Member News

MHA Larking Gowen, chartered accountants and business advisors, is pleased to announce the launch of their new podcast series, Tourism Business Chat, where tourism specialist, Chris Scargill, interviews successful business owners and leaders from the tourism, leisure and hospitality sector throughout Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. 

Each week, Chris’s special guests share the challenges their business and the sector overall are facing; what they have learnt from the last year; and how they plan to structure their business in the face of lockdown challenges, and beyond.

The tourism, leisure and hospitality industry is a key sector in the East Anglia economy, and has faced huge disruption during the COVID-19 lockdown. Being in business can be a lonely place, and this open discussion will hopefully help those in the sector plan for growth, as the region aims to rightfully hold its place as a key destination for visitors in the UK.

In the first episode, Chris Scargill talks to Andrew Hird, General Manager at Woodland Holiday Park, and Chairman of Visit North Norfolk Coast & Countryside. They discuss how it’s important now, more than ever, to have cohesion with local DMOs; how this is essential for promotion; and how businesses must work with the residents in their community.

Andrew also highlights how a potential downturn in the high street could mean that the skills of those workers can transfer into the tourism sector and help such a vibrant and crucial part of the economy. Andrew believes that recruitment is key, moving forwards, and emphasises that “meaningful careers with good pay are available if you work hard.”

Future guest, Philip Turner, from Chestnut, echoes this, with the hope that one of the positives that will come from lockdown closures will be a change in how people view careers in the sector; “There will never be a greater opportunity for us to find people who will look at the hospitality sector through different eyes.”

Chris hopes that these conversations will inject some much needed optimism into the sector. In light of the recent government update regarding the roadmap out of lockdown, he believes that the reflection of these leaders is invaluable to others.

Chris said: “One of the underlying themes of each of the conversations I have had, has been a passion for the sector. These inspirational business leaders have a love for what they do, and not only do they want to get back to normal, they want to remind people that their capacity to trade successfully is not only important to the economy of the area, but also to the wellbeing of their staff, their customers and our communities.”

These conversations are a unique insight into the thoughts and processes of some of our region’s key sector leaders, running hugely successful and renowned businesses. Their insights are invaluable for anyone thinking of getting into the sector, or for those already leading their own business, looking to the light at the end of the COVID tunnel.

You can listen to Chris’s chat with Andrew Hird here. 

You can subscribe to Tourism Business Chat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Due to the situation regarding the coronavirus, as a business owner your team may be working from home for the time being. With less social interaction and face to face support in the workplace during this time, it’s vital to look after your mental health as well as your physical health. Now more than ever it’s important to ensure that your team are looking after their own mental health too.

So how can you support the mental health of your team while working remotely?

• Keep in touch with your team and let them know that you care. Understandably, your team may be feeling worried and anxious about what the future may hold. You can help to ease these feelings of uncertainty by staying in touch and letting your team know that you’re there should they need support.
• Encourage team collaboration. When working from home, there can be a tendency for communication to drop off between your team as they’re no longer seeing each other face to face every day. Encouraging your team to utilise technology such as video conferencing means that they’re still able to work collaboratively and maintain a level of social interaction.
• Read the mood of your team and be aware of negative mood change. It’s completely normal for people to experience mood changes during periods of significant change. Tuning into the mood of your team and looking out for signs of negative mood change can help you to adapt your communication and provide the appropriate levels of support to the employees that may need it.
• Listen out for distress and struggling in things people say and in their tone. Some members of your team may feel comfortable openly talking about their feelings. However, others may have a tendency to keep their emotions bottled up and try to deal with them themselves. Be alert and listen out for distress and struggling in the things that your employees say and their tone.
• Look out for behaviour changes. Is a team member replying to emails in the middle of the night? Or have you noticed on a conference call that an upbeat team member is unusually quiet and upset. This may indicate that they’re struggling and may need additional support.
• Use your instinct. When you work with your team every day, you get to know them. You should therefore trust your instincts – if someone in your team doesn’t seem quite right, have an honest conversation with them to find out if there’s anything you can do to help.
• Promote any support that is available. If you provide support services for your team, ensure they know how to access them should they need it and that they’re clearly signposted so they know that help is available.

​You may be well accustomed to having your team work from home, or it may be a brand new experience for you. However, making sure that you’re staying in regular contact, prioritising mental health and maintaining a positive work life balance are steps that can help to ease the pressure of remote working.

By Eugene Farrell, Mental Health Lead at AXA Health

In this week’s Business Insight Chat, Ian Fitch talks to William Coe, managing director of Coes, an independent company of department stores, who have been trading since 1928!

This chat offers an incredible insight into how a prominent local business has learnt, and continued to grow during a tough time for retail, and is not to be missed.

