With the arrival of April we have finally entered a new financial year and our sales figures for 2011/2012 have been analysed.  We achieved a 40% increase on the previous year with sales of MERU products amounting to £47,440.  Considering what a challenging year it was for MERU as an organisation, and the global economic climate as a whole, we are feeling quite pleased with ourselves!  However, far from resting on our laurels, we are aiming to do much better this year. With our new website, new products, marketing initiatives and vaulting ambitions we think another 40% is well within reach (not including the TravelChair, of course).  To get things off to a flying start we have ordered tooling for our new zip pulls and will shortly have samples.  We will be able to offer this simple and highly effective product at a very competitive price due to outsourcing its manufacture.  It will be available in three colours, in various multipacks, and has the potential to be useful to a very wide range of people.  Look out for it in our webshop (opening soon).

The Workshop Team soldiers on, still attracting new members.  It’s being run by Vicky and Tom for three weeks while my regular babysitter takes a holiday in New Zealand (we must be paying her too much.  Oh, no, we don’t pay her at all!  Perhaps that’s why she’s gone to New Zealand).   In other developments, the “Splatz XL” mould is under construction (a super-sized Splatz for big buttons).  Hayley at Such and Such Design organised the machining for us at South Bank University.  [She’s getting married next weekend in France – looking forward to that!  Hayley started life as a student at MERU about 10 years ago, then worked for us for some years and finally left to start her own business.  Another MERU success story…].  We have also adjusted the design of the new Grabzi to accommodate a slightly different handle, and we’ve started work on the Grabzi Switch, a grab handle switching device which will join the Grabzi/Groovz range of products.  And orders continue to flow in with a notable increase in direct sales which we attribute to Vicky’s wonderful new website.  All in all a very positive outlook…

Ready Made Product Development, by Peter Swann

The financial year is drawing to a close and it’s time to look back and see what we have achieved and look forward and make new plans.  I don’t have all the figures yet, more of that next month, but it has certainly been our best year yet for sales of ready-made products (as they are now officially known!).  The merger of our distributor, QED, with Inclusive Technology seems to have been an important factor in our sales growth.  They are simply a much bigger company with an enormous client base.

Workshop Team has been a huge success, but I won’t go on about it here, except to say a big thank you to all concerned.  I have written a thorough review of its activities which will be in our April Friends Update.

March has been at least as busy as February but as it comes to an end I sense a slight easing of the pressure.  The end-of-year sales bulge seems to have been well managed by Inclusive who successfully spread it out over a couple of months.  We’ve had quite a good throughput of direct sales as well, though, culminating in a Bugzi for Richard Cloudesley School which was delivered this week.  They were also responsible for purchasing our first Groovz (new arm guide product) and Grabzi (grab handle).  That’s the power of the product demo! Tom, ever resourceful, managed to find time for yet another Flexzi invention (see photo. Launch date 1st April 2012 before midday :-)) 

Also keeping us busy throughout March has been the new website, now officially launched.  An immense amount of work has gone into this, leading to much anguish and tearing out of hair, but the result is superb and really shows MERU off at its best. The shop bit will be ready in a couple of weeks – it’s the most complicated part from a programming point of view.  It will showcase a number of new products and make them much, much easier to buy.

And finally, of course, by the time you read this we will officially be a part of the QEF family of charities. http://www.qef.org.uk/  Without QEF we would no longer be here.  Yes, really, it came that close.  We are delighted to be under their umbrella now and look forward to an era of greater stability and access to new resources.  MERU ready-mades are all set to go from strength to strength!

Update from the MERU New Products Team, by Peter Swann

February is supposed to be a short month but we have packed it with action in the factory.  We have a number of ongoing activity streams – new product development, documentation, co-operating with the website team and, of course, making products. 

This is the busiest time of year for sales because many of our customers are NHS departments and schools who are approaching the end of their financial year and leave it until Feb/March to spend any money left in their budgets on equipment. 

This time last year our sales were about 4 times the average monthly level, and this year is looking good too.  My sales estimate for 2011/12 will have to be revised upwards, always a good position to be in!

For the new website we have been writing copy for the products section and shop.  It also has an ever-changing appetite for photos so we have been photographing, and working with our photographer, Andy, to get pictures of the full range of products, including the new ones (see below). 

The redesign of the instruction leaflets is ongoing, but other new product development is slowed down by the volume of manufacturing we are doing at the moment.  More thanks to our wonderful volunteers who help keep us afloat in the factory, especially Mark who devoted an entire Wednesday to making switches last week, as well as turning up almost every Tuesday evening. 

