Australian production head of Al Nisr Publishing in Dubai Mike Condon is a keynote speaker at the Single Width Users Group conference in Penrith next month.

Condon - who was previously manager of the Rural Press (now Fairfax Media) print site in Ballarat and a shift supervisor at the Canberra Times - joined the publisher of the Gulf News in 2009, ahead of its installation of a massive four-dryer KBA Cortina waterless newspaper press.

The challenges of changing print site, print process and format overnight were immense, he told GXpress at the time. The culmination of a four-year team effort also saw editorial systems updated, and the new Berliner size meant they could not easily revert to the old broadsheet. Waterless technology is "a whole new way of thinking" but the resulting quality was "well worth it".

Apart from the new press, the mailroom - fully-automated from press to delivery dock - included unfamiliar equipment including a CTI winding system, onserting and polybagging equipment.

Condon's address will be a highlight of the weekend SWUG conference (March 4-6) at Penrith Panthers Event Centre.

Another speaker will provide delegates with tips on a healthy lifestyle.

SWUG president Bob Lockley will play host for a visit to Fairfax Media's award-winning North Richmond print site, and delegates will also tour the Penrith Museum of Printing, of which the Single Width Users Group is a supporter.

Much has changed at North Richmond since SWUG visited in the 1990s when it was owned by Rural Press and housed a single-width Goss Urbanite coldset press and Müller Martini saddlebinder. Two major expansions - most recently a $21 million upgrade to enable it to take on production of the Sydney Morning Herald - have seen the introduction of heatset printing and UV-curing integrated into a long coldset line which includes both single and double width manroland press equipment.

A three-tower Geoman pressline was added and another Geoman tower integrated to run into the existing single-width Uniset pressline. "The combination of running a double-width web into a single-width press at full speed, as well as the options for UV and heatset drying, make this a unique production facility, and one which is sure to be of interest to SWUG delegates," says Lockley, who is Fairfax's chief executive for printing and distribution.

The press features QI Press Controls' for closed-loop colour, registration and cut-off control, and other technology at the site includes Fujifilm CTP, Ferag inserting and mailroom equipment, a log-fed Müller Martini binding line and Segbert auto palletising equipment.

In addition to the Saturday night site visit, the 2016 conference will include a Friday night welcoming reception - starting at 6.30pm at Panthers and hosted by Fujifilm Australia - and Gala Night on Sunday, at which SWUG awards will be presented. Winner of SWUG's $20,000 scholarship, and also the apprentice of the year, will be announced.

On a visit to the Penrith Museum of Printing, delegates will see a working collection of historic printing machinery which is maintained by volunteers who preserve and teach the art of letterpress printing.

Registration details are on the SWUG website, www.swug.com.au with updates on Facebook. For more information, contact Bob Lockley at Fairfax Media on (02) 4570 4444 or email swugconference@gmail.com.

Pictured: Out of the sand: the Gulf News plant in Dubai as pictured in our print edition of August 2012, the same one in which ironically, we predicted - in an article headlined 'The little engines that might' - how Fairfax could print its metro dailies without the Chullora and Tullamarine print sites