We are pleased to report another year of dispatching all group tour orders on time! The last few orders were dispatched on Thursday in time for groups attending SportsParty, even those placed as recently as Monday!

Have a great time everyone, feel free to send us some pictures of you in your tour stash!

… and the office is very quiet because we’re all on the shop floor printing, embroidering, packing and generally getting tour orders ready for clubs going to SportsParty and beyond…

This is one of our busiest weeks of the year - if you have a last minute order please call and we’ll try to squeeze you in.

In summer 2006 we were approached by a young chap called James Clegg, who wanted to start an appeal for Cancer Research which involved getting celebrities to wear sponsored hooded tops. We agreed to supply him with some hoodies to get things started. Early in 2007 we received some pictures of the Soccer AM wearing the very same tops.

James continued to work hard throughout 2007 and came up with the idea of producing hooded tops for people to buy to support the campaign, with a donation to charity for each one sold. We created a special online shop for Operation Hoodie which allowed this to happen, and the hoodies are currently being made in our factory alongside all our usual Uni Kit orders.

It’s fair to say that we’ve been amazed at how many people are ordering hooded tops - James started an Operation Hoodie facebook group which recently hit 3000 members (1000 added in the last week) - and we are having to work pretty hard to keep up with the orders. Already they have raised over £1000 for Cancer Research and the orders keep coming in.

For more - see www.operationhoodie.co.uk

There may be an extra day in February but with Easter so early this year, it is nearly tour time for lots of clubs out there. We’ve had a steady stream of tour shirt orders (including people going to SportsParty). If you are touring, please please please get your orders in as soon as possible so we can book your job into our embroidery and printing workloads.

Even if all the details aren’t sorted yet, but you are planning to place an order - just drop us a line.

If you head down to Beans in Chester this evening, you can take part in their attempt to create the world’s largest crowd of smurfs.

Amazingly, there have been a number of attempts at this record, as recently as the end of January when a Croatian effort failed to do their research. It seems that Warwick University are the record holders with 451, although the University of Bath claimed to have beaten this back in October.

The organisers in Chester ordered 1000 screen printed royal blue T-shirts from us at Uni Kit, so if they all get given out they should be on their way into the record books!

[UPDATE: They did it!]

We are suffering with the effects of the norovirus here at Uni Kit, and as a result the factory has been closed today, and we have only one person in the office.

Please bear with us for the next 24 hours or so as we try to keep on top of emails. We are not expecting this to effect any order deadlines currently in place.

If you can’t get through on the phone, then call Will on 07980 94 29 27.

After a well-needed break, we are back in the office and working through the emails, messages, and orders placed over the past few weeks.

Inevitably we are usually a little quieter in January than the rest of the year, so if you have got an embroidery or printing job, give us a shout - we can usually offer ‘incentives’ to get that order in as quickly as possible!

To all our customers, suppliers, friends, and generally anybody connected to us here at Uni Kit - Happy Christmas!

Those of you who beat our Christmas order deadlines (and a lucky few who didn’t quite make it) - your orders have been dispatched.

We re-open for business on Monday 7th January 2008.

Have a great break everybody.

Important Ordering Info

If you want your order delivered to your University, then the deadline to order is fast approaching.

Leeds University: Last delivery to LUU is on 7th December. Orders placed by 28th November will be included in this delivery.

Marjon: Last delivery to Marjon is on 14th December. Orders placed by 3rd December will be included in this delivery.

UWE: Last delivery to UWESU is on 19th December. Orders placed by 7th December will be included in this delivery.

All other online orders: Our last dispatches will be on Thursday 20th December. We ask that you place orders by 10th December to guarantee delivery for Christmas. We may review this deadline depending on the level of orders being received.

Bulk Orders: Speak to us at the time of ordering - let us know where you need your kit delivered to and by when and we will advise.

As always, contact us if you need advice. Last minute orders are often still possible.

We had our first SportsParty merchandise enquiry for the 2008 event - we kitted out plenty of attendees earlier this year, as well as the staff.

If you’re looking for somewhere to go on tour, have a look at the SportsParty website - and give us a shout to sort out some tour shirts.

Those of you planning on attending SportsParty, the earlier you call us about your merchandise, the better! As usual we will be offering discounts for orders placed in January.