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Taking water from the air

Specialised Management Services Ltd (SMS), a leading service provider and manufacturer of hydraulic, pneumatic and electrical control systems, will be exhibiting at the Southern North Sea Conference: “SNS 2014: The Sea of Opportunity” at the Royal Norfolk Showground in March.

SMS will showcase their range of products and services to local and prospective customers and demonstrate their full project and multi-disciplined engineering capabilities which have seen their team successfully secure a number of orders in the region. Projects have included the delivery of Hydraulic Power Units (HPUs), Installation and Workover Control Systems (IWOCs), Chemical Injection Units (CIUs), Testing and Flushing Hydraulic Power Units (TFHPUs) and Topside Umbilical Termination Units (TUTUs).

In addition to the SMS manufacturing division, their Offshore and Site services has seen an extraordinary flow of enquiries and requirement for labour. They offer a blend of fully trained, highly skilled and experienced technicians to provide comprehensive and cost effective operations to their local and international clients.

Gary Morrow, Sales Manager, comments, “SMS have been providing services to the Southern North Sea sector for more than 15 years. Through our experience of local standards and technical knowledge we deliver excellence throughout our projects and have acquired a local reputation for being a high quality service provider.”

For more information on SMS and the products and services they have delivered you can visit them at stand B11 at the SNS2014 event, Norwich from 5th-6thMarch 2014.

In attendance will be Gary Morrow (Sales Manager), Phil Turner (Sales Manager) and Emily Phillips (Sales and Marketing Coordinator).

To book a meeting with us please contact Emily on bookings@smsgrp.com

Veolia Environmental Trust offers grants of between £10,000 and £75,000 for capital improvement projects at a single site with discrete start and end dates. Match funding of at least 10% is required. Successful applicants will need to pay 10% of the awarded amount to the landfill operator from a third party contributor.

Projects should fall under one of the following categories:

• Community buildings and rooms, including community centres, village halls, community spaces within religious buildings, and Scout or Girl Guiding buildings.
• Outdoor Spaces, including public parks, nature reserves, community gardens, footpaths, bridleways and cycle-paths.
• Play and recreation, including play areas, skateparks, Multi Use Games Areas, sports grounds, pavilions and changing rooms.
• Biodiversity projects – applications from registered Environmental Bodies with projects that meet ENTRUST requirements

To be eligible, projects must:

• Be open to the wider general public for at least 104 days a year without any limit or unreasonable restrictions of use.
• Have a total cost of under £250,000, including VAT and professional costs.
• Have already secured at least 10% of the total cost.
• Have secured all permissions (eg, planning).
• Be completed within 12 months.

Constituted not-for-profit organisations can apply as long as their project is located within five miles of a Veolia Environmental Services facility. This could be a landfill site, Energy Recovery Facility or Materials Recycling Facility.

There is no deadline for starting the process of applying for a grant; however, each funding application phase for both Stage 1 and Stage 2 is made available quarterly following the end of the previous phase.

There are four funding rounds each year.

The next phase for Stage 1 applications is 1 March 2019 and 30 May 2019 for projects taking place between 18 September 2019 and 6 January 2020.

More information can be found by following the link:

Veolia Environmental Trust

Flagship Group has today (Friday 8 March) launched a ‘Women in Leadership’ Mentoring Programme, in partnership with City College Norwich, to support women to be the best they can be in the workplace.

A number of female leaders from across the Group will be trained as Mentors to inspire and support females from across the group to reach their full potential.

The aim of the programme is to:

• To share experience and support personal and professional development
• Enable individuals to be the best they can be
• Support females to develop skills to support career progression
• Support Flagship’s model of working, its approach to continuous improvement

Over the coming months, City College Norwich will deliver bespoke training to the Flagship Mentors which will include:

• Principles of Mentoring
• Benefits of Mentoring to Flagship Group
• Tools & Techniques
• Retaining and advancing women in business
• Unlocking the full potential in women

Director of People and Places at Flagship, Lisa Collen, said: “We are really excited to be launching a formal mentoring programme. We have lots of talented women across the business and we hope this will help them get to the top of their career.

