FINAT announces subscription discount; appoints Indian expert

FINAT, the global self-adhesive label trade association, is celebrating its Golden Anniversary with a 50 percent subscription offer for all new members recruited during 2008.

Already in the midst of a recruiting campaign aimed at attracting 100 new members before the year end, FINAT has seen its membership grow in recent moths to more than 550 in 50 countries.

FINAT’s Taco Zevenbergen, who is running the recruiting campaign, said: ‘Our Golden Anniversary is important to us and we want to make it significant to everyone in the self-adhesive industry – so what better way to help companies that are not members become members than to make them a very special offer as part of our celebrations.’

Also as part of its anniversary celebrations, FINAT is compiling a 200-page commemorative history book.

Former FINAT secretary-general Mans Lejeune, father of the present managing director,
Jules Lejeune, and an editing committee are now preparing the rich tome for its publication at the organization’s congress to be held in Paris on June 19 and 20.

Besides being a record of FINAT and its members’ achievements, the book will be the definitive history of self-adhesive labeling from its inception by Stanton Avery’s invention of the pressure sensitive label in 1935 and the way in which a great number of other pioneers, many of them active in FINAT, particularly in the field of machinery, dies and materials, made the system work.

All FINAT presidents since 1958 who are still alive, and other committee chairmen and industry personalities, will be contributing and all the milestones, including the part played by the Labelling Competition in advancing inventive and quality solutions, will be covered.

Mans Lejeune is being assisted by Ron Spring, Tony White and Mike Fairley.

India’s label expert joins FINAT committee

In a move that represents FINAT’s continued expansion of interests in the subcontinent, the self-adhesive label trade association has recruited Harveer Singh Sahni, managing director of India’s Weldon Celloplast group, to its membership committee.

Sahni and his company led India’s entry into international markets and his close association with the entire Indian label industry is the result of his long involvement and support of major label events in India and abroad.

Jan Frederik Vink, president of FINAT said: ‘With Mr Sahni joining our membership committee, he brings to us unrivalled knowledge of the industry in his country and will help promote FINAT in that globally important area. After the success of the Indo-European label exchange program, we have come to the conclusion that our ability to give exclusive information and create networking opportunities can be of the utmost support to the growth of the Indian label industry.’

Sahni joined his family-owned stationary business group in 1971, after gaining a BSc in chemistry, and became involved in self-adhesives in 1978 when he began siliconizing operations are a prelude to producing labelstocks.