A proud athletic history at Milan High School will get a chance to shine if the school’s “Raise the Banner” fundraising effort is successful.

Milan’s athletic director, David Kaiser, said the goal is to sell 400 raffle tickets at a cost of $25 each to raise $10,000 to buy banner printing displaying the district’s athletic teams’ accomplishments from a printing services provider.

Winners of the raffle will be announced Feb. 28 during half-time of the boys’ basketball season finale against Gabriel Richard. Two $1,000 prizes will be awarded.

Money raised will go toward purchasing custom printing 4-foot-by-8-foot vinyl banners that will highlight achievements of each of the district’s 22 school-sponsored sports. The banners would be hung from the rafters in the main gymnasium of the high school.

“We want to see to it that a banner hangs for every sport that we sponsor,” Kaiser said.

Whether it’s football, track, golf or equestrian, Kaiser said, the emphasis will be to give every Milan school sport a place of honor and a special spot to feature conference championships, as well as district, regional and state championships.

School-sponsored sports also include baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country, soccer, swimming, tennis, volleyball and wrestling.

Right now, he said, since the high school building is fairly new, a visible display of the “rich athletic tradition at Milan” is lacking in the school.

The banners, he said, will give everyone who comes in the gymnasium, including community members and high school alumni, a sense of accomplishments past and present of Milan sports teams.

A  Printing company is joining the fight against crime by printing and distributing new Neighbourhood and Home Watch window sticker printing.

Towergate Insurance has agreed to supply more than 600,000 custom printing stickers throughout England and Wales folowing a cut in funding to Home Office marketing projects by the Coalition Government.

The stickers act as a warning to criminals to think twice before committing a crime in the community and has been proven as a key factor in reducing burglary.

Paul Whittaker, CEO of Towergate Insurance in Bury St Edmunds, said: “Towergate is delighted to be supporting Neighbourhood and Home Watch in its efforts to combat crime.

“We both share the same goal in keeping our local communities safe so would encourage people to contact us for their window sticker.

“This is a symbol that local communities and printing services providers are working together to beat crime.”

Last year the Coalition gGovernment announced it was cutting the Home Office’s advertising budget, including that for the Neighbourhood Watch and Home Watch Network.

Kate Daisley, operations director at the Neighbour and Home Watch Network, said she was grateful to Towergate Insurance for stepping in so the iconic sticker would remain a tool in reducing crime.

She said: “It is such great news that Towergate Insurance has agreed step in to print and distribute the sticker.

“From testimonies from former burglars, criminals are looking for houses that will be an easy target.

“The Neighbourhood Watch and Home Watch stickers show that people are looking out for each other’s properties and are actively keeping watch in their community.

Cape Town, Northern Cape — (SBWIRE) — 10/27/2011 — Asset Print (http://www.assetprint.co.za/), one of the Western Capes top printing companies, has announced two new printing services that it will be offering all existing and new clients in the Western Cape. The first new custom printing service is aimed at all the architectural firms that are based in the Central Business District of Cape Town and the surrounding area, while the second new service is aimed at clients who whish for a simple and fast black and white printing solution.

The architectural printing solution that they are now offering is available thanks to the purchase of a new plan printer that will allow them to print precise architectural plans in black and white onto 80gsm paper, and up to A0 size. The pricing for such a print is currently R25.00 per A0 print excluding Value Added Tax. This service, although primarily aimed at the architectural industry, will be available for use by anybody who is in need of extremely exact printing process.

The high speed black and white printing option that Asset Print is now offering is perfect for the high demand in Cape Town for simple flyer printing, label printing, and other on demand none colour printing jobs. The new digital printing machine purchased to handle the current demand can print black and white flyers in A4 and A3 size at a total of 1 500 000 million prints a month.

Please Note: All Asset Print flyers are printed on recycled paper with eco-friendly ink. This helps both Asset Print and its clients make the necessary move towards making South Africa greener and make Asset Print one of only a handful of eco conscious printing firms in the Western Cape and indeed the country.

According to the CEO of the local chamber of commerce Anne Cunnane, the yesteryear pictures are an innovative way to raise funds for the town’s summer festival through postcard printing.

“There was a shortfall of funding for this year’s festival and we didn’t want to go back to businesses looking for more money. We had taken a lot of pictures of festivals over the years and the Annagh Magazine Committee were good enough to allow us to use their pictures too and print postcards,” she said.

The black and white postcards, dating back to the turn of the 20th century, are proving extremely popular.

“The postcards are flying off the shelves. A lot of people who are home on holidays are buying numerous packets. Ballyhaunis never had its own post card printing before and people seem to love the idea,” said Ms Cunnane.

The postcards are available to purchase in local outlets and local printing companies – €1 each or €5 for pack of six.

Get all the postcards you need at 4over4.com.

4OVER4.COM is an online printing firm that practices GREEN PRINTING. They have recently announced their “100,000 Trees for Humanity” initiative which is their commitment to plant 100,000 trees. Please spread the word. One tree will be planted for every link back to www.4over4.com. I am showing my support by creating this link to http://www.4over4.com

Find out more at http://TREES.4OVER4.COM

If you decide to print your postcards online you need to work with the online printing authority 4over4.com.

With 4over4.com you will also be able to use the green printing service, with this, you will help the environment by using recycled paper on all your prints. You will be doing something good for the world.

And the best part came in the 1900’s when divided postcards appeared, this new postcards allowed people not only to simple send an image to share a place or a feeling but also gave the sender a little room to write a message, this became useful in many ways because postcards became even more useful than before.

Also the new millenium brought another milestone in the world of postcards, the appearance of photoprints, this photo-like postcards were the ones that really created the desire for people to send postcards while on vacation or business travel, this because it was a nice touch to share with others the place you were visiting. And the most important part, it was fast and cheap.

One of the things that makes postcards not only cheap but easy to use is the fact that they don’t need to be folded, nor do they need to be place in an envelope. All you have to do is get the postcard, write to whom is it for, a small message, place the postcard and that’s it. You either turn it to the closest post office or simple drop it in a mailbox. In less than five minutes you got somebody a great detail.

The advent of the Internet in the latest decade seemed like the doom for postcards, as it has happened with many things, the digital era has become the harbinger of doom for many things, specially all that is related to mail, e-mail and digital postcards can not only be delivered within minutes but also can be customized with personal pictures, colors, sounds, and nowadays, even video can be added. 

The surprising thing is that, amid all that, printed postcards remain as popular as ever, and probably even more. So one thing is certain, postcards will stay around for a very, very long time.