“The programme is another way we are investing in our staff by sharing best practice internally as well as externally through events such as industry sector conferences.”

Once Mentors have undertaken their training, mentoring sessions with the Mentees will take place. *RFT Services Field Manager Linda Worden has been identified as a Mentee due to her potential and ambition to progress. Linda said: “I joined RFT as a painter and decorator and was recently promoted, so I now support a Trade team where we provide kitchen and bathroom upgrades in our customers’ homes.

“It’s fantastic that there continues to be opportunities to progress as Flagship are always looking at ways to support their staff. I’m really looking forward to the new programme and hope that I can gain lots of new skills to help my career and also then go on to inspire other women who are thinking about working in trade.”

Course Leader in the Teacher Development Unit at City College Norwich, Denise Troughton said: “Mentoring is a great way for organisations to support staff to realise their full potential. We are excited to be providing this bespoke training for Flagship and look forward to working with the new mentors to make a real difference within the Group.”

Flagship Group’s Chief Executive and six members of the housing provider’s senior management team have been back to the classroom this week in support of National Apprenticeships Week (4-8 March).

The senior members of staff have each spent a day learning as they shadowed apprentices across the business in roles from kitchen fitters to finance.

Flagship are helping to celebrate the success of apprenticeships while at the same time encouraging even more people to choose them as a pathway to a great career. Since launching its Apprenticeship Programme in 2014, the housing association has recruited 44 apprentices with 28 people currently undertaking courses.

Yesterday (Wednesday 6 March), Chief Executive David McQuade spent time in Dereham with *RFT Services Electrician Max Smy to experience what it is like to be an apprentice at Flagship.

David said: “It’s been great to have the opportunity to learn from those undertaking an apprenticeship with us. It’s been insightful to see first hand what a typical day involves for one of our trade apprentices, and I’ve learnt a lot.

“Our Apprenticeships Programme offers a real prospect of permanent employment at the end which is why it’s so important that we invest in our potential future workforce.”

Max Smy said: “It’s been great to meet David, for him to come out on site and see what my role entails.

“My apprenticeship came about after I completed a BTEC in construction. It gave me an insight into electrics and that inspired me to undertake my apprenticeship. The course is great as I’m provided with all the tools and equipment I need and learning lots of new skills.”

Other members of the management team who took part in the ‘back to the tools’ experience were:

• Deputy Chief Executive Helen Walsham shadowed IT Support Apprentice Joe Collins
• Chief Financial Officer David Armstrong shadowed Fleet Admin Apprentice Ross Burton
• Director of People and Places Lisa Collen shadowed Finance Apprentice Joshua Pardon
• Director of Business Growth Andrew Yuill shadowed Kitchen Fitter Apprentice Aaron Cummings
• RFT Services Operations Manager Mark Kirby shadowed Finance Apprentice Ali Burghall
• RFT Head of Operations (Trade) Dale Wordley shadowed Bright Futures Apprentices Matt Levesley and Ellie Colk

With over 20 years of experience in the housing sector, Flagship’s skilled staff are keen to pass on their knowledge to the next generation, hoping to make a difference in the housing industry.

*RFT Services is Flagship’s in-house repairs and maintenance subsidiary company.

We are thrilled to announce that the Tudor Lodge Consultants Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) team is working closely with Keren’s Nursery, an award-winning chain of nurseries in North London. Keren’s Nursery has a number of branches in Hampstead Garden Suburb, Belsize Park and Holland Park, all of which are hugely popular. We are working to increase the online leads acquired by Keren’s Nursery in the form of enquiries for visits to see the nurseries and placements of children.

Started in 2004 by the current directors, Keren’s Nursery has grown from being run in a house with just three children, to many more children being cared for and educated across three growing branches. Furthermore, they have been repeatedly awarded an Outstanding rating by Ofsted.

