Merry Christmas

Everyone at Stirling Electrical Services would like to wish all our clients and readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Prosperous New Year.

Our office and services will close down on Wednesday 23rd December and will resume on Wednesday 6th January.

Have an excellent festive period everyone.

Christmas Party Night 2009

Our company Christmas night out was held last Friday at The Grange Manor Hotel in Grangemouth. An excellent fun filled night was had by all our staff and the other guests with lots of good food and alcohol consumed.

Below are a few photos from the evening.

How to Reset a Miniature Circuit Breaker

Our electricians and myself are looking forward to a "well deserved" break over the Festive Season so I thought I would post this video of how to locate and reset a miniature circuit breaker (MCB) in your consumer unit.

We dont want your Christmas dinner spoiled and we want to enjoy our own dinners in peace ;-)

Merry Christmas.

Charity 5km Run - Santa Dash

Well I did it in 31 minutes, I think that was not bad for my first ever 5km run.

Today I took part in the Glasgow Santa Dash where over 3000 runners, men, women and children, dressed in Santa suits ran 5km for charity through the centre of Glasgow.

I only signed up for the event seven days ago and will have over £200 in spnsorship money for good causes.

Thanks to all those who sponsored me and I'm looking forward to next years event already.

Time for a long warm bath though, it was -2 this morning in Glasgow.

Photos from today can be viewed on my Flickr Page

Another Year

Well only 8 work days* until the work year ends and after another hectic year we are all looking forward to the break over the festive period.

We are also looking forward to our Christmas Party night which will take place on Friday 18th at The Grange Manor Hotel in Grangemouth.

Next year is already looking busy but before then bring on the Christmas and New Year festivities.

Everyone at Stirling Electrical Services wishes our clients a very Merry Christmas and wish them all a good and prosperous New Year.


* We will have an electrician working in between Christmas and New Year for emergency cover work.

Clean Up

Just had a wee clean up of the layout on our blog page - let us know what you think.

Updates

Not has much time to Blog recently but you can still catch up with Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. on Twitter - @StirlingElect and on Facebook.

Donation - Parent Education Programme

Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. are delighted to forward a £30 donation to the Parent Education Programme which is run in Forth Valley.

The education programme is provided in a variety of settings in hospitals and the community and the programme is an integral part in the journey for parents from conception to the postnatal period.

Test Blog

We have been setting up our various social networking pages this week,
so this is a wee internal test to see if it all works ok.

Students

Thanks to all the students who have contacted us so far and good luck with your studies this year.

Details of our PAT Testing service for students can be found below.

Click image to go to our website for full details.


It's that time of year when Students are heading to university and like previous years we will once again be offering our Portable Appliance Testing (PAT Testing) service at discounted rates to Students heading to The University of Stirling.

All electrical appliances students take with them into their new residence at Stirling are required to be checked that they are are safe to be used and this is where we come in.

If you are a student heading to our City over the next few weeks and require Pat Testing carried out please click on the image above.

Facebook

Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. now have a presence on social networking platform Facebook.
Users of Facebook can keep up to date with our company by visiting:-

our page


Facebook users can also keep in touch with company Director Scott McLean

at this page

Appliance Testing For Students

It's that time of year when Students are heading to university and like previous years we will once again be offering our Portable Appliance Testing (PAT Testing) service at discounted rates to Students heading to The University of Stirling.

All electrical appliances students take with them into their new residence at Stirling are required to be checked that they are are safe to be used and this is where we come in.

If you are a student heading to our City over the next few weeks and require Pat Testing carried out please click on the image above.

Buy Stirling Albion FC Campaign

Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. have been proud to sponsor and advertise with Stirling Albion Football Club for a number of years, including official website, trackside and programme advertising, as well sponsorship of tracksuits for matchday ballboy's and Young Reds teams.

Now we are also throwing our weight behind the buystirlingalbion campaign in what is such a critical time for the football club.

Click here to find out more details on the ongoing campaign to purchase the club for the supporters and the community.

New Van

A new Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. van will be hitting the streets of Stirling and beyond this coming week. Have a look out for it, but watch out, as its identical to all our other vans, its another step in making sure our company uniform and brand is consistant.

AICO Fire Products - Trained Installer

We have recently been awarded status of a Trained Installer with one of the UK's leading fire products manufacturer AICO.

AICO manufacture domestic and light commercial smoke and heat alarm products as well as hard of hearing alarms.

