Do you need more time to send your Christmas gifts?

DHL Servicepoint offers later mailing dates than other postal services– giving you more time to find that perfect Christmas present and send it anywhere in the world.

Do you have parcel to send to a family member or friend either in the United Kingdom or anywhere in the world? Why not drop into our Self Storage Centre on the Monument Business Park in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire and we will be able to help you. You simply choose from one of the six robust, specially designed FREE DHL boxes and pay for delivery only.

Key Highlights of this service:

• UK and International delivery
• Free online parcel tracking
• Free packaging for your goods
• All packages are signed for on delivery
• Easy to reach out of town location.
• Available to business and general public.
• Convenient choice of payment - cash, debit or credit car
• Simple pricing structure - priced by size...... if it fits in the box it goes!
• Cheaper than most other ways to send parcels

How it works:

• Choose one of six robust, specially designed DHL boxes
• Complete some simple paperwork and we scan the barcode
• We will store the parcel in a secure storage room until the DHL courier arrives to collect it.
• All parcels are then signed for on delivery at their destination.
• Confidentiality is assured

Where we are:

• Easy to find - your local DHL SERVICEPOINT is located on the Monument Business Park in Chalgrove, OX44 7RW. For more details Contact us
• Easy to park - drive into our Storage Centre for easy drop-offs and pick-ups
• Easy access - open 6 days a week. Monday to Friday 8.30am till 5pm and Saturday mornings 9 till 12

If you would like any further information on our services please don’t hesitate to contact to us either via email at info@barretts-selfstorage.co.uk or telephone on 01865 891406

http://www.barretts-selfstorage.co.uk/barretts_dhl_postal_service.html

Mailbox in Oxford

We now offer a mailbox service at our Self Storage Centre in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire. With one of our secure mailboxes you don't have to worry about packages going astray or mail being left at your home address when there is no-one there to collect it. We can receive your mail and packages from Royal Mail or courier companies, leaving you to collect them from us at your convenience. We are also able to forward your mail and parcels to you anywhere in the world.

Our mailbox in Oxford is a cheap service that is very simple to set-up, our bronze package mailbox for letters only is £10 plus vat per month, and our silver package for letters and parcels is £15 plus vat per month

Why Mailboxes?

• Mailboxes can be used for business customers working from home who need a creditable address.

• For people in shared accommodation wanting a secure mailbox & find mailboxes reassuring & safe.

• Those people who are in the process of moving home, or are regularly on the move can find a mailbox more convenient.

• Ebay Sellers & Buyers.
• Small Businesses.
• Maybe you are moving abroad but need a UK base.
• If you are living at a temporary address
• If you need a temporary mailing address

Mailbox Address:

Your Name / Company name
Barretts Self Storage
50 Monument Business Park
Chalgrove
Oxon
OX44 7RW

If you would like anymore information of this services please contact us via email or by telephone on 01865 891406

http://www.barretts-selfstorage.co.uk/barretts_MailForwardingService.html

DHL POSTAL SERVICE IN OXFORDSHIRE

Barretts Self Storage has partnered with DHL ServicePoint to provide our customers and the public with an easy way to send parcels within the United Kingdom and Internationally.

Do you have a parcel to send? Drop into our Self Storage Centre on the Monument Business park, simply purchase the appropriate DHL box or envelope for your items, then pack and track your items with their FREE online tracking service, it’s that easy!

DHL Service Point is ideal if you have a parcel to send and don’t want to wait in all day for the courier to turn up. The Service Point also allows you to have your DHL parcels delivered to us and collect when a time is convenient for you.

Key Highlights of this service:

• UK and International delivery
• Free online parcel tracking
• Free packaging for your goods
• All packages are signed for on delivery
• Easy to reach out of town location.
• Available to business and general public.
• Convenient choice of payment - cash, debit or credit car
• Simple pricing structure - priced by size...... if it fits in the box it goes!
• Cheaper than most other ways to send parcels

How it works:

• Choose one of six robust, specially designed DHL boxes
• Complete some simple paperwork and we scan the barcode
• We will store the parcel in a secure storage room until the DHL courier arrives to collect it.
• All parcels are then signed for on delivery at their destination.
• Confidentiality is assured

Where we are:

• Easy to find - your local DHL SERVICEPOINT is located on the Monument Business Park in Chalgrove, OX44 7RW. For more details http://www.barretts-selfstorage.co.uk/contact_us.html

• Easy to park - drive into our Storage Centre for easy drop-offs and pick-ups

• Easy access - open 6 days a week. Monday to Friday 8.30am till 5pm and Saturday mornings 9 till 12

Who can benefit:

• All businesses
• EBay sellers
• Home workers
• Gap year students
• Anyone who has parcels or important documents to send

How much it costs:

Pay one simple price based on the size of parcel and delivery location (United Kingdom, European Union, USA/Canada or Rest of World). See below for details.

