SATRA welcomes Church’s apprentices

New staff members from Church's beginning their shoemaking careers visited SATRA to discover more about footwear testing.

SATRA’s Sunny Hirani and Nicola Pichel-Juan were recently invited to visit UK footwear producer Church’s newly-refurbishment factory. Following this visit, the shoemaker’s archive and training manager Simon Hill arranged for a cohort of the company’s apprentices to tour SATRA’s head office and laboratories in Kettering. This year, Church’s is hosting two cohorts of apprentices, as Italian luxury fashion house PRADA – which bought the company in 1999 – has been described as ‘keen to get new recruits through the door’.

On the morning of the visit to SATRA, Sunny and Nicola presented an introduction to SATRA’s history and the organisation’s operations. Simon Hill described how Church’s played an integral part in SATRA’s formation in 1919. The apprentices were also shown an example of the boot created by SATRA for the team which first reached the peak of Mount Everest in 1953.

Laboratory tours

The visitors then moved into SATRA’s chemistry department, where Lucy Cove outlined details of the chemistry testing undertaken by SATRA for the footwear industry. After this, they were shown around the chemistry laboratory.

The apprentices then visited SATRA’s furniture testing department as an example of the other activities the organisation is involved in. Head of furniture testing, Johnny Worthington, discussed and demonstrated some of the machine tests carried out on furniture and mattresses. The party was also shown the climate chambers which can be used to replicate different climate conditions.

Finally, the group was shown around the SATRA footwear testing laboratory by senior technologist Mark Southam, who described some of the 400 tests carried out in the facility.

Feedback from the apprentices was very positive, as they were impressed with the tests and services which SATRA provides. Some of the comments described how it was an engaging and purposeful visit, and even that SATRA is ‘a bit like Willy Wonka’s factory’, as there are lots of weird and wonderful things done there!

The photograph at the top of this page shows the group of new Church's personnel being welcomed to the SATRA footwear testing laboratory by senior technologist Mark Southam.

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 4 of the May 2025 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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