Our new status will benefit landlords, letting agents and House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) owners as these are the type of dwellings that require alarms under legislation.

Visit our Fire Alarm page on our website for more information.

Latest News is also on Twitter

Just a reminder that most of our daily updates take place over on Twitter, this is where you will find out what we are upto on a daily basis.

Click here to follow us on Twitter

Steamship Sir Walter Scott

Today I attended a special sailing of the Steamship Sir Walter Scott on Loch Katrine.

The sailing was to celebrate the completion of a three year refurbishment project and for the 110 year anniversary of the launch of the steamship. 1899-2009.

Click here for photos of the event.

Click here for Loch Katrine website.

Save Gillies Hill

Today I attended a walk in the Stirling area from Cambusbarron to the Battlefield at Bannockburn in support of "Save Gillies Hill".

Gillies Hill near Cambusbarron is regarded to have played a pivotal role the battle in 1314, when the people who lived on the hill moved towards the battlefield banging pots, pans and anything that made a noise. This in turn scared the remaining English off the battlefield thinking the noise from the Gillies Hill folk was another large Scottish army coming to back up their counterparts on the battlefield.

Gillies Hill itself is now in a battle to survive after quarrying began a number of years ago. This is now on temporary hold after local protests and walks like today must continue to gain maximum publicity to the Save Gillies Hill cause.

Click here from some photos from todays walk.

Click here for more information on Save Gillies Hill.

Cambusbarron Gala Day 2009

I attended our local village Gala Day on Saturday. Thankfully despite the weather forecast for heavy showers it stayed dry all afternoon with some sunny spells, and it looked like a very enjoyable afternoon was had by all that attended.

Heres a link to some photos from Cambusbarron, Stirling Gala Day 2009.

Photos.....

Are You Job Seeking? - If So, Dont Fail Yor First Test!!!

I'm going to re-publish below a blog post I made in November 2007 regarding under paid postage from mostly job-seeking apprentices. Its that time of year again when we receive numerous enquiries per week from job-seeking apprentices. Its good to see young apprentices being pro-active and seeking employment but if you enquire to Stirling Electrical Services Ltd about an apprenticseship, you may not be aware that the minute you post your CV to us, you are actually taking part in our first aptitude test.

- Taking the time and effort to make sure that your important CV actually has the correct postage stamp on the envelope.

The biggest mistake made is enclosing A4 paper into a large envelope and only puting on a small first class stamp - Large envelopes at A4 size require a LARGE 1st class stamp. That's your first test and if you fail this basic task and not bother to find out proper postage prices, it doesn't give us a good first impression of candidates who we will be trusting with potential dangerous electricity.

Here's the blog post from November 2007:-

Attention All Job Applicants - especially apprentices

I am very big on attention to detail, so when it comes to job applicants many fail a very important hurdle before we have even collected their CV from Royal Mail.

Since the introduction of the new postal prices and size of stamps in April 2007, we have had to collect and pay for underpaid letters 16 times from job applicants. Most of the applicants are school leavers looking for an apprenticeship who having printed off their CV and do not want to fold their CV and enclose it in an A4 envelope and then fail to correctly put a large 1st class stamp on the envelope, instead they put on a small normal sized first class stamp. Hence, we receive a note in our normal daily delivery from Royal Mail, saying we have underpaid mail at their depot, we then have to fight our way through traffic, wait in a queue, pay a handling fee of £1.00 plus the remaining underpaid postage price which since April is approaching £25.00.
I know this is a lame blogpost but it just irritates me when people who are trying to impress a prospective new employer, cannot at this initial stage pay that little bit more attention to detail and find out which stamp to use.

Audio Visual Work

I've been kept busy this last week working on audio and lighting equipment at a Visitor Attraction we maintain. The attraction opens next week for the summer season and a lot of the equipment has been switched off for the winter and as well as getting all this equipment up and running again we have took this opportunity to give the equipment a good old spring clean.

Its been fun working with a different type of electrical equipment away from the normal day to day electrical work we carry out.

The photos below show some of the equipment used in this attraction - accent control system, alcorn mp3 players, soundstores, amplifiers and amx controllers. All this equipment is required to play various sounds and narration.

Interesting stuff !!