Prices include VAT. Transit times are a guide only and not guaranteed. Items sent on weekends or Bank Holidays will be collected by a DHL courier the next working day. Carriage is subject to DHL Terms and Conditions. Please note, some items will not be carried and may be prohibited. For details on prohibited items please click here. All shipments will be subject to inspections.

If you would like anymore information please contact us.

www.barretts-selfstorage.co.uk

Unique car storage in Germany

Although these cars aren’t actually in storage at Barretts Self Storage, it seems to us that this should be included in our storage blog. This photo was taken at Volkswagen car storage facility in Wolfsbury, Germany which is also known as the Autostadt.

The Autostadt consists of two transparent cylindrical buildings rising 60 meter/200 ft above the ground. The two towers are connected to the Volkswagen factory by a 700 metre underground tunnel. When cars arrive at the towers they are carried up at a speed of 1.5 metres per second. Each tower holds up to 400 cars on 20 levels and can process a car every 45 seconds during peak times. The cars are transported to their handover in the customer centre, where an average of 550 vehicles are handed over each day which equals almost 200,000 cars each year, making it the largest car distribution centre in the world.

Barretts Self Storage can also store cars for you, from one week to as long as you need. Give our friendly staff a call today for a quotation 01865 891406 or visit our website www.barretts-selfstorage.co.uk

Winner of the Environmental Awareness Award 2011/2012

We have recently won The Storage.co.uk Award 2011-12 for Environmental Awareness

These awards are designed to celebrate and promote good practice in the self storage industry. The Awards organisers received large numbers of nominations and the winners were selected from the 1,285 self storage firms now operating in the UK.

Storage.co.uk's Angus Hanton, ‘Self storage is quickly becoming a major industry in the UK, in which it’s increasingly hard for companies to stand out. These awards should inform customers which storage firms are really going that extra mile to provide them with the best service.’

The judges felt our self storage centre demonstrated a clear commitment to the environment by publishing our sustainability policy on our website. This states that we will make every possible effort to prevent waste from going to landfill by composting or recycling it instead; and we try to do business only with other companies that “demonstrate an excellence in sustainable operations”.

The purpose of our recycling policy is to set up and maintain our commitment to sustainable stewardship through recycling, waste prevention, purchasing recycled content products and energy and water conservation.

http://www.barretts-selfstorage.co.uk

Gold Award Caravan Storage Site

We have just been upgraded from the Silver award to the Gold award by the caravan storage Association. CaSSOA have rated us as providing excellent standard of security for all leisure vehicles. The association have decided to upgrade us after we have improved the security on our site over the last few months.

For More information on our services please click here

The Caravan Storage Site Owners Association.

We have just been awarded the silver award by the caravan storage Association. They have rated us as providing a very good standard of security for all leisure vehicles. We are hoping to achieve the gold award in the coming months.

The association acts as a nationally recognised body providing an official register of safe and secure storage sites. Cassoa approved caravan storage sites are more secure. The association was set up in 1999 to combat the alarming growth and scale of caravan theft and offers 3 tiers of security awards - Bronze, Silver and Gold. Your caravan is a significant investment and a CaSSOA Gold Award site offers owners peace of mind knowing when not using it, it is safe - according to recent survey of 600+ caravans stolen nearly half were stolen from private driveways, whilst the other half were stolen from other locations such as holiday parks and service stations. Many insurers offer a discount on the annual policy for storage at a CaSSOA registered site. For more information please visit their website -

http://www.cassoa.co.uk

Keeping the Office Green is Hard Work - top green tips

We mentioned on the last post that we did not think the paperless office exists, so how do we manage/control the use of all of this paper in our office?

The use of virgin and old growth forests for office paper is destroying many habitats and communities www.safetherainforest.org, so some of the measures we can take to have an active part in reducing the impact on these forests is by trying to adopt the following:

Purchase of paper

make sure that is has a high-recycled content (greater than 70%), totally chlorine-free during production, has an accredited environmental or green waste label

Paper saving techniques

ensure an efficient use of paper with double-sided photocopying and printing
use email and voicemail wherever possible
insist all staff are aware of 'green printing', i.e. make sure documents are as short as possible and only printed when necessary
have paper audits - look at recycled bins to assess how much waste is going into them. Try to have paper reduction targets

so simple: ensure staff are trained how to use the photocopier correctly to avoid mistakes!
have a space on your website so that reports and documents can be downloaded and viewed on screen
keep your database up to date - then you can email your latest offers and communications to your customers
For hardcopies print on both sides of the paper
use line spacing of no more than 1.5
lay out the document with the minimum amount of white space
avoid using varnishes when printing
if adhesive binding is used, ensure that it contains chlorinated organic compounds
label all of your printed documents with information about how it was produced

It is worth bearing in mind that it is thought that half of all office waste is paper-based, so the benefits to not just the environment, but also to your buhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsiness by keeping yourhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif office green are quite evident. All of the above measures to cut the amount of paper you use are relatively inexpensive and can in fact actually save you money, whilst at the same time, you can take pride in the fact that your business is doing its bit for the environment.

