Lapel Pins, Coins and Medallions

Trading Pins and Embroidered Patches – A Good Match

Baseball and softball teams, now’s the time to “think outside the trading pin.” Embroidered patches are a great way to extend the life of your trading pin! For pennies on a dollar, The Monterey Company can transfer the exact same image from your metal pin to colorful threads on soft material.

These embroidered patches are larger, so your team’s name and mascot are larger—and can easily be applied to jackets, hats, jerseys, and duffle bags.

Just like the “bells and whistles” of trading pins, embroidered patches from The Monterey Company can also include metallic or glow-in-the-dark threads. Just imagine your jacket glowing when the lights go out!

Everything is done with a computer-generated sewing machine, so your team’s pin image will look exactly like your lapel pin image. Just try and tell the difference!

Price breaks start at 50 and go on up to 2,000. They can be good for your team! For example, if you purchased 500 embroidered 2-inch patches, the price break would be less than 55 cents each. Then you could sell them at your team’s concession stands for $2 each—to raise money for your team!

The best part is that your team’s embroidered patch can live on beyond the regular baseball season. Larger sized patches (7 inches or larger) can be applied to backs of jackets and stadium blankets, or even framed to hang on your coach’s wall!

Wanna see some? We’d be glad to send you some samples that show’s off our company’s craftsmanship. Now’s the time to “think outside the trading pin” to embroidered patches!

The peace sign, the Yin-Yang sign and the American flag are some more examples of how popular pins can become awesome samples!

We received our pins yesterday and we are all VERY pleased with the quality and look.  They are really nice.
They are so nice and the price was so great that other Red Cross offices may be getting in touch with you to do business with Monterey Company.

S. House

February: Heart Awareness Month and Lapel Pins to Promote your Cause

Heart Awareness Months comes at the perfect time of year.  In the same month as Valentines day, the emphasis on red hearts gets the support of this holiday and makes spreading the word that much easier, since we are all focusing on matters of the heart anyway.

The American Heart Association takes advantage of the month of February to raise awareness and raise funds for research and education regarding heart health and heart conditions.  They are “committed to fighting heart disease and strokes and so focus on specific causes designed to help people achieve a heart-healthy lifestyle.”  The American Heart Association focuses on educating about and supporting research on the following conditions:  Arrhythmia, Cholesterol, Congenital Heart Defects, Diabetes, Heart Attacks, Heart Failure, High Blood Pressure, Metabolic Syndrome, Obesity, Peripheral Artery Disease, and Stroke.

Each of these conditions have organizations that support it as well as months that they have dedicated to them in the effort to raise awareness.  But for the month of February, the American Heart Association turns the spotlight on the heart and all the ways in which to keep it healthy as well as how to support the research and services that provide assistance to those who have heart conditions.

For the month of February as Valentine day cards are being passed around, its a great time to create lapel pins that promote heart health awareness and pass them out.  Its also a great tool to use as a fundraiser that spreads awareness on the conditions of the heart and what can be done on an individual level as well as a national level regarding these conditions.  Piggy backing the holiday of Valentines day is a great impetus for spreading the word and informing others on the importance of a healthy heart as well as the numerous foundations that can be found through the American Heart Foundation.

Lapel Pins can be made in bulk with a unique design to sell or give away as part of this national campaign.  Go to the website now to see how to go about creating a fundraiser and then come back to The Monterey Lapel Pin Company’s site to begin the process of creating your design now!

The Launching Of Our New Website!

With the new year finally here and after months of brainstorming and work, we finally have our new Monterey Company website up and running!  We are so excited by the new classy look, the colors and the format that allows for our work with you to be showcased in a manner that is better seen.

The site has been streamlined to provide easier navigation and a stronger search feature that drills through the site really well, pulling out images and text related to the search word.  There are also over 500 new images showcasing the exciting work we have been doing for the last year or so, giving a much better feel for the broad creativity possible with our custom work.

In the last half of 2009 we began to come together as a company to envision ways in which to be better, provide even higher quality products and of course, first and foremost, take better care of our customers.  In our efforts we were able to streamline our quote process even more than before and now, using the quote request page on our website will give you faster response time and more attentive follow up.

Customer Service is our number one priority, even within our own company.  “In some way we are all each others customers and we should all be treating each other as such.”  says Andy our shipping and expediting man of mystery.

Its because of this that we created the Community Forum section of our website.  The community forum is a place for customers to ask questions, give feedback and eventually become mentors or achieve ‘Champion’ status on the forum so that they may provide help to other customers new to the Monterey Company family.

“This is also a forum for open customer service.  If a problem arises it will actually get posted there and our customer service representatives can respond to the issue, there on the forum.  In this way our problem solving process will be fully transparent.”, shares Paul.  Transparency is key to the culture of our company.

Paul goes on to say, “We want to create a company culture that recognizes all of our employees and customers not only for the products produced and and purchased, but for the way the people come together to do it.”

We are all a family of sorts; we come together to create quality pieces that promote business, recognition and affiliation.  The community forum will serve as a way for everyone to come together, interact on a regular basis, leaders from both groups to come forth and shine in their ability to aid others that are new to the company, and of course a place to be heard.

