Talewinds

January 2012

Photo Above: Two of the entries we received in the Christmas decorating contest. Congratulations to all of you who entered this year. You all did a wonderful job! Remember the theme for this year was FOOD. Please vote for the location who you think best used the theme in their display. Please visit the ‘Christmas Windows’ tab on the Glazette and use the arrows on the right and left sides of the pictures to scroll through the pictures, or click the “pictures” text in the top right corner of the picture to see an index of all the pictures. Submit your votes at the bottom of the page and be sure to include the verifi cation code (number at the bottom). Rules: You are allowed one (1) vote per person. Any subsequent votes from the same person will be disallowed. New rule: You are not allowed to vote for your own location this year. Voting ends January 13, 2012

STAFF FUND PRIZES: 1ST PLACE: $150.00 + a box of Purdy’s2ND PLACE: $100.003RD PLACE: $50.00

Happy New Year to Everyone in the AWG/IGD Group! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays with their loved ones and took some time to relax and enjoy the season. 2012 is looking to be a very dynamic year, some would say the end of the year will be the end of life as we know it….maybe…maybe not but I for one am not going to dwell on what might be. Living in the present time is what is best for a healthy and well balanced life. And let’s not forget its business as usual at AWG.

The beginning of each year gives us time to refl ect on the year that has passed and whether we have achieved the goals we set out to accomplish. It is also time to set new goals for the coming year. So get your heads together and create some goals for each of your stores that all employees can work towards achieving.

We made our annual donations to the Children’s hospitals in BC and AB and also sent along the money raised from our stores over the year. In addition to the corporate donations of $10,000 each, BC stores raised $2,967 and Alberta stores raised $938. That’s $2,000 more than last year! I would to say thank you to all the stores that made an effort to increase our store donations it seemed to pay off.

We are preparing for the IGD Bi-Annual General Meeting to be held in Edmonton on January 27-29th. It will be great to connect with the IGD crew, network and brainstorm for the coming year. See you all soon...

Laura Stanton, VPAWG Northern Industries Inc.

Photo Above: The guys from IGD Kelowna working on their display.

Components of an effective Safety Program:

The start of a new year is a great time to take a look at your Safety Program and implement some improvements if necessary.

An effective Safety Program should include;Information and Instruction (education) – ensures work-ers have the knowledge needed to work safely. Can take place as a toolbox talk or one-on-one safety review.

Training – typically takes place on the job assigned. It would include supervision during training, verifi cation of training and demonstrated competencies when training is complete.

Supervision – verifi cation of training and education, direct observation of workers, response to workers questions and concerns, correcting unsafe or unwanted behavior, identifi -cation and correction of hazards, direction and instruction of workers, and documentation.

Toolbox talks are a great way to relay information to work-ers quickly and in an easy to understand format. Docu-mentation of the meetings is important to keep a record of topics covered. The documentation is an important means to show that regulations are being met as well as to review the safety topics to identify areas not covered. Keeping ad-equate records is mandatory by most regulation agencies and is essential to showing due diligence. Greg LeBlanc, Safety Offi cer

Repellent Glass Compound Needs No Cleaning

A collaboration of German experts from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-PR), in Mainz, and the Technical University Darmstadt (TUD) announces the development of a transparent superamphipho-bic coating made of glass, a material that repels both water and oil. With it, experts hope to be able to create windshield, computer monitors, and eyeglasses that would never need to be cleaned. Impurities would simply fall off these self-cleaning materials, the team says.

In experiments conducted by the group, oil and water droplets rolled off the material without leaving any kind of residues behind. The same behavior was obtained even after the new material was damaged with sandblast-ing. This means that anything made out of it will be very resilient.An interesting application for the superam-phiphobic coating would put people cleaning the glass facades of skyscrapers out of a job. Medical equipment that are settled by dangerous microorganisms could also be made more sterile, and therefore safer.

The material is based on silica – which is also the main component of glass – and a fl uorinated silicon com-pound that acts similar to Tefl on in a non-stick frying pan. Random structures are then carved inside the com-pound at the nanoscale, with great care being taken to avoid any discernible patterns.