What We are Doing for Keren’s Nursery

Keren’s Nursery approached us with an already functioning website, but have found that it is not fully fit for purpose and does not properly and efficiently serve users and prospective customers and clients. With a distinct lack of leads through their website, getting up the rankings on Google is more important than ever.

As with many SEO projects, the first step is cleaning up and optimising what they have to ensure that they get maximum benefit from the works already completed in the past:

Secure Hosting – Their website was not hosted on a securely encrypted server with an SSL certificate. This meant that the site was potentially vulnerable to malicious attacks from both bots and hackers online. This is something Google does not like and looks down upon. By installing and implementing an SSL certificate, Keren’s Nursery’s website has ben secured and now presents users with the desired ‘https’ prefix.

Meta Data – Another of Google’s crucial factors for good SEO and a strongly ranked site is optimised meta data, comprising the meta titles and meta descriptions of a website. With little meta data present, we are working on that of Keren’s Nursery to ensure that Google is able to crawl and appropriately rank their website.

Broken Links – Broken links on websites point users and therefore Google and other search engines to a ‘dead’ page, usually in the form of a 404-error page. As an established site, having had little attention to SEO detail in the past, we have worked to clean up many broken links for the website, making for a faster and better-read website for both Google and users who will no longer be sent to dead, non-existent pages.

Online PR and Links – Ensuring a website has strong online PR and strong links pointing to it is crucial in the world of SEO. By having strong links, websites demonstrate an increased degree of trust with Google, which acts as a trust signal for search engines, often leading to higher rankings. Furthermore, with much of the online PR generated from websites with larger readerships, Keren’s Nursery can expect increased traffic to their site of good quality.

Our Plans Moving Forward

With so much achieved so far at this early stage, we are planning to improve the look and feel of the Keren’s Nursery website to improve the user experience as well as the SEO and conversion rates. we look forward to many more successes with the whole team at Keren’s Nurseries.

Business owners and self-employed people will gather at The Feathers at Holt on Tuesday 19th March to meet new business contacts over coffee and biscuits. Hosted by Leanne Castle of MENTA and GENIX, the business support specialists, Coffee Means Business is a friendly, stand-up networking event which has been held on a monthly basis in north Norfolk since 2016.

Leanne Castle said, “Over 20 people attend our events which are relaxed and informal. We always receive very positive comments on the friendliness and easy format of the mornings. The power of face to face networking to promote business services and products, should never be underestimated.

“Making new connections and gaining recommendations are important ways of building a successful business and networking is a great way to achieve this.”

Coffee Means Business will be held from 9.30am until 11.30am, there are no membership or joining fees, just £5 per person, payable on arrival. Booking isn’t essential.

North Norfolk District Council commissioned MENTA and GENIX three years ago to organise and host Coffee Means Business in the north Norfolk area. They could see a need for a regular networking opportunity for businesses which didn’t involve expensive membership fees.

For more details regarding Coffee Means Business go to www.genix.org.uk or call 0800 096 3013.

The senior management team of one of the region’s largest office supply companies has successfully completed a buyout of the business.

Mayday Office Equipment Services, based in Norwich, has been taken over by Operations Director Karen Aldred, Commercial Director Jamie Mulhall and Sales Director Adam Northcut.

Leading East Anglian corporate finance and accountancy firm, Larking Gowen, helped with the successful buyout of majority shareholder and former Managing Director Graham Cassie.

Karen Aldred, who becomes the new MD, said that in the past the company had been approached by large national groups for takeover but had always managed to remain in the control of the people running the business. “We see ourselves as a local company providing the best possible service we can for other local businesses. We know our clients well and they know us. We’re very proud to keep the business running with the same level of localised personal service,” Karen said. “The corporate finance team at Larking Gowen were a real help. We always dealt with the same people and they were always there to pick up the phone and point us in the right direction,” she added.

Mayday supplies photocopiers, printers and other office equipment to businesses in Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Cambridgeshire. The company also offers IT support, which is a growing sector within the business. It was established on 1 May 1979, hence the name.

