JJ Smith’s centenary celebrations set the tone for the next 100 years

Over 150 guests including those from the Smith and Stanley families, staff both current and former, colleagues, customers and firends gathered in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral to celebrate 100 years of JJ Smith in great style.

The invited guests began filing in on a breezy early summer’s evening to the Lady Chapel for a drinks reception and then were ushered through the impressive candlelit Central Space accompanied by magnificent organ music around the Gothic arches and beyond to a deftly sunken area called The Well in front of the stunning west window and porch. As a place for a get-together of this nature, this Cathedral which is the fifth largest in Europe, was the perfect setting.

Guests came from far and wide, nine countries in fact, most of the international contingent were JJ Smith’s supply partners, many of whom have been ‘part of the family’ for many years.

Getting the evening under way was family member and the MC for the evening Matt

Smith, the former presenter of ITV’s Champions League football coverage – we were in capable hands, he is a Smith after all!

What followed over the next few hours featured a beautiful meal expertly prepared and delivered plus a trip down memory lane with a playlist of music through the ages which had special meaning for the families – following that, there was live entertainment courtesy from the Mersey Beatles encouraging guests to take to the floor.

At the interlude, JJ Smith managing director Rachael Baker took to the stage to formally welcome guests thanking them for attending the centenary celebration – she said: “One of our core values at JJ Smith is building longterm relationships, with employees, customers and suppliers, and I really feel you can see that in action tonight. We have people from nine countries who have travelled to be here, we have people with whom we have done business for decades, and we have employees here tonight with a total service of over 500 years.

“It is a real honour and privilege to be the person standing here tonight … and you will be pleased to know that you aren’t going to have a long speech from me, instead you’re going to hear from a number of voices who have been part of the JJ Smith story over the years, which I hope you will enjoy.”

A short film then played looking back over the history of the company through the eyes of directors and employees, past and present. The collective respect, passion and commitment for the business shone through – sentiments that have underpinned JJ Smith from inception to this day. The company’s on-going dedication to its staff was clear to see and the film also heard from proud apprentices currently learning their trade in the correct time-served manner.

Rachael then moved on to recognising some of the team with a short series of awards. “We now have a few awards to hand out,” explained Rachael. “Firstly, we have a small gift for our third year apprentices to acknowledge the hard work and commitment they have shown over the course of their apprenticeship so far, and to wish them well as they head into Year 4.”

Congratulations went to Michael Keegan and Joel Clarke for their fantastic efforts thus far.

“Next, we have our Employee of the Year Award. This is the first time we have given out this award, so this person is the first to get what will become an annual award. I asked for nominations from everyone within the company, and received the most fantastic emails with long lists of reasons why a number of different people should win. The person who won, received comments such as “because he keeps everything running smoothly and is always there when I need help”, “he is always ready to help with anything at all and never makes me feel that a question is daft”, “he’s always there if I need a chat”, and “I always know if I need help then he’ll give me as much time as I need”.

The winner was Operations Manager Dave Moore, who unfortunately could not be there on the night, in his stead Service Engineer Mike Collins stepped up to collect the much-deserved award on his behalf. .

“Finally, we would like to mark long service within the company, which as you will have noticed from your booklet on the table, covers a very long time for quite a number of people. So, with grateful thanks for 40 years of service to the company, please can I ask our Offsite Director Martin Smith to come up and collect a small gift.

“Before I finish I would just like to say thank you to everyone who has helped make tonight the event that it is, it has been in the planning for two years now and so many people have done so many different things along the way. I would like to single out one person though for extra thanks, and that is John Stanley – who has worked incredibly hard behind the scenes and without whom we definitely wouldn’t be having such a good evening, so thank you

John.” Rachael concluded: “And to all of you in the room, thank you for being part of the JJ Smith story and journey, what an amazing past century we’ve had, here’s to the next one.”

With such a solid foundation of family members and long-serving staff colleagues, JJ Smith must be one of the best qualified companies of its type currently active in the UK. Smith and Stanley family members currently employed are Rachael Baker - Managing Director; Martin Smith - Offsite Director, John Stanley - Sales Director, Guy Stanley - Sales Director, Ian Stanley - Sales Director, Adrian Smith - Technical Director, Michael Stanley - Sales Manager, and Jane Reid - Service Manager.

In addition to which, the long commitment of the company’s staff is simply incredible – some 650 years served by 20 current employees –with Peter Davies holding top spot with 65 years served, followed by eight members of the team having notched up more than 40 years.

Such loyalty and dedication is massively impressive, and of course from a commercial point of view the depth of experience at JJ Smith helps to ensure the company’s relationships and ethos remains as John James would have surely hoped for 100 years ago when he and his brothers set the JJ Smith story in motion by setting up business in Liverpool –how very proud they would be … www.jjsmith.co.uk

As the company is positioned today, JJ Smith is in capable hands directed by Rachael Baker and a creative and clear-thinking management team, leading and inspiring a talented and approachable staff, both young and not-soyoung. Hand-in-hand with the group of longstanding and committed supply partners who fully invest their time and expertise to ensure JJ Smith remains competitive in terms of delivering a significant range of well-specified classic- and performance-oriented products to its customers.

JJ Smith is a bright and responsive business which in these challenging times looks to be in rude health and set fair to continue to be an important and valuable resource for the country’s furniture and joinery businesses for many decades to come.

Furniture & Joinery Production were privileged to be part of the JJ Smith celebrations and we would like to offer our congratulations and best wishes to the company.