William speaks openly about a variety of issues that the business has had to deal with during lockdown, stating that the first lockdown “Couldn’t have been worse timing for clothing businesses”

He speaks candidly about the initial worry over suppliers not trading; how being told they had to cease trading might impact them paying their suppliers; the potential decrease in demand for some of their top products; planning ahead for trends and events (such as weddings) that may never happen; the frustration over how some businesses suddenly popped up as ‘essential traders’; the rollover of stock, and much more.

William also discusses the acceleration that COVID has had on how shop-based retail is adapting to technology and habits, and what this means for the future of the high-street. He offers fascinating insights into what he thinks businesses, councils and the government need to do in order to preserve the high street, including a focus on business rates and VAT; and what can be done to invest in Ipswich in particular.

He also reflects on the positives of the last 12 months, and how he has learnt to ‘fail quickly and learn fast’, and how his team have shown great resilience. He discusses how they improved their online offering, transferring what customers experience in store, online; and how they plan to keep their stores and website working together, and not in competition, post-COVID.

You can listen to Business Insights Chat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out on the next episode with Mark Ferguson from Castle Colour Packaging.

Listen here!

In our latest blog we explore the Pantone Color of the Year and share our top home furniture picks to refresh your home office in 2021.

Whether you’re working from home or your office, it never hurts to refresh your surroundings every once in a while. And, with so many great new trends around this season, there’s never been a better time to do it.

Pantone’s Color of the Year is undoubtedly the biggest trend for this year. Since 2000, the Pantone Color Institute has named a Color (or Colors) of the Year to reflect the current zeitgeist. From Cerulean (blue) to Tangerine Tango (red-orange), the Pantone Color Institute picks a shade that reflects a sense of calm or vibrancy, wellbeing or joy in line with what we feel or what we need.

Read more here

We are pleased to share with you Together We Can, our latest summary of partnerships activity from the last year.

The school is committed to making a positive impact in our community and Together We Can is a celebration of the different ways in which we seek to make a difference.

Our thanks go to the many charities, organisations and schools who have made all of this possible and we are grateful to the members of the Norwich School community who have shown a true dedication to helping others.

As ever, if there is a way in which the school could support a community partner, we would encourage them to be in touch with us.

More information about our current partnership projects can be found by clicking here.

In this week’s episode of Impromptu Business Chat, James and Mark chat about the benefits of sleep for business leaders and their teams, and share 3 top tips on ways to improve the quality of our sleep. They discuss what does and doesn’t work for them, and along the way refer to Ruari Fairbairns and Andy Rammage of One Year No Beer, Jon Kabat-Zinn of Full Catastrophe Living fame and The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Tight Fit!   If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Whilst you are there, please like us, and leave a comment. We would love to hear what you are enjoying about the podcast, and it helps others to find us!

Listen here!

Norfolk based vegan protein brand Gorilla Juice have achieved Amazon Vendor Central status after engaging with Akcela to support with their business development and growth programme. Another milestone in a year which has seen the brand move from strength to strength.

Akcela have been supporting Gorilla Juice in their growth programme at key points, offering business coaching, mentoring and FMCG strategy.

Founder Harry Barratt describes the year as “exciting”, whilst looking forward to the future for the brand. “It’s been an interesting year. One where a lot of businesses have struggled. So we are grateful through this we can be seen as a good news story. When you see some of the news out there at the moment. What’s happening to businesses where things aren’t so good. It’s a tough time. When we came to Akcela. We knew the potential of the brand and we had something that struck a chord with people. We knew the quality the product carried and that’s been something we haven’t compromised on.” Harry stated.

“Working with Akcela, there’s been a raft of changes. I don’t think we could have got here without them. We have gained outside investment, which allowed us to ramp up our stock levels and buying power. We’ve turned a big corner in sales, which has helped give us a really great base to move on from. We are at a point now where we can start looking at the exciting things. The exciting customer opportunities and collaborations. It’s been a lot of work, but we were never shy about that. Now we are ready to really kick on.”

Akcela director James Adams commented on the success that Gorilla Juice has had over the past year, whilst keeping an eye firmly on the next stage of development.

“Gorilla Juice has been a great project for us, working with Harry and bringing others into the team for the long haul. I think early on, we saw the opportunity for the brand, but we had to put the fundamentals in place. The team have worked incredibly hard to achieve that.”

“Moving to an Amazon managed brand is great for Gorilla Juice as it helps to start to streamline the sales process and drives quantity through the business. The next stage for us is to actively seek out partnerships that continue to drive that brand awareness and growth. You don’t become an Amazon managed product without throughput and quality. Where Gorilla Juice really holds up is the quality of the product. It is a premium offering and that’s the next step for us. Finding premium partnerships that value the brand for its quality and its approach.”

