Season's GreetingsTo all customers, suppliers and friends thank you for your business and support over the last year. Working with the best in our industry it is your continued achievement that sustains us, so please accept our heartfelt thanks and best wishes at the end of another challenging year. To continue to deserve your valued custom we will be simplifying our communications and processes next year to make it even easier to deal with us. A fair, flexible and friendly approach to every customer is how we plan to maintain and win your loyalty, so please be prepared to tell us how we're doing. Your input is vital if we are to succeed as the preferred supplier in our sector. From everyone at Van Walt, to you and your families, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for a healthy, happy and successful New Year. Sincerely
Vincent van Walt |
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One size fits all Is not something you hear from us very often, particularly when it comes to our rental proposition: variety of equipment, size of fleet and the flexibility of our rental periods. Throughout 2011 we have added equipment, improved our paperwork and retrained our staff to ensure you get a seamless service. Every item should reach you in 'out of the box' condition, just read the Quick Start Guide if you are not familiar with its operation otherwise it is usually turn-on and start monitoring, remediating or sampling. In case you have a question we are always available to give advice by phone, online or in person, when needed. Increasingly our van can be found at sites throughout the UK - very often it's just part of the service.
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Useful Information We recently sent out emails highlighting two pieces of useful information which you can now find on: vanwalt.com/useful-information-sheets.html Cold Weather Advice: When it's cold and wet outside - spare a thought for your environmental equipment if you want to maintain accurate results. Most equipment has minimum operating temperatures below which the quality of your results will be compromised and you risk damaging the equipment. Even field equipment isn't impervious to extreme conditions:
The information sheet contains a few tips to help you ensure accurate results - whatever the weather.
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Ever wondered how many grains of sand there are on a beach? Bored of the beach, trashy novel not that sensational holiday read you were hoping for, so you've taken to counting grains of sand ... well now scientists in Cornwall are doing just that as part of a project to calculate the rate of coastal erosion. Researchers from Plymouth University are going to take five years to study data from instruments mounted on 40 metres of scaffolding at Perranporth which is transferred to laptops housed in a mobile field laboratory installed at the top of the beach for analysis. Apparently conditions on Perranporth beach are ideal for this research as the large tidal range allows the installation of the instruments with relative ease and the large waves will ensure significant sand movement at high tide when measurements will be made. By understanding how breaking waves move the sand scientists will be able to more accurately monitor coastal erosion. |
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Van Walt sponsors PhD student - Rory Flood Following another very successful trip to the Sunderbans, (see our Blog) India sediment sampling with Queen's University, Belfast we are delighted to introduce Rory Flood. Rory is a PhD student from the School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology, working on research primarily focused on the provenance and levels of sedimentation in the Sunderbans. For those of us not in the know the Sunderbans is one of the largest units of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world and the primary habitat of many endangered charismatic mega-fauna species, including the Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). Furthermore, approximately four million people inhabit the Sunderbans and thus there presents a challenge on the sustainability of island communities in this region.
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An update from our India correspondent Fieldwork for me at one time meant hiring the cheapest, smallest car possible and driving down to a rain drenched field in Co. Limerick to camp for a couple of nights before coring and surveying sites with a dumpy level. It was a twelve hour slog of lugging around two leather bags of corers aptly named “Rocky” and “Ivan”, the TCD Geography department’s hand gouge and Russian peat corers. However, fieldwork, like the Irish weather seems to have changed rather abruptly and rather drastically. Fieldwork now consists of three flights, hours of car journeys to cloistered ports and steaming across the estuarine-deltaic islands of the Sunderbans of West Bengal, India. Since October 2010 I have been working on my PhD project at the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) regarding the late-Holocene and contemporary sedimentary provenance and processes of sedimentation in the Sunderbans. The approach followed has been one based strongly on sedimentary facies analysis, thus coring several sites in the Sunderbans is one of the primary methodologies employed in this project.
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Courier Liability for loss or damage We would like to bring to your attention that unless you specify that you want to take out enhanced liability for goods in transit then if a parcel is lost or damaged the couriers will only re-reimburse you for a limited amount, usually in the region of £15 per kilo in weight. As you will know this only represents a nominal amount, far below the value of your environmental equipment. Unless you are separately insured for goods in transit we strongly recommend you opt for extended liability with your couriers.
Rental Charges For all rental customers, over the Christmas and holiday period we will be charging rental equipment as follows:
Any customer with rentals outstanding will receive an interim invoice at the end of December 2011. |
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We've changed the training we now offer you. Your time is precious and spending time away from site or the office is expensive that's why we are now offering a more flexible approach to access our environmental expertise. |
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Bespoke training We are very happy to put together bespoke training packages, at your premises subject to suitable conditions and the number of potential delegates makes it a cost effective alternative for you. These courses are based around your training needs but will always incorporate the latest standards, techniques and equipment. Bespoke courses are priced according to content, number of delegates and location. |
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Onsite Training Much of the training we do onsite involves the equipment we have provided. Very often this training is part of the service we offer for some of our more specialist environmental research equipment and is included in the price of the equipment but can also be arranged for anyone interested in understanding techniques, procedures and maintenance routines more thoroughly. |
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Equipment workshops For us it is important the equipment you buy from us exceeds your expectations and operates efficiently and effectively. Sometimes that might mean some additional training is required to ensure you get the best, most accurate results from your purchase. We are happy to arrange equipment specific training at our premises or onsite with the main operatives. We have recently undertaken this type of training via Skype so no commuting time and available wherever you are in the world! |
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