Nan's Voyage to Edinburgh: 2 - 4 November 2013

When Steve got my email asking to join the November 2013 Edinburgh meet-up, he wasn't expecting to hear from anyone from across the pond, let alone the fellow blogger he'd never met. And it's true, I'd given Steve no advance notice that I was considering a visit to the U.K.

But I've been seeing the photos of the various meet-ups in London and Edinburgh and thought, "I want to be there! I want to meet those people, my kindred spirits. I want to see Filofaxes displayed in beautiful, historic British shops—their natural element, after all.

"And why not? It's only a plane ride away. At 6 hours, no longer than a routine flight from Boston to San Francisco. And it's really ridiculous I've worked with Steve this long and never met him in person."

So as soon as the announcement went up, I decided it was time to take the plunge. I spent the weekend researching flights and hotels, sorting out the budget, and figuring out a way to explain the whole thing to my husband without letting him think I was crazy (a fact I've managed to hide from him for over 20 years now).

Once Steve got over his initial shock, he buckled right down and helped me finalize my plans. He kindly found a flight that we could both take from Heathrow (he was already in England) to Edinburgh, so he could help me find the hotel without getting lost. Steve did a really good job laying out our full schedule in his post, so I'll mainly focus on my own impressions and photos.

I had no trouble recognizing Steve in the airport, having seen his picture many times. But photos, email, and even Skype can't transmit a person's kindness, energetic stride, or infectious laugh, which I heard for the first time when I mountain-climbed my way onto the high stool at Prêt-a-Manger for a sandwich before our flight. I already felt like a real Brit! (Note to America: We need more places like this offering quick and healthy food.)

Being members of the Facebook group Filo Dieters United, Steve and I were on the lookout for healthy options, and walked most everywhere. And Edinburgh is hilly. In some cases, you need to climb stone stairways to get from one street to the next! (I took a picture of one of the staircases, but my computer ate it, along with all of my pictures from the Letts Filofax tour—luckily Steve got plenty of good ones with his Digital SLR.)

Steve and I got to our hotel late Friday night, and Saturday morning enjoyed a nice walk to the Fruitmarket Café to meet Natalie and Maria. It was one of the smallest meet-up groups ever, but we still talked for hours. The small group gave us plenty of time to talk about our organizers and systems in great detail. The café reminded me a lot of Le Pain Quotidien, where we usually have our New York meet-ups. Lots of salads, sandwiches, and light dishes that let you save room for the creations of the excellent pastry chef.

Then Maria took Steve and I shopping and I mean shopping. She knows all the shops and stores: the historic Jenners department store with its excellent selection of Filofax organizers, inserts, and pens; Ryman, an office-supply store where I was able to get some A5 items that are hard to come by in the U.S.; Paperchase and Tiger, both of which had lots of cool gift items as well as stationery; and a fancy pen shop where I got to touch some gorgeous Filofax iPad holders and other items I'd never seen in real life before. Before retreating to the hotel, Steve took me to the Marks & Spencer food hall, where we grabbed some healthy sandwiches and fruit. (Brilliant idea, Steve!)

On Sunday, Maria met up with Steve and I again and played the role of tour guide in her home town. We bought tickets to a double-decker tour bus that stopped at major points of interest and let passengers hop on and off. We saw Edinburgh Castle (from the outside), the Scottish Parliament Building (from the inside), St. Giles' Cathedral and its amazing architecture and stained glass, and even stalked around Holyrood Place, the Queen's residence. (Her Majesty didn't invite us in for tea.)

Lunch on Sunday was a highlight. Maria again knew the best place to go—an Italian caffé across the street from the Elephant House, where J. K. Rowling first sat down with a cup of coffee to write about Harry Potter. I had homemade pasta that tasted just like my grandmother used to make in her little kitchen!

Steve and I talked a bit about how meeting fellow Filofax fans often feels like meeting long-lost friends, and it really is true. On the top deck of the tour bus in the brisk air, the three of us shared laughs at the driver's funny anecdotes and some silliness of our own.

