Specialist greeting card printer Windles and greeting card publisher Woodmansterne Publications (and its print division Croxley Press) revived an ancient tradition last Friday – the Wayzgoose.
As reported on PG Buzz (29 August) in the run-up to the event, in days gone by this traditional festival of eating, drinking and sporting games, was a printer’s ‘jolly’ to mark the transition from printing by candlelight at the start of Autumn, had long fallen from general practice.
Seth Woodmansterne, who heads up Croxley Press division explains that he came across the Wayzgoose tradition while listening to Radio 4’s Museum of Curiosities programme. “As both companies compete in the modern day Print Week awards, I thought it would be fun to bring back this old tradition too!” referring to the fact that Croxley Press and Windles are two of the finalists in the Social Stationery category of the imminent Print Week Awards (alongside Loxleys, The Sherwood Press and Cutture).
Bruce Podmore, owner of Windles and Seth Woodmansterne of Croxley Press, were happy to enter into some friendly rivalry. Windles generously hosted an afternoon of competitive sports, eating, drinking and dancing in a modern interpretation of the Wayzgoose tradition.
The event featured four different sporting competitions with teams from ‘Woody‘/Croxley pitched against teams from Windles. A seven a-side soccer competition (in which PG’s Warren Lomax, guested in goal for Windles); a table tennis competition; a rounders competition (in which PG’s Gale Astley starred for Woodmansterne) and a Strong Man competition. After the four events with the scores tied with two events won each, the Wayzgoose winner was to be decided by a play-off Water Challenge, a plunge into an outdoor pool of freezing water (quite a dare considering the pouring rain!) in which Windles’ Bruce Podmore and members of his team braved the elements with aplomb to scoop victory for Windles.
“It was a fantastic afternoon with the atrocious weather making it all the more memorable and certainly did not dampen the spirits!” said Windles’ Bruce Podmore. Paul Woodmansterne, md of Woodmansterne added his endorsement: “The Wayzgoose was fantastic fun and we would like to really thank Bruce and Windles for organising what we hope will become again an annual tradition,” but he added “There was no way I was jumping in that water!”
Prior to the fun and games, the Mayor of Thame (the nearest town to Windles’ state of the art premises) was present for the official unveiling of a 3D sculpture by public artist Claude Heath which was commissioned by Windles and neighbouring business Groves.