Ian Nelson, Larking Gowen Senior Manager, said: “Mayday has a strong local pedigree built up by the hard work and skill of the management buyout team. It is pleasing to see them taking full control to continue their good work and reap the rewards. “It was great to work with such a positive team and be able to guide them through the potential pitfalls and steer them towards the opportunities.”

Areas that Larking Gowen’s corporate finance team assisted included advice on valuation, commercial and tax structure, bank funding, deal management, liaison with the legal team and advice on financial and taxation warranties and indemnities to protect the management buyout team.

Outgoing majority shareholder Mr Cassie, who is staying on as an IT consultant for the business, said: “I’m delighted with Karen, Jamie and Adam’s further investment and acquisition, and I’m sure that the very successful local technology business will go from strength to strength.

“I’ve been proud to lead Mayday over the last six years, and would like to thank all Mayday’s staff and customers for their support.”

Photo credit: James Vivian (L to R):  Ian Nelson, Larking Gowen, Jamie Mulhall, Karen Aldred, Adam Northcut of Mayday Office Equipment Services.  

NORWICH, Tuesday 28th January 2014 – Airport reports record visitors to annual travel show Norwich International Airport’s travel show, which is now in its fifth year, achieved record visitor numbers this weekend with 2,000 people attending, all keen to find out as much as possible about the wide range of holidays and flights available from their local airport.

The airline and tour operator exhibitors commented that the Norwich International event is one of the busiest and most successful they attend across the UK and were all delighted with the response this year.

Andrew Bell, CEO, Norwich International Airport commented “This year’s show was undoubtedly the best we have put on in the five years the event has been running, with record visitor numbers and bookings made on the day up 62% on the previous year. The show is a fantastic opportunity for people in the Airport’s catchment area to meet airline and tour operator representatives and obtain first-hand knowledge and advice on the destinations they offer from our airport”

The success of last weekend’s travel show comes as an added boost for the airport following recent announcements of additional flights for holidaymakers in 2014 to Malta, along with the news that Thomson Holidays are basing an aircraft at Norwich International for the summer season for the very first time, Loganair basing a second aircraft from the end of March to provide an increase in Edinburgh flights to three times daily and the overall popularity of the KLM services to Amsterdam, which will see the frequency increase to four times daily throughout the summer months.

2019 marks the 25th anniversary since The Benjamin Foundation was established and the Norfolk and Suffolk based charity has announced exciting plans for a high-profile, visually appealing, engaging and, most importantly, family friendly celebration to mark this milestone.

They plan to create a dramatic art installation called Flight for Youth which will feature up to 25,000 glazed pottery butterflies glazed in one of the charity’s four distinct colours – pink, purple, orange or red. The public are being invited to purchase a butterfly but before taking receipt of their commemorative piece the butterflies are being used to create two dramatic and high-profile art installations, at The Assembly House and Holkham Hall. Butterflies are available to purchase on-line now – https://benjaminfoundation.co.uk/flight-for-youth/

Schools, care homes and other groups and organisations can also purchase unglazed butterflies, which they can decorate themselves and submit to be included in the installation.

Flight for Youth also aims to raise funds to continue the work of The Benjamin Foundation, so the charity is appealing to companies in the region to get behind the campaign through sponsorship. They are delighted that many companies have already pledged sponsorship, including Norwich High School for Girls, who are headline sponsors.

The Benjamin Foundation was founded in 1994 by Richard Draper and his wife Vanessa, following the death of their son Ben and for 25 years the charity has been helping people across Norfolk and Suffolk.

Tony Ing, Chief Executive of The Benjamin Foundation says: “Twenty-five years is an important milestone for any organisation.  It marks an opportunity for us to celebrate and reflect on where we have come from, what we have achieved and what our priorities are for the next quarter century.”

For more information about how to GET INVOLVED there are multiple ways to get in touch:

E-mail: colin.lang@benjaminfoundation.co.uk or Call: Colin Lang on 01603 886 933.

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Pure Executive is delighted to have introduced two outstanding Non-Executive Directors to Treatt plc in Bury St Edmunds, one of the region’s most successful companies.