House For Rent in Stirling

Our previous home in the heart of Stirling is now available to rent from the middle of June 09

To view the 3 bedroom semi-detached house and contact the agents Clyde Letting - click this link

Bank Holiday

Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. will be closed for business on Monday 25th May 2009 - Spring Bank Holiday.

In extreme emergencies we can still be contacted on our normal telephone number 01786 813916.

Normal working service will resume on Tuesday 26th May 2009.

Local Paper Story on Ashwood Scam Invoices

As a small follow up post to my posts below regarding the invoice scam by Ashwood Institute of Industry Accreditation, our local newspaper has run the story on the front page of the weekly newspaper.

Over 80 companies have reported being targeted by Ashwood, with presumambly many more not reporting the scam to the newspaper or to trading standards.

Our local newspaper the Stirling Observer deserve praise for highlighting this scam in such a prominent position in their newspaper.

The article from the newspaper can be viewed here...

Council Now Onto Scam

Further to my post earlier today about a scam by Ashwood Institute of Industry Accreditation its good to see that our local council and trading standards have now issued an official statement and warning about this scam. Well done to them for putting out the warning to other companies so quickly.

Beware Of This Scam

Just a quick post to make other businesses aware of this scam.

You could be receiving an invoice from Ashwood Institute of Industry Accreditation asking for payment of a few hundred pounds for administration costs, presumably for listing your company name on their website - see link above.

This is a scam and our local trading standards office are being inundated with complaints about this organisation.

Still the invoices they sent will give our shredder machine a little workout this afternoon.

Twitter

We've now joined Twitter - What is Twitter?

Well according to Twitter themselves:- Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I wasnt too sure whether to sign up but thought what the heck, I might as well give it a try.

So as Twitter can only be updated in a few short words, I will use this to give a quick snapshot of what I and the company are doing and will continue to use this blog for all the main news which will be covered in more depth.

Although both the blog and Twitter are on different sites, I have added a widget to the right hand menu bar of this blog which will feature the last five Twitter posts.

Happy Twittering.

Teach Kids About Electricity

It's never to early to understand the theory of electricty and how to use electricity safely.

The Electrical Safety Council have built a fun website designed to teach kids all about electricity.

So why dont you call your kids away from their PS3 and show them this informative and educated website which both parent and kid will find useful.

Switched On Kids - Electricity And How To Use It Safely.

Electrical Safety Advice - In The Garden

Last year I posted about electrical safety advice that is given by The Electrical Safety Council. I thought I would revisit some of those pages and since there has been some good weather of late - Electrical Safety Advice - In the Garden, is a good place to start.

If you would like to discuss the advice given by The Electrical Safety Council in more detail, Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. would be delighted to offer our advice on the subject.
To do so email us at info@stirlingelectrical.co.uk or call 01786 813916.

CLICK TO VIEW THE ADVICE PAGE - In The Garden

Who are SELECT ?

We have been a member of SELECT for four years now, but just who are SELECT and what are the benefits to our clients that Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. are a member of SELECT. ?

Visit the website of SELECT - Scotland's trade association for the electrical industry.

Public Liability Insurance

Due to Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. continued growth and our expanding portfolio of larger jobs we have recently increased our Public Liability Insurance to £5,000,000.

This increase is in line with the minimum insurance cover required by larger public sector bodies.

We Are Based In Fallin - View maps

Where are we:-

We are based in the village of Fallin which is only a few miles south east from Stirling.

If you need to visit us please use MAP 1 below.
Our postal address is Map 2.

If you need to visit us our day to day operations are carried out from office premises(Map 1) only a few streets away from our 12 Queen Street postal address(Map 2).

Map 1
We are based in the Dunblane Light Engineering Ltd. building on the main road through Fallin, opposite Gray's Public House.

Use this map if you need to visit us

View Larger Map

Map 2

Use this map for all postal correspondence

Stirling Fire Protection Ltd.

Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. carry out installation, maintenance and testing work on fire and smoke alarm system but we use and recommend another Stirling based company Stirling Fire Protection Ltd. for the supply of fire extinguishers, hose reels, safety signage, training and fire risk assessments.

Stirling Fire Protection Ltd. operate throughout the central belt of Scotland and they are a member of the respected British Fire Consortium.

Full contact details can be found on the Stirling Fire Protection Ltd. website

Happy New Year

All the team at Stirling Electrical Services Ltd. hope you all had a good christmas and we wish you a happy new year.

The blog will start being updated again over the next few weeks.