The product section of the CFJ/CFA Awards has now opened for voting and will close on Friday 29 April. This includes nominations for manufacturer and distributor of the year, as well as for our outstanding achievement award.

The awards will once again be held at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire, on Friday 9 September.

In order to vote for your favourite company in each category, visit the Survey Monkey at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TYPFZZY and follow the instructions.

The categories this year are:

• Manufacturer of the year
• Distributor of the year
• Adhesive manufacturer/supplier of the year
• Smoothing underlayment manufacturer/supplier of the year
• Underlay manufacturer/supplier of the year
• Finishes manufacturer/supplier of the year
• Tools manufacturer/supplier of the year
• Profiles & trims manufacturer/supplier of the year
• Outstanding contribution of the year

When voting for an individual who has given an outstanding contribution, you’ll have to provide a full name, company, and reasons for nomination. (Note: The person can be from your company or another company).

Meanwhile, entries for the installation awards will close on Thursday 31 March. The categories this year include:

• Flooring in bars & restaurants
• Flooring in community venues & community spaces
• Flooring in education – schools
• Flooring in education – colleges & universities
• Flooring in healthcare
• Flooring in hotels
• Flooring in industrial spaces
• Flooring in international venues
• Flooring in offices
• Flooring in public spaces
• Flooring in residential developments & social housing
• Flooring in retail
• Flooring in sports & leisure
• Flooring in visitor attractions

Once the finalists have been selected they’ll be put in front of an independent panel of judges which includes new judge, Graeme Dewar, director at GD Surveyors.

GDS is a company of building surveyors and property consultants based in the southeast and London, with specialisms in the social housing and insurance sectors. Graeme has joined our existing panel of Fiona Bowman, senior FM consultant; John Butler, founder of John Butler Contracts; and Richard Renouf, independent flooring consultant.

John, who entered flooring as a carpet-fitter in 1963 and who was trained by Keith Shenton, today the oldest active floorlayer in the UK, formed his first company, Butler & Machin, in 1967. Later, he formed Contract Floor Installations which ran until 1995. Today, he runs John Butler Contracts, which specialises in several areas of flooring including retail areas in airports.

Richard is an independent consultant I’m a consultant member of the CFA, a member of the UK Register of Expert Witnesses and a provisional member of the Expert Witness Institute. He’s also worked as an independent expert witness for furnishings complaints for more than 27 years, writing reports and giving evidence in court claims. He’s also a community first responder, attending 999 calls to save lives in his community – so he knows how to deal with matters of life and death.

As a facilities management consultant with over 25 years’ experience in the property and FM world, Fiona has extensive client-side contract flooring experience both of fit-out, refurbishment and construction projects with large corporates, financial institutions, insurance sector, education sector, healthcare sector, local authorities, and charities. Understanding the complexities and pressures encountered by flooring contractors and manufacturers, delivering within tight timescales with sometimes difficult access issues into complex workspaces, has given her an excellent background to judge the CFA/CFJ Awards for the past four years.

She continues to operate as an FM consultant nationally and is also a non-exec director of a housing association in the northeast. She’s an author and an internationally recognised speaker and campaigner against domestic abuse, regularly invited to speak at high profile conferences, in parliament and in the media about the importance of employers in the lives of employees who may be victims and survivors of domestic abuse. She is an ambassador for Alpha Vesta CIC and EIDA. Twitter: Fiona_Bowman LinkedIN: Fiona Bowman MBA

Last year, 340 guests attended the awards, and the event was the biggest yet held by CFJ and the Contract Flooring Association (CFA). Several awards were given out in three different sections: products, installations, and special achievements.

Notable wins included those by MacGregor Flooring and Polyflor for the Louisa Jordan SEC Glasgow installation (Installation of the Year); Jack Gray of Veitchi Flooring as Apprentice of the Year (AOTY); Peter Kelsey, chief executive of Designer Contracts, for Outstanding Achievement; and Polyflor for Manufacturer of the Year.

Carpet & Flooring came out tops in Distributor of the Year while Interface claimed the Sustainability Initiative award, one of three for the manufacturer.

The overall installation of the year winner saw the laying of 10,500sq m of looselay vinyl into the existing SEC to provide NHS Scotland with acute Covid-19 capacity. Fortunately, the facility was never used for coronavirus patients and is now being used as a major vaccination hub. A team of 14 floorlayers onsite every day, helped complete the equivalent of three months’ work in five days. The fact Polyflor had the volume of material in stock ready to send to Glasgow within four days of first contacting them is testament to the British manufacturer.

After the success of the 2021 awards, John Heath, chief executive of Kick-Start Publishing, which publishes CFJ, said: ‘The success of the awards, and the sheer joy expressed by so many of the guests at seeing their friends in the industry again, has exceeded our wildest expectations. Of course, we were cognisant of the fact that the pandemic isn’t quite over yet, and that that might deter people from coming. But, in the final analysis, it all went okay on the day. We couldn’t be happier.’

Stuart Bourne, managing director of Kick-Start Publishing and CFJ, echoed those sentiments. ‘This is just the start. Now we know there’s an appetite for an annual celebration of this nature, we’ll be pulling out all the stops to ensure we make this event bigger and better every year from now on.’

Nationally acclaimed comedian, Jo Caulfield, has been announced as the headline speaker at the CFJ/CFA Awards to be held at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire, on Friday 9 September.

Jo, born in Wales to Irish parents, grew up in England and recently moved to live in Scotland. She is a comedian, writer, and actress. 

She grew up as an Air Force child moving as and when the family was posted from one RAF camp to another. ‘Nowhere glamorous, mostly Norfolk’.

Jo had unconventional career path. At 17 she moved to London and played drums in several rockabilly bands all of which were ‘going nowhere fast’. Jo fell in love with stand up comedy at her very first gig. She saved her tips from waitressing and opened her own comedy club in order to work on her comedy, learn her craft.

As well as being a comedian Jo also worked for many years as a writer for Graham Norton, who said of her ‘I never knew I could like a woman so much.’

Jo has written and starred in several series of her own comedy shows on Radio 4 Including ‘It’s That JO Caulfield Again’, ‘Jo Caulfield Won’t Shut Up’ and ‘Jo Caulfield’s Speakeasy’. 

Jo has amassed several awards during her career. In 2010, she was nominated as ‘Funniest Woman 2010’ (LAFTA Awards) and has previously been up for ‘Best Female Comedian 2002’ (Chortle Awards), ‘Best Compere 2004’ (Chortle Awards) and one of ‘The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups’ (Channel 4).

In 2021 she received the Comics Comic Award voted on by comedians and the comedy industry.

A familiar face in UK as well as international comedy clubs, she’s completed several nationwide tours, and has also supported Graham Norton and Rory Bremner. Her Edinburgh Festival Shows regularly sell out as she is a favourite with Festival audiences.

Jo is also in great demand as an awards host and after dinner speaker at corporate events. 

Her TV appearances include Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, The Stand-up Show, The Comedy Store, The World Stands Up, Have I Got News for You, Argumental, The Politics Show, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, The John Bishop Show, The Royal Variety Performance 2020, Celebrity Mastermind, and Richard Osman’s House of Games.