We were tired at the end of the day and made another quick trip to M&S for the evening's supplies. I confess, I (again!) had trouble waking up for breakfast the final morning, but I did manage one last walk up the hill with Steve to Waverley Station, where we met Laurie (another first for me!) and Margaret, who kindly did the driving to Dalkeith in her cool sky-blue Peugeot wagon. Being in the back seat gave Laurie and me a chance to talk (and me a chance to see one of her own Going Places planners up close).

Steve and Laurie both did such a great job covering the Letts Filofax factory tour, there's really nothing I can add. Our hosts were very kind, although maybe a bit bemused by our enthusiasm for their products and the directness of our questions. They showed us everything from editorial (where the planners are filled with the appropriate information, holidays, etc.) to shipping!

And now, the pictures:

Steve showing Natalie the diary pages he printed for his super-soft leather organizer (with 30mm rings!)

Maria's magnificent A5 in side view

Maria showing Natalie her work A5

A view from Edinburgh Castle

St Giles' Cathedral

A close-up view of the castle entrance

Visit to Letts Filofax Dalkeith - 4 November 2013

On the Monday morning of our non-stop weekend we had been invited to visit the Letts Filofax factory and offices at Dalkeith, which is about a 25 minutes drive south east of Edinburgh city centre.

Nan and I made our way to the rendezvous point outside Waverley station where we met Laurie. This was another first, Nan and Laurie had never met before either. Margaret (Rennie) picked us up in her car and felt a little nervous of driving three quarters of the Philofaxy team to Dalkeith, but she need not have worried! Natalie and Margaret Ann had made their own way to the factory and were all ready there.

We were given a very warm welcome at Dalkeith by Lorraine and shown to a small meeting room. We removed out coats and made ourselves comfortable and helped ourselves to drinks and chocolate biscuits.

We were joined by Gordon Presly, the Group Chief Executive of Letts Filofax Group Limited, there were hand shakes and introductions all around.

Gordon by way of an introduction gave us a very brief overview of the company as it stands today and how it got there. The Dalkeith factory was built for Letts back in 1962 and sits on a 21 acre site, the buildings have been expanded in recent years. They employ about 280 full time staff with another 50 temps currently on contract to help out as well.

Nearly all the employees are local from around the area and the company have an excellent retention of staff with a high average of length of service, a small number of staff have been with the company for 40-45 years. The work is quite specialist within the printing field and book binding. The factory produces Letts diaries as well as some of the Filofax inserts on site. They have some rather specialist equipment for page edge gilding.

The warehouse handles all the distribution of Filofax products for all the worldwide sub-groups. All of the UK website orders are now processed from this location too.

Gordon became the managing director of Filofax back in 1998 and he told us about the various changes in the company in the time he has been in charge. He also outlined the recent changes of ownership and backing partners. 

After about an hour of discussion which included a few questions which Gordon expertly fielded, he introduced us to one of the production managers, Scott, who took us on a tour of the factory.

I'm not a printing expert, well certainly not on the scale that is carried out here! But we started at a point which we could assimilate too... the gathering of the data to be included in any of the products created, so dates of events, holiday dates throughout the world.

You just need to look at any Filofax Letts diary and there's a lot of information contained within it that does change or has the potential to change each year. All of that information has to be gathered and collated and confirmed before it goes in to print each year.

We then visited the various stages of the processes from printing, to cutting pages to size, binding and finishing, inserting the pages in to covers in the case of Letts diaries, or punching the pages in the case of Filofax products. Once the products have been finished and inspected as they come off the end of the production line they are boxed or assembled on to pallets for onward shipment via the warehouse.

Like any factory it is a busy and in some parts quite noisy, but the engineer in me loved seeing how the various machines functioned and performed some familiar tasks, but just on a much bigger scale to what I can do at home!

Here are some pictures of the various parts of the factory tour.