“The rounded surfaces cannot be wet even by low-viscosity oils, although this would be energetically most fa-vorable,” explains Doris Vollmer, who is the leader of the MPI-PR science group. She explains that tiny, spheri-cal holes in the material cannot be made wet because they are only 60 nanometers (millionths of a meter) across. The amount of energy needed to squeeze a drop of water or oil within is simply too large.

The easy-to-produce material was tested with seven different types of liquids. None of them proved able to penetrate the porous structure, and none of them was absorbed. “Initially, a drop of the oil penetrated into the sponge-like structure, but then bounced back like a rubber ball,” Vollmer says. “As the material repels water and oil so well, it would be suitable as a self-cleaning coating for a large number of applications,” MPI-PR De-partmental Director Hans-Jürgen Butt says. The compound remains superamphiphobic even when pieces of it are removed entirely.

“The search for superamphiphobic materials is therefore more or less a case of trial and error,” concludes Hans-Jürgen Butt, adding that the German team will continue to search for more materials belonging to this class. Source: http://news.softpedia.com

Brian, the delivery man from Greyhound has bugged us since the trade show that he didn’t win the big gummy bear. When Cam was here awhile back and heard him, he told us he had one left. This morning he was teasing us we were up to 7 1/2 gummy bears now so I pulled out a package of little gummy bears and counted out 7 then pulled the big one out & we surprised him with it. Now he says he don’t know what he will bug us about!

Helen, CSR, AWG Chetwynd

Giant Gummy = Happiness for Greyhound Driver

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

milestonesKyle Bolderson 8 AWG Prince GeorgeSheldon Dodd 11 AWG EdmontonChris Lennox 12 IGD NanaimoPat Frey 13 IGD CoquitlamWaylon Rushfeldt 13 AWG Peace RiverKrzysztof Nogas 16 IGD TorontoKala Chauvin 16 AWG Grande PrairieAngela Lukenbill 16 AWG Grande PrairieGail Thompson 16 AWG Burns LakeCarrie Isbister 18 AWG EdmontonBob Kenner 20 IndustriesRob Hartmann 21 AWG EdmontonChristopher Weldon 24 AWG ChetwyndRandy Billings 25 AWG Prince GeorgeCorey Menhinick 27 IGD Prince GeorgeGary Jennings 27 AWG QuesnelAdam Simpson 28 AWG Dawson CreekJacob Rush 28 AWG Fort NelsonSonja Dekker 29 IndustriesRodney Deo-Maraj 30 IGD OntarioKazz Vezeau 31 AWG High Level

Will Ferguson, IGD CoquitlamMichael Wright, AWG Edmonton

Tina Hayes, AWG QuesnelKaylan Lee, AWG Grande Prairie

5 YEARSJohn Reardon, IGD Coquitlam

Photo Left: Phil Chilibeck, General Manager presents Rene Arseneau of AWG Prince George with his 15 year employment milestone award.

If we were allowed to go through life without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fl y.

History has shown us that the most celebrated winners usually encoun-tered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won be-cause they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Beethoven composed his greatest works after becoming deaf. George Washington was snowed in through a treacherous winter at Valley Forge. Abraham Lincoln was raised in poverty. Albert Einstein was called a slow learner and uneducable. If Christopher Columbus had turned back, no one could have blamed him, considering the constant adversity he endured.

As an elementary student, actor James Earl Jones (a.k.a. Darth Vader) stuttered so badly he communicated with friends and teachers using written notes.

Itzhak Perlman, the incomparable concert violinist, was born to parents who survived a Nazi concentration camp and has been paralyzed from the waist down since the age of four.

Thomas Edison tried over 2,000 experiments before he was able to get his light bulb to work. Upon being asked how he felt about failing so many times, he replied, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected president of the United States for four terms, had been stricken with polio at the age of 39.

In 1927 the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School instructed student Lucille Ball to “Try any other profession. Any other.”

Buddy Holly was fi red from the Decca record label in 1956 by Paul Cohen, Nashville “Artists and Repertoire Man.” Cohen called Holly “the biggest no-talent I ever worked with.”

Academy Award-winning writer, producer and director Woody Allen failed motion picture production at New York University (NYU) and City College of New York. He also fl unked English at NYU.

Helen Keller, the famous blind author and speaker, said: “Character can-not be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. Silver is purifi ed in fi re and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed.”

Mackay’s Moral: There is no education like the university of adversity.