Treatt is a FTSE listed, fast growth Best Employers Eastern Region platinum accredited and award-winning company, whose culture and values are core to its business strategy. This was critical in attracting the two individuals, both highly regarded in their respective fields, to join the Board and support the next phase of transformative growth. It was important for Treatt to achieve balance and diversity of thinking on its Board, as well as attracting international business experience to help drive their worldwide expansion.

Treatt has confirmed that Yetunde Hofmann will join the Board with effect from 20th March and Lynne Weedall with effect from 6th April 2019.

Yetunde has worked extensively across many Asian countries, the US and Europe with strategic, commercial and operational transformation skills developed through her experience at Allied Domecq, Unilever, Imperial Brands and Northern Foods. She is a Non-Executive Director of the CIPD, Education Development Trust, Tomorrow’s Company and is a visiting fellow of Henley Business School.

Yetunde commented: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to support the culture and business transformation of an organisation that has people and people engagement at the heart of its business strategy.”

Lynne Weedall has extensive strategy, change management and M&A experience gained from Board positions as Group HR Director with Whitbread Plc, Dixons Carphone Plc and most recently the Selfridges Group.

Lynne, who is also a Non-Executive Director of Greene King, commented: “I am looking forward to working with the Board at Treatt to build on its success and to be part of its interesting international growth strategy. The people and also the opportunity that lie ahead at Treatt were too good to pass up.”

Treatt Plc chairman Tim Jones said: “I would like to welcome Yetunde and Lynne to Treatt. Their experience and knowledge further strengthen the Board’s skillset as the company pushes forward its strategy for progressive global growth over coming years. We were delighted to have the support of Lynn and the team at Pure Executive who have delivered such outstanding candidates.”   

Yetunde added: “Pure Executive took the time to understand my skills, experience and values to see how I could best contribute to the success of this next phase of development in Treatt’s growth strategy as a member of their Board. I experienced them as refreshing and collaborative and was impressed by their industry and sector knowledge.” 

Treatt is an impressive Suffolk business which will commence a £35million capital investment project to build a new manufacturing and head office site on the Suffolk Business Park this year.

Lynn Walters, Executive Director of Pure Executive, said: “I am very proud that Treatt has appointed two such inspirational women who share the company values and will be strong role models for other women in this region. At Pure Executive we are committed to placing people who are genuinely aligned to our client’s culture, vision and purpose. We work hard to ensure the region has a more balanced representation at Board level and through our Women’s Leadership Programme we actively encourage more women to reach Board positions. I have the greatest respect for both Lynne and Yetunde and working with both of them to secure these roles with Treatt has been a privilege.”

Founded in 1886, Treatt is a cutting-edge flavour and fragrance manufacturer and solutions provider to the food, drink and consumer goods market with its focus being beverages.

Read Treatt’s announcement to the stock exchange on Wednesday 6th February here.

We still have a couple of places left at this month’s seminar which will take place on Wednesday 19th March.

Early Retirement – turning the dream into a reality…

Wednesday 19th March – Henderson Business Centre, Norwich

8.15am for 8.30am start (Refreshments and a light Breakfast available)

12.15pm for 12.30pm start (Refreshments and a light lunch available)

The choices you make as you approach retirement could have lasting effects. This session will take you through pensions in a clear and straightforward manner. We will also look at alternative income sources, showing how a combined approach can make the most of tax reliefs, alongside the concept of a two-stage retirement to stretch limited income further.

With annuity rates at historically low levels a better understanding of your options is an essential first step towards effective planning. The session will be useful to anyone advising clients on pension issues or income generating portfolios or approaching retirement themselves.

Each seminar will qualify for 1.5hours of SRA accredited CPD.

We expect each seminar to last around an hour and a half with a further 30 minutes for questions and discussion.

A light lunch or breakfast will be available.

The seminar is free of charge but places are limited.

For more information and to register visit www.chadwicks.co.uk or call me on 01603 251687.