The annual Printing SA Gala Dinner, held in association with the FESPA Africa Expo (co-located with the Sign Africa, Africa Print and Africa LED Expos), took place on 12 September at Gallagher Convention Centre. Close to 300 members from the printing and packaging industry were in attendance.
Ken Leid, Printing SA’s Director of national training and development, together with Practical Publishing’s Charnia Yapp, co-organiser of the 2018 FESPA Africa and Africa Print Expo and editor of Practical Publishing, presented the Africa Print Top Achiever Award and cheques to the top three students in this year’s National TT Block Awards.
Coming in as third runner up was Clive Edward Sharpe from Cape Town, with Lucky Dludla from KZN in second place. The overall national top achiever for 2018 was Thilimbilu Tshivhase who is interning at Caxton with a pass mark of 97.4%. They received cheques of R2000, R3000 and R5000 respectively.
Another highlight on the programme was the presentation of the Gutenberg Awards which were introduced to commemorate printing greats Lambert Retief and Martin Deysel. Central chamber chairman Andrew Reid presented this year’s awards to Felleng Yende (CEO of the FP&M Seta) and Edward Ronny who have both been instrumental in the advancing the industry in the private and public sectors.
The gala dinner was themed ‘1920s New York’, paying tribute to the entrance of fashion and style into the modern era. This was also the golden era of mass media.
Members were also treated to Printing SA’s national TV campaign adverts, featuring ETV celebrity presenters and the Goliath Brothers showing that the South African printing and packaging industry is very much alive and well.
High profile guests at this event, including Deon Joubert, acting president of the Printing SA Board, and deputy minister of telecommunications and postal services, the honourable Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, addressed members during the evening.
