A letter from John Cash

3rd December 2007

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Exhibitors,

After 38 years of working in Central and East Europe, I have reached retirement age and have decided to reduce my business activities from  1st January 2008.

My first visit to Eastern Europe was in May 1969, when as a young man I was sent to Budapest by my employers at the time, to set up their exhibition stand at the Budapest Trade Fair.

From this time onwards I continued to travel extensively in the area engaged in the exhibition industry. I visited such places as Plovdiv and Novosibirsk and made my first visit to Poland in June 1970. Little did I know at the time that my involvement with this country would later in my career occupy the majority of the time I was to spend in Central and Eastern Europe.

In 1982, the Poznan International Fair Ltd (PIF) made the decision to appoint sales agents in some West European countries, the UK being one of them. After the political turmoil in Poland during the beginning of the 1980’s, the size of the British Group at the Poznan International Fair (held every June) had  reduced from 120 companies taking gross exhibition space of 5000m2 to nine companies taking 81m2. Other countries followed suit and the exhibition was only a fraction of its normal size.

I was approached by these nine British companies that had strong trading connections with Poland to organise their participation as they wished to continue to exhibit through this difficult period in Poland’s history.

With a number of obstacles overcome, we had an unofficial ‘British Pavilion’ (the British Ambassador had been recalled to London in protest of the political situation at the time, so the DTI could not approve any official participation). The PIF appreciated the effort made and I was asked to become the UK agent for the Fair.

In August 1997 I expanded JC Exhibitions and formed JC Exhibitions Inc. The new company became the PIF’s exclusive sales agent in the USA and Canada.
This gave me the opportunity to bring official US and Canadian government groups to Poznan events to compliment those already coming from the UK.

Now after 25 years of co-operation, with their reluctant agreement,  I have decided to reduce my activities with the PIF. Our US office has been closed and JC Exhibitions Ltd will represent the PIF only for the Farma exhibition, which takes place bi-annually.

I would like to thank all the thousands of exhibitors, many of whom have become friends, along with the exhibition support organisations such as exhibition freight companies for their assistance and friendship over the years. I would also like to thank my ‘right-hand man’ for  many years Leszek Grygier. Leszek has been invaluable to me and has travelled all over Central and Eastern Europe on behalf of JC Exhibitions Ltd. I am pleased to say he has now taken up a new position in the safety shoe industry on behalf of a British company. Last but not least I would like to say thank you to the numerous personnel at the PIF that I have had the pleasure of working with over the last 25 years. It is because of this special relationship I have with the Polish people that I feel I cannot cut my ties completely.

John Cash

Managing Director
JC Exhibitions Ltd

Presentation to celebrate 25 years of co-operation

Caption (left to right): Grzegorz Turkiewicz (Vice President, PIF), John Cash, Przemyslaw Trawa (President, PIF), Jadwiga Chlapowska (Project Manager, PIF), Jerzy Kaczmarek (Contracts Manager, PIF) at the presentation to John Cash to celebrate 25 years of co-operation between JC Exhibitions Ltd and the Poznan International Fair.

Please see ‘PIF Contacts’ for information regarding other events in Poznan.