London Ambulance Service to take part in a Mongolia charity rally to raise funds for MERU!

 

Members of the London Ambulance Service and our lovely Volunteer Co-ordinator & Outreach Project Leader, Vicky will be taking part in an exciting Mongolian Rally to raise invaluable funds for MERU! The Mongolian Rally is run by the charity, Go Help who run community projects in Mongolia as well as crucially supporting Mongolia's first ambulance service!

The epic journey will see participants partnered together to drive seven recently decommissioned ambulances from London to the Mongol capital, Ulaanbaatar. The collaboration will mean that not only will invaluable funds be raised for MERU but also for Go Help too!

Recently MERU held a 'meet and greet' for the London Ambulance Service's Mongolia Rally teams at our workshops in Epsom. It was a great opportunity to tell participants a bit more about the life-changing work we do and the lovely Charlie from Go Help came along too! 

We'll be posting updates about this exciting fundraising rally - so do keep checking back - or even better, subscribe to our blog! If you'd like more information about the Mongolian Rally, check out http://mongolia.charityrallies.org/

Communication Matters at the Communication Works Exhibition 2011

MERU is excited to be taking part in Communication Works 2011 as part of our involvement in the national year of communication (Hello 2011)! 

We'll be there to explain how the work we do can play a vital part in helping a disabled child or young person communicate! We'll also be bringing along our affordable range of off-the-shelf products, all designed following requests from families and therapists - all proceeds from the sale of these products go towards funding our vital work!

Check out the below poster for details - we hope to see you there!

Early chatter matters - from bump to birth and beyond - Ewan's story

Ewan is three. He has Cerebral Palsy which affects both his communication and mobility skills. However, MERU has provided Ewan with his first powered mobility device, BUGZI; a tiny indoor wheelchair giving Ewan the perfect vehicle to take control of his mobility whilst learning new skills that will support his communication development.

MERU has previously manufactured a supportive seating insert to fit into a trailer buggy. This attaches to Ewan’s dad, Ben’s bicycle, allowing Ewan to join in with his family’s cycling activities. It was so successful that Ewan and Ben just completed their first Half-Ironman Triathlon together!

BUGZI offers children as young as 18 months, who have severe physical disabilities, the chance to be independently mobile. It does this by allowing them to use and develop their physical co-ordination and motor skills – as well as developing spatial awareness and personal risk management in a similar way to toddlers who can walk. Using BUGZI is also a great motivator and provides a platform for children to use these skills in developing their communication.

Allison Dick, Senior Paediatric Occupational Therapist at the Orchard House Child Development Centre, agrees. ”Not only is the experience of movement vital for children with limited motor skills but Bugzi also provides an alternative way by to develop their understanding of cause and effect, and the skills they need to operate switches.”

Children like Ewan use switches, such as the large buttons you can see in the photograph, to communicate, learning to consciously move their hands, feet or head to press a switch to make a choice. Developing their switching skills at an early age with BUGZI can be hugely beneficial and open up opportunities for choice-making and improved communication skills.

Ben says: “Without Bugzi, Ewan has limited ability to do what most children love – to explore! Using the switches allows him to be mobile independently but teaches him about active play. Pressing buttons and understanding the resulting actions is vital for his cognitive development. He loves the Bugzi – Thank you MERU!”

MERU supports Hello the National Year of Communication, aiming to raise awareness of the challenges that children and young people with communication difficulties face and the help and support that are available to them.

Early chatter matters - from bump to birth and beyond

We're well into February now and Christmas already seems like a lifetime ago. The arrival of February has not only brought hope that Spring is just around the corner but also the start of another month in The National Year of Communication.

This month's theme and indeed next month's too is 'Early chatter matters - from bump to birth and beyond'. This centres on the importance of nurturing communicational development from a young age.

So how is MERU going to get involved? Well, out of all the monthly themes this is one of the more challenging months for us to get involved with as early years communication isn't one of the more prominent aspects of the work that we do. This is not to say that we don't have any involvement in early years communication at all. In fact our involvement will stem from a case study of a young boy who we have worked with for a while now. He has cerebral palsy and has recently started using a MERU, Bugzi wheelchair.

You may well wonder what a wheelchair has to do with early years communication. The answer is simple. Many of the children who use MERU's Bugzi wheelchair also use communication aids when they are older. The use of the Bugzi allows children to develop their switching skills from an early age, which therefore aids their ability to use a communication aid effectively.

We will be posting this case study in a few days but in the meantime please let us know what you think about our plans for The National Year!