Akcela will continue to work with Gorilla Juice, with James continuing his role as a member of the management team. If you would like to understand more about working with Gorilla Juice, or understand how Akcela can support in developing your FMCG brand. 

This story was originally published on the Akcela website – or you can go to their website to find out more about Akcela management consultants.

When we first decided to take our first steps into creating a corporate film showing the work that goes in to distributing heating oil, little did we know the challenges ahead.

As we made plans over a year ago the landscape was quite different at this time and as lockdown 1 came, we decided to shelve this idea for later. However, with the realisation that this was now the new normal and could be with us for some time we decided to pursue the idea once more.

After a short tender process, we were delighted to appoint fellow Norfolk Chamber members Trendy Grandad as the production company who we would work with. The brief was simple we wanted to communicate what is involved in bringing heating oil to customers in the East of England, but to do this in a more imaginative way than just a member of Goff team talking to camera.

Working closely with Stokely and Adam from Trendy Grandad we soon had a script and an ambitious storyboard that we were all happy with. What’s more we were also delighted to be allowed access to one of the U.K.’s oil refineries, access to the refineries for obvious reasons is highly restricted so to be able to get the permissions in place to film really was an achievement.

The shoot itself was a little more stop start than we had planned with the emergence of lockdown 2 meaning that once again there was a slight pause to proceedings. But with lockdown lifted it was “Action”.

First up was a rude awakening as the team needed to be at the Wymondham Depot for 5 AM, ready to film the first of the fleet of our articulated tankers as they set out on their daily journeys to the refineries across the UK. Our host for the day was experienced driver Gordon and we followed and filmed every move that Gordon takes on this journey too Harwich and back.

The refinery itself was quite something as a mass of pipes and storage tanks take the deliveries of crude oil before refining them into the many different products that customers demand including, diesel, petrol and kerosene or heating oil as it’s known. Once the articulated lorry has taken on a staggering 38,000 litres of heating oil, then it’s back to one of Goff’s many regional depots where the oil is pumped out into storage ready to be delivered to local customers.

The next morning and a more leisurely start of 7am we follow one of the delivery tankers carrying 12,500 litres of heating oil set to be delivered to customers across Norfolk. This was a fascinating insight into the challenges that the oil delivery drivers face every day from access issues down tight country lanes, to navigating poor parking in tight cul-de-sac’s, locked all tanks and the odd lively dog. This was all water of a ducks back to our driver who tirelessly reeled his hose in and out and the many drops he made.

Shooting on a scheduled delivery round gave us a number of challenges, but it was essential that the film reflected what really happens. So, no actors or stand ins were used and the customers reactions are totally genuine, trickier to capture but in our opinion, it was definitely worth it. Thank you to all our fabulous customers who were happy to be involved.

With more footage than we knew what to do with the team at Trendy Grandad did what they do best, edit and edit until we had the desired 1 min film and here it is.

We hope you like it, we certainly enjoyed making it and would like to thank all those involved, from Customers, Goff employees, the refinery and those at Trendy Grandad.

Docky #4: The power of our Norfolk community

Last week, BuxtonThreeTwo and Proudly Norfolk Food & Drink  hosted Docky #4 – a bitesize, lunchtime chat on all things food and drink. We’ve had some fantastic guests join us for Docky, but #4 was particularly special as we were joined by Chris Elliott of The Feed to discuss homelessness and hunger in our Norfolk community.

The Feed is a Norwich based social enterprise who have a vision of a community free from poverty. Supporting those who have been out of work for sustained periods of time, The Feed provide opportunities for employment and development in both their cafe and catering business.

During Docky #4, Chris spoke about how The Feed adapted in 2020. Through making phone calls to members of the community, delivering wellbeing packages and opening the community fridge, The Feed maintained a dialogue with those in need throughout the series of lockdowns.

Chris explained that The Feed also offers one-to-one support, mindfulness sessions, cooking classes and work experience programmes for people who have struggled with homelessness, addiction or on-going mental health problems. After these development sessions, the team at The Feed help individuals seek out jobs and start their career.

For 2021, The Feed have even bigger plans as they endeavor to start their own food truck. Not only will the presence of the truck spread The Feed’s message in Norwich, but it will also provide the enterprise with an additional revenue stream to allow them to continue the fantastic work they do for our community.

If you’d like to support The Feed by committing to sponsor the food truck, organising a fundraising event, donating to the community fridge or if you have employment and work experience opportunities for The Feed’s clients, you can get in touch with Chris at chris@thefeed.org.uk.

If you missed Docky #4, you can catch up here.

