift (wonder who will get that one!)

and he met representatives of the company who have been active in community projects.

Stannah really is a family business and family-owned too! It has family values that really do permeate the company. The average length of service for staff is 9.2 years and many families work together for the company. The Prince of Wales made a special presentation to Martyn and Christine Channon who have clocked up 81 years of service, based at Stannah's Bristol service branch.

Finally a plaque was unveiled to mark this memorable milestone in the business that began in 1867 in London - where the company sold cranes and hoists before manufacturing passenger lifts.

The Prince was charming and very relaxed and quipped about soon needing a stairlift himself and knowing where to get one!

But my lasting memory of the day was the beaming smiles on everyone's faces - not just the people who supported the whole idea of the visit, but literally everyone!

You could say the visit really did give everyone a lift! (sorry, couldn't resist it..)

Isn’t it refreshing when praise drops into your lap from unexpected sources?

Armorgard are a local company who supply a wide range of site security products – mainly secure storage boxes, but lots of other things as well – to the construction trade. It's a competitive market with some big players offering stiff competition and we had to ensure that Armorgard's offerings were pitched in there with the best of them.

With such a broad range of products on offer, we wanted to make it as simple as possible for customers to explore not only the wider range, but also the individual features of a given product. So we've employed a number of strategies in various areas of the site, including embedded video, pop-over detail panels and product-based tabsets. It was a pretty complicated project with a lot of detail and variable data to be conveyed, but we've done it and we – and they – are very pleased with the results!

Take a look for yourself: www.armorgardsecurity.com