For more information on how to join BPA Retail, receive your membership certificate, window sticker and of course three months' free PR please visit www.bpa-retail.org or call 0845 456 9587.

BPA NURSERY RETAILER OF THE YEAR

By entering the BPA Nursery Retailer of the Year Awards (sponsored by RECARO) you could get the recognition your business deserves.

Visit www.bpa-retail.org or call 0845 456 9587 for further details.

BPA BABY & CHILD

If you pre-register now as a visitor to BPA Baby & Child your car parking will be free at the show. This is worth £7 per day. Do it now at www.babyandchildfair.co.uk or return one of our invitations.

BPA Retail members have the benefit of their own business lounge area at BPA Baby & Child.

BPA WELCOMES MORE NEW MEMBERS

Six new members on board this month:

• Cavendish Maine - A new Membership Services Provider for your recrutiment needs.
• Coochi - Designers and retailer of innovative textile products for new babies and toddlers, including the highly acclaimed Coocoose baby bath towel.
• Cuckoo - UK distributor for Mary Meyer Plush (Vermont), Alex Toys (New Jersey) and Baby IQ (UK).
• HealthQuest - A supplier of natural and organic toiletries.
• Kim's Baby Equipment - Wholesaler of a comprehensive range of baby products.
• Margarete Steiff UK - Manufacturers of nursery, children's and traditional teddy bears and animals.

NEW BPA YEARBOOK NOW OUT

The eleventh edition of the BPA Yearbook is now being dispatched and it still remains the definitive guide to the nursery industry in UK and Europe. There is the normal comprehensive directory together with sections on British, European, International and USA Standards and this year we have added a brand name index and also a product locator exclusively for BPA members' products.

STANDARDS AND DIRECTIVES

At present the standards committees are very busy with revisions of standards being worked on for a number of childcare and nursery product groups. In the next few months we will see some of these new standards published, for more information please call us on 0845 456 9570.

Last year and at the beginning of this year we have seen the introduction of a number of new EC Directives notably the WEEE, RoHS and Phthalates Directives. This year has seen the first stages of introduction of the most far reaching and ambitious of them all… the REACH Regulations. Naturally we will keep our members right up to date with the implications of this European legislation and their obligations under them.

BETTER BY DESIGN

The date for entries to this year's BPA Concept Awards has now passed and we have received more entries than ever. After an initial scrutiny of the products and a weeding out of those already on the market we are left with over forty individual entries to go to the first stages of judging.

We have received concepts and designs from as far afield as USA and Australia and I must say some of the ideas are very good indeed. The amount of work that entrants put in never fails to impress and as with previous years I am confident that two or three new products will reach the market through this process. We have also seen unprecedented interest in our Launchpad at BPA Baby & Child. Sponsored by RFIB and Nursery Industry magazine it will be literally teeming with products seen for the very first time at an exhibition.

It is fair to say that our industry will never get tired whilst all this new blood and new thinking keeps knocking on the door.

Tel: 0845 456 9570
Email: info@b-p-a.org
Web: www.b-p-a.org

Peter White
Chief Executive BPA