Creation of the aluminium printing plates. The plate is etched with the design

One of the four colour printing machines which prints on to A0 paper

An electric paper guillotine, this was cutting through a ream of paper at a time, with no effort!

A Filofax paper punch, but called a drill in this case, it uses hollow punch dies to punch through 400 sheets at a time

Here's one we made earlier!

These pages had been edge gilded with silver leaf

Here the two members of staff were assembling leather diary covers

Laurie checking out various planners!

The Quality Control office, Filofax organisers and diaries are checked here by choosing a sample to check for dimensions and quality against the reference drawings.

The expanded warehouse houses and handles a huge amount of stock

Looking in the other direction

I should have asked how they find things in here... it's here somewhere!

Some very early examples of Letts and Filofax products

L-R Laurie, Margaret, Gordon, Steve, Nan

After our factory tour had finished we once again saw Gordon Presly who was happy to sit with us and answer a further round of questions. The atmosphere was bubbling,  we were all buzzing I think from seeing all the various things in the factory.

It was a very enjoyable morning, I certainly came away with a much better understanding about how the company works and how the Burgess Hill part of the company in Sussex works in conjunction with the Dalkeith part of the business.

I'm very grateful to Gordon Presly for the invite to meet him and for arranging the factory tour. I would also like to thank Gordon and his staff for being very patient answering all our questions and explaining all the processes to us.

It was also lovely to be able to share this experience with two of my Philofaxy colleagues too, as well as some of our readers.

Philofaxy Meet Up - Edinburgh - 2nd/4th November 2013

As part of my discussions with Filofax this year, we have managed to arrange an exclusive afternoon visit to their factory and distribution centre at Dalkeith near Edinburgh for Philofaxy readers. Also present will be members of the Letts - Filofax management team, so you will be able to put faces to names and chat about our common love of Filofax products. They are looking forward to meeting more of you too!

This exclusive visit will take place on the afternoon of Monday 4th November, I also intend to have a meet up and lunch on Saturday 2 November as well, for details see further down this post.

So this is a 'calling notice' for people who would like to attend the either of Philofaxy Meet Ups in Edinburgh or both!.

Please read all of the post before you apply for a place on the meet ups. Places are limited in numbers.

When and Where
Edinburgh 2 November 2013

The following day we will meet initially at 11am at the Fruitmarket Cafe in Market Street in Edinburgh. Details of the venue are on their website and the menu is here too.


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During the meal there will be plenty of time for chatting and sharing Filofax organisers... afterwards we will no doubt take a look at some of the key shops in Edinburgh.

Our meet up will finish at about 5:30pm

How to book a place on the meet up

To get a place on the meet up you need to email: steve[at]philofaxy[dot]com and mark your email Edinburgh Meetup but not before 8am (UK time) Monday 23rd September 2013. Please only request a place if you are certain that you will be able to attend on the 2nd November.

Once all places are assigned additional names will be added to a reserve list, in case anyone has to drop out of the meet up.

As places are allocated you will receive an email back again confirming your place on the meet up.

Please do not book travel tickets etc until you have a confirmed place. I will attempt to confirm places within 2-3 hours of receiving your email.

Letts - Filofax Dalkeith 4th November 2013

The date of the meet up is Monday 4th November and we will meet initially at 10:30am at Letts Filofax in Dalkeith.

How to book a place on the meet up

To get a place on the meet up you need to email: steve[at]philofaxy[dot]com and mark your email Dalkeith Meetup but not before 8am (UK time) Monday 23rd September 2013. Please only request a place if you are 99% certain that you will be able to attend on the 1st

As places are allocated you will receive an email back again confirming your place on the meet up.

Please do not book travel tickets etc until you have a confirmed place. I will attempt to confirm places within 2-3 hours of receiving your email.



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Additional Information

Once we have our full list of people, we will exchange email addresses etc.

Your safety on the day and your enjoyment on the day is of paramount importance to me, so don't be afraid to ask any questions by email, I want everyone who attends to get the most from the day.

Thank you... any questions?