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About us & FAQs

Charbel Blinds is a small, independent family business owned and managed by John Pritchard and Alexandra Gregory. We first opened our doors in June 2018 and since then we have covered thousands of windows, doors and roofs within Ross-on-Wye, Monmouth and the surrounding areas.  

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Who we are

John is a former professional jockey who had rides at all the local racecourses including Hereford, Worcester, Cheltenham and Chepstow. He retired from race riding in 2007 and has been working in the window blind industry ever since.

 

John also works part time for educational charity Racing to School and, in November 2018, John was featured on ITV Racing as the runner up in the prestigious J.E.T.S Richard Davis Awards for former jockeys who have gone on to have a successful second career.  You can see him here (far left of shot) receiving his award from Champion Jockey Richard Johnson at Cheltenham Racecourse's November Meeting.

 

John has two children, Charlie & Isabel, after whom the business is named. 

Alex is originally from Chester and previously held senior positions with online giants moneysupermarket.com and gocompare.com, before launching a successful User Experience consultancy business. Now co-owner/manager here at Charbel, Alex is mum to two boys and has lived in Ross since 2012. 

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Our business model

Our business model has never been about selling blinds at the cheapest price possible, instead we focus on providing customers with value for money, and that means quality products at affordable prices coupled with a personal end-to-end service including guaranteed aftercare. We do not compromise on the quality of blind components even though buying cheaper components would increase our margins, instead we buy durable components that stand the test of time.  

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Responsibility

We all have social responsibilities and our business is no exception. 

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  • The materials we use to manufacture blinds, along with the products we're not able to manufacture ourselves, are all sourced within the UK from companies who all have their own environmental policies and charters.

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  • We recycle all our aluminium tube and head rail off cuts. We donate our fabric off cuts and redundant fabric books to local charities and community groups who use them for craft-based activities.

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  • We recycle all our cardboard packaging and use local charity EnviroAbility as our preferred recycling partner.

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  • We are investigating ways to reduce our consumption of single use plastics, mainly polythene tubing, but in the meantime we re-use and recycle as much plastic packaging as we can.​

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  • Unlike other  retailers we are able to recover existing (fully functioning) roller blind components with new fabric rather than simply selling a new blind. This is win win - the customer pays less and waste is reduced. We can also replace vertical slats if the head rail is in full working order, and we are able to repair vertical head rails if they are based on the same system as the head rails we sell. 

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  • We like to do our bit for good causes. We have recently given valuable financial support to The Royal Welsh Regiment, donated vouchers to local primary school fundraisers, paid for a special needs child and their carer to attend a circus performance with the Circus Stars charity, and we donated a prize to a fundraising event for local charity Rocky Lee's Little Feet.

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