Photo Above: Jamie Krenz, AWG Sales with Greenville Reserve Housing Director Dawna Bob (center) and Harold Braam, Manager of AWG Terrace. Jamie and Harold were working on future business in the beautiful Nass valley, north of Terrace.

Photo Above: We do way more than glass! An-drew Schaeffer from AWG Prince Rupert works on an automatic door closer.

Photo Above: Chris Middleton (left) and Phil Chilibeck show off their efforts for Movember. Both AWG and IGD Prince George put on a stellar showing this year.

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Gary Jennings All-West Glass QuesnelAuto glass TechnicianWhat was your fi rst job ever? paper de-livery

If you could trade jobs with anyone else in the world, who would you trade jobs with? Why? Adam Savage on Myth Busters so i can blow things up

What is/was your favorite subject in school? Science

What do you like to do for fun? Make wine

What is the craziest gift you ever received from someone? Coffee Maker If you could invite 5 famous people to your party and every single one of them would come, which 5 people would you have come to your party? Not big on parties

What cartoon character best describes you? Wiley Coyote

If you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be? Beach in Australia

If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass on to your children, what would it be? Already did - see cartoon character

What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? Retirement

What is your favourite movie of all time and one that you can watch over and over again and quote lines from it? Space Jam “Looks like a basketball player to me!

If you were a contestant on Fear Factor, what would be the worst/scariest thing for you to do? Dive into squid ink/water

Whats the worst/most embarassing CD/Album you’ve ever owned? Tubatour Bells

What would you do with a million dollars? Retire

Which one song describes your life the best? Why? All shook up Elvis Presley

Reflections is a monthly newsletter for employees

and friends of AWG Northern Industries. We welcome and encourage

your articles, photos, cartoons etc. However, we reserve the right to edit all submissions for space and

content.

Contact: Tonya GillardAWG Northern IndustriesPhone: 250-877-7619Fax: 250-877-7606

E-mail: reflections@

all-westglass.com

LAST MONTH’S BRAINBUSTER ANSWERS

SEND YOUR ANSWERS BY E-MAIL TO REFLECTIONS@ALL-WESTGLASS.COM OR YOUR INTERNAL MAILBAGS. THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED NEXT MONTH’S ISSUE AND WIN $25.00 FOR THEIR STORE STAFF FUND.

‘Caption This Christmas’ winners who each got a box of Purdy’s chocolates were Mike Kummerele of AWG Windows & Doors, IGD Kelowna and IGD Fort St John. Check out Tonya’s Blog on the Glazette to see the winning captions.

AWG Prince Rupert won the $250.00 prize for the 4th quarter Meeting Madness this year. Their name was drawn at the last quality meeting in December.

We will soon be implementing a special section on the Glazette for All-West Glass CSR’s. You will be able to submit questions and Sonja Dekker will post the answers online. This way, over time there will be an information bank devel-oped to help new CSR’s.

We are also going to add a photo section where All-West Glass can download new company photos to your photo frames. Of course, you are encouraged to take your own local photos and post to your frames as well. This can be of your work, installations, charitable donations and special events. etc.

For those of you who may have missed it, we will be doing silkscreened logos on all work clothing for both IGD and AWG; t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts. The embroidered logos will still be kept on the golf shirts and button up shirts.

Please send in your store goals for 2012 - and since this is a new year, please make having your safety meetings a priority. Trade show season will be here before you know it. Please check your business cards and promo supplies well beforehand.

Tonya, Marketing & Quality Administrator

Can you help the elves work out the order of the reindeer?Answer: Prancer, Cupid, Ru-dolph, Dasher, Blitzen, Vixen, Comet, Donner, Dancer

Winner: AWG Whitecourt!!

QUALITY CORNER

Please Answer Both Questions.

Four men sat down to play,They played all night ‘till break of day.They played for gold and not for funWith separate scores for everyone.When they came to square accounts,They all had made quite fair amounts.Can you the paradox explain,If no one lost, how could all gain?

Pete Polyester, a door-to-door salesman, was selling a high tech car wax that he claimed was harder than steel. Pete offered one container for $19 or two for $33. He said that his profi t was the same either way, and since these were his last two containers, he simply wanted the quick sale. If we take Pete’s word for his profi t margin, what must each container of wax cost him?