We can tackle homelessness and poverty in our community, together.

Renowned Norfolk retailer, Jarrold, has teamed up with local cancer charity Big C for a one-off online sale charity event which they have named BIG Clear Out For Cancer, launching on Wednesday 17th February. Helga Clarke, Senior Marketing Manager at Jarrold, said, “During the pandemic, as we have been spending much more time at home, many of us have been tidying, cleaning and sorting the areas of our home and things we never normally have time for. Part of this has been having a huge clothing clear-out. At Jarrold, while our shops have been shut, we have sorted some hidden treasures and some great bargains across our most popular brands to sell through our website and so the idea of a charity closet clear-out came to fruition! Just visit our website, sit back, take a minute and browse your size, you never know what you might find! We’d love it if our customers shared their purchases and showed us how they plan to wear them. We are delighted to partner with Big C for this initiative, donating £1 for every item sold to this much-loved local charity, as they too have suffered from not having their shops open.” Carole Slaughter, Head of Fundraising at Big C, said, “This is a fantastic, feel-good, fun initiative from Jarrold, which gives us all the chance for some retail therapy, which is exactly what we need at the moment and the opportunity to score a bargain, whilst raising much needed funds for those in our community affected by cancer. We are very grateful to Jarrold for their support.” Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Big C moved swiftly to transfer all support services online and over the telephone, to ensure ongoing vital support for those facing cancer and their families, in very challenging times. All Big C services are now available in this way including a specialist telephone support line, live chat support, telephone counselling, welfare advice, ‘Ask the Nurse’ support via Big C’s virtual centre, Get Moving fitness coaching programme and physical and mental wellbeing videos. In addition to this increase in demand for their services, Big C has experienced a sharp drop in income from closure of the shops and cancellation of fundraising events. www.big-c.co.uk  

Hatch Brenner Solicitors on Theatre Street in Norwich is delighted to launch a discount offer to all the NHS staff and other key workers who have been tirelessly supporting us all during the coronavirus pandemic. The new NHS and key worker offer for spring 2021 provides a 15% discount on our fixed fee structure for the preparation of Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs).

Read more: https://hatchbrenner.co.uk/services/fixed-fee-solicitors

Hatch Brenner Head of Private Client Caroline Billings commented: “It is absolutely the right thing to do to recognise and support our fantastic and hardworking key workers by offering them a discount on our private client services. We all owe a debt of gratitude to our NHS workers, Police, Care home staff, Paramedics and countless others. Having an up to date Will and Lasting Powers of Attorney in place means that individuals can have peace of mind that their future wishes have been recorded. With all of us having to confront real issues around our health and mortality, particularly true for these front line workers, we have seen an upsurge in enquiries for our private client services as people use the lockdown time to get their assets in order.”

The key worker discount is valid for appointments in March and April 2021, subject to availability. The scheme is open to anyone employed as one of the keyworker groups identified by the Government (see the list here). You will be asked to bring proof of your key worker status to your first appointment. We offer covid-safe appointments including via phone, video call, or within social distancing guidelines.

Read more: https://hatchbrenner.co.uk/news/lockdown-3-0-hatch-brenner-solicitors-remains-open-and-available

To make an appointment, please contact Hatch Brenner Private Client Paralegal Rachel Frammingham throughout February, March and April via 01603 660 811 or email rachelframmingham@hatchbrenner.co.uk

Read more: https://hatchbrenner.co.uk/faqs/can-you-help-me-write-my-will

In this episode of Business Insights Chat, MHA Larking Gowen partner Ian Fitch talks to Susanna Rendall, group managing director of The Boxford Group. The group owns the award-winning Stoke-By-Nayland Resort, Peake Fruit Ltd and Boxford Suffolk Farms.

Susanna talks candidly and in depth about the challenges that lockdown, and Brexit, have had on their businesses. She focuses on recruitment, and why they reached out to the community during the last year. Susanna also discusses what life is like in a family-run business. There are tales of pressing apples at her mother’s kitchen table, and how she’s learnt that if a vote is needed, perhaps it’s a sign that it’s not the right move.

Susanna believes passion is key to running a successful business – love your product – and that just because your business is getting bigger, it doesn’t mean it’s better! She talks about how important it is to be agile; to do your research when starting up; how knowing your weaknesses is key; and that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help.

Susanna’s diverse sector experience and work history, which includes hosting Manchester United FC and Annie Lennox, and being approached by Tropicana, make for inspirational listening. And her analogy of how business is like a marriage and subsequent divorce, is a gem not to be missed!

Your can learn more about The Boxford Group here.

You can listen to Business Insights Chat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out on next week’s episode with William Coe, from Coes.

Listen here