Do forward this link to anyone who you think might be interested. There are awards and many hidden benefits to green businesses www.greenachiever.co.uk

Should the paper that you are required to keep for the statutory 7 year period start to pile up in unwanted parts of the office, then it is always worth considering sending the odd archive box away to be stored :

http://barretts-selfstorage.co.uk/business_storage.html

#DocumentArchivingRetrievalDestruction

Greener cities mean greener offices?

'It's important to have greenery in a city, not just because it looks nice But we can also save our #earth and #environment'. This was a tweet sent out on Twitter yesterday from India - http://www.greenleapdelhi.org.in/

The Queen's jubilee year project aims to plant 6 million trees across the UK. The project is being organised by the Woodland Trust http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk . We are all looking to maintain a greener lifestyle, organisations want to show that they understand what their Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) is. Having ethical values and showing that you are living in a sustainable manner is definitely still very much high on the agenda with individuals and businesses and this is international, not just in the UK.

The paperless office can demonstrate that all of the above values are being adhered to. Unfortunately however, it is our experience that the paperless office is more, or less a fallacy, if it does even exist at all. Should HMRC pay you a visit, then everything still has to be produced on paper for them to examine. Documents have to be kept for the statutory seven years and although there are options to use scanning services, many organisations still end up with many, many archive boxes full of paperwork that they are required to keep, littering up the workplace.

For as little as 5 pence per week, a box can be removed and securely stored at our premises, thus freeing up valuable working space. Not only does it remove clutter and create a tidy working environment, but it ensures that the data is kept in a remote fire-proof location, should any unforeseen disaster occur. Have a look at our archive page for further information about this very cost-effective service: http://www.barretts-selfstorage.co.uk/document_archiving.html

I wonder how much paper there is in 6 million trees?

Recycling is still the new Buzz Word

We have just added our recycling policy to our website and 'about time too' you might well say. Why has it taken us so long? The answer to that is, 'I don't really know'. I suppose it was sheer laziness. In reality, we have always had an in house recycling policy, we even set up a Recycling Centre on the Monument Business Park six or so years ago, when it was not fashionable to do so and there were certainly no grants around to help us. I have to say that it struggled too, mainly because most other businesses were not that interested in disposing of their waste in an ethical manner, not because they did not want to, but because it took up a lot of extra hours and manpower and they needed to concentrate on their core business. So what has changed?

Consumer awareness I think. All councils have a recycling centre and everyone is more aware that they have a responsiblity to be greener in their waste disposal. Hopefully this awareness now translates through to businesses too. Although I am sure that many of the smaller SMEs 'think' about it, as we did, and not too many actually commit anything to writing.

The reason that we have decided to devote more time to this came mainly from the influences of other businesses. Two of these are www.aspireoxford.co.uk where they not only work with recycling, but also help disavantaged people by giving them employment within their organisation and they operate a recycling service for businesses on the Monument Business Park and www.ethicalecoart.co.uk (see upcycled chair in picture rescued from landfill) whose mission it is to create works of art by upcycling through using all recycled products - what could be more sustainable and green? They are looking to work with any businesses who have waste that they might be able to use.

We are now looking at all of our suppliers to see how ethical and green their policies are and we hope that our customers are doing the same.

Barretts Storage Recycling Policy

As part of ongoing sustainability efforts, Barretts Storage will ensure wherever possible to recycle all paper, bottles, cans and furniture to work towards recycling and composting as much business waste from being landfilled.

The purpose of our recycling policy is to set up and maintain our commitment to sustainable stewardship through recycling, waste prevention, purchasing recycled content products and energy and water conservation.

When possible, Barretts Storage will place a preference on doing business with companies that demonstrate an excellence in sustainable operations.

Springtime has arrived with an Easter offer

It must be official now - we can announce that Spring has definitely arrived. With the warmer weather earlier in the week, it is quite noticeable that there is an audible increase in volume from the birds. Our site has fields and hedgerows on two sides and the activity from the feathered occupants has increased considerably over the past few weeks, they all seem to be spring cleaning their nesting areas. Even the red kites with their languorous circling and swooping overhead, seem to put more effort in. Those same hedgerows have green shoots and those persistent weeds are bursting out of their hiding places. Everything is demanding attention and activity.
The same can be said of our homes and workplace. There is nothing like an open window with some sun streaming through to spotlight piles of papers and boxes, not to mention the dust and cobwebs. With all the bank holidays looming, it is an ideal opportunity for a spring clean. Lots of the papers and boxes in those piles are needed and although not vital, need to be stored safely until required. This is why we have put together our special 'Spring/Easter Offer': - Pay for one month's storage, get one month free This gives you the opportunity to free up space, or temporarily store items, whilst an office or room is re-organised, ready to get back to some serious work and planning at the beginning of May - until the next bank holiday!