Paul goes on to state, “Our success is completely dependent on the people that look for us.”  Its true.  The level of creativity, integrity and dedication to things bigger then the individual is something that is quite characteristic of our customer base.  We believe that only great things can come from bringing all of these amazing people together.

Go to the community forum page now.  Sign up and start the dialogue!  We can’t wait to get to know everyone.

Supporting The Red Cross in Helping Haiti

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at approximately 4:53PM Caribbean Time, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the country of Haiti and decimated the city of Port Au Prince.  The devastation has shaken the world as images and stories coming out of Haiti grip us all.  What’s been amazing is the amount of people that are coming together all over the world to send aid, money, items and whatever else is needed to the people of Haiti.

We, at Monterey, were catching up on the news coming out of Haiti, when on Twitter we read one of @AlyssaMilano’s posts.  Alyssa was asking everyone who could to donate to the Red Cross in order to support them in helping the people of Haiti.  So we did.  With no hesitation. Paul said, “I really like the Twitter community as it seems to really pull together to help others as a group and I really sense the pride with all the Tweeps.”

The reason we didn’t hesitate to donate money to the Red Cross is because the American Red Cross, founded in 1881, is the nations premier emergency response organization.  As part of a world wide movement the Red Cross offers neutral help to victims of war as well as to victims of natural disasters all over the world.  They have always worked tirelessly to bring aid to those who need it and we feel that donations made here will go towards the highest benefit of the Haitian people.  For every dollar sent to the American Red Cross, .92 cents of that dollar goes towards direct aid.  And that’s simply awesome!

As of January 19th there are more then 400 Red Cross members from all over the world in Haiti, assisted by thousands of volunteers.  Workers and volunteers have been working tirelessly since last week to attend to injuries, triage people for surgery to the few medical facilities set up, bringing in medical supplies, tarps, blankets, hygiene items, buckets, shelter supplies and kitchen sets.  There is much to be done and any way that you can help would make a tremendous difference in their efforts.  Visit the Red Cross website today to see what you can do.

Lou,

The pins arrived today.

The pins look great and we are delighted with the order.

Thank you again,
R. Neill

By the way, I think the Monterey Company bags are a nice touch and I will display that prominently as we pass the pins out to the
volunteers.

Challenge Coins: The Continued Tradition

We have shared here about the lore and history surrounding Military Challenge Coins.  As time passes, Challenge Coins are used for more than the traditional military challenge.  Given out for morale, rewards and awards,  today Challenge Coins are given to military and non military personnel alike.

underwater constructionGovernment organizations other then the military branches as well as special interest groups, have Challenge Coins made to commemorate holidays like Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, membership, graduations, accomplishments and many other significant days.  The tradition of giving them out in the military for these reasons increased during the Vietnam War with the Special Forces Units and then spread to others over time.  They didn’t become common however until the Persian Gulf war of 1990-1991.

President Bill Clinton received many military service members’ Challenge Coins as a symbol of respect while in office.  He kept the growing collection on display on the credenza in the Oval Office.  The collection now lives at the Clinton Library.  The tradition has continued as both George Bush and President Barak Obama have also received Challenge Coins by military personnel.

Challenge Coins show affiliation and the tradition has now become part of NASCAR, the NFL, and the World Series Of Poker.  Police and Fire departments across the country are using them as well.  Monterey Company has become the leading maker for Challenge coins, and is known for the superb quality and artistry of the coins made.  We are so proud to be part of this growing tradition.

Its exciting that the tradition is now crossing borders.  Canadian Forces are now giving Challenge Coins to new officer cadets that graduate from the Royal Military College.  What was once known to them as an ‘Americanism’ is now a growing tradition as well.  Other countries, such as Switzerland, are also beginning to pick up the tradition by having different branches of the military create their own coins.

Hi Laura.
First of all I apologize for it taking me so long to get back to you. I want to tell you the pins are great!!
I think you did a great job in getting my concept and producing what I wanted . They turned out better than expected .

Thanks again

J.Hellar

Joann,
It shows that it matters to you.  Please provide a copy of my letter to your supervisor or allow me to send one. In today’s world one does not often find such wonderful customer service.  It was greatly appreciated.
Again, many thanks.

Sue B.
Designer Labradors

Structuring And Philosophy At Monterey Company

Monterey Company’s latest addition, Turkitten, has been settling in well.  In preparation for the upcoming changes at Monterey Company, division of labor has occurred.  Turkitten has decided to be the ‘boss’, and has designated Paloma to handle the micro blogging and play to her great social skills.  Turkitten has also been kind enough to not only oversee the Mascot division’s responsibilities, but also doubling as Rachael Gollub’s seat warmer when she is away from her desk. Such a great cat!

Meanwhile, Paul Stark is learning quite a bit about life through our furry mascots, stating, “The difference between cats and dogs is that if I were 4 inches tall, and told a dog to sit, she would do so.  But if I told the cat to sit, it would look at me for a minute and then proceed to play with me until I was almost dead.”

Now that is a Paul Starkism!