Member News

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to spend 7 days being dazzled by the bright lights of New York City. In between eating hamburgers the size of your head, learning the less than straight forward subway system, and slowly cooking in the 35 degree heat, I was able to squeeze in a brief visit to the Google offices. Now, I am not sure you can just turn up at Google, knock on the door and wander in, it’s probably a bit more complicated than that, but due to my girlfriend’s brother being gainfully employed by the internet behemoth, I was allowed to be a brief, but very impressed, guest.

The building was fairly dignified, without any over the top trumpeting about the big G being in residence, no flashing HD video screens announced that it was present, we are still some way off of Bladerunner it seems. The registration process to enter was fairly relaxed but emphasised that security was definitely taking place, as we submitted to being photographed and signed in, as far as I am aware they did not take any DNA for provision to PRISM, but who knows… After a short wait our host arrived and whisked us off into the cavernous confines of #76, 9th Avenue. Google only occupy a couple of floors of this enormous site, but that appears to be plenty. We were guided up through an area where employees children can lounge around, write on the walls and play with lego, and then into the main office itself. Everything was very spacious and bright, mostly in open plan with only a few specific offices laid out. It was at this point that we got to see first-hand just how nice Google is to employees, and the fairly informal basis on which teams worked together. Everyone was friendly and laid back. It seemed a bit quiet though. It was about lunch time and our host started to lead us up to the canteen. On the way through we saw that employees had free reign to decorate their work areas, and that there were special rooms where people could take a break. People would wander up and say hi and be delightfully polite. There was a top quality collection of board games dotted around, seemingly for people to just grab and play when not fixing bugs in the latest version of Google Docs. Heaven!

And then we arrived in the canteen. It was quite the thing, a vast arena with hordes of cooks and serving staff, open plan and with several types of cuisine on offer, from the IT nerd friendly cheese burger or pizza slice to the Japanese cuisine there to suit those sophisticated New Yorkers with more complex palates. I had a cheese burger. All the food was free, and the room was bursting, I suppose that was why it was so quiet downstairs. We sat with a few employees and learned a little about how life was at Google. After lunch our time was drawing to a close and we were showed a few other rooms, including a library with a quiet room hidden behind a bookshelf that you had to rotate to get access to, and some bizarre themed meeting rooms, one featuring a bath full of foam toys. No water though. Perhaps some of this was a bit over the top and, frankly, loopy, but plenty of it was endearing and you could certainly see why people are falling over themselves to work there.

And so we descended in the lift and wandered out into the noisy real world again, with exploring to do. Well worth the visit!

Andy Malcolm is a Level 2 Service Desk Professional at Breakwater IT. Breakwater provide IT Support, IT Consultancy and Business Telecoms Solutions to the East Anglia region.

Call now on 01603 709300

Cozens-Hardy LLP is pleased to announce that Caroline Linsdell has joined its business team as an Associate, specialising in commercial property law.

Mrs Linsdell, who was educated locally and attended the UEA, has over 25 years commercial property experience. She has dealt with all aspects of property-based transactions, including secured lending, site acquisitions, commercial development and commercial leases (acting for both landlord and tenant). Mrs Linsdell is on the Ethical Property Foundation Register of Property Professionals.

Said Mrs Linsdell:

“I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to join Cozens-Hardy’s business team. The firm has a longstanding reputation for high quality work and I am pleased to be able to bring to the firm my property experience gained from working for a wide variety of clients, ranging from PLCs and Local Authorities to developers and private individuals. Throughout my career I have always believed that the need to provide pro-active advice is of paramount importance and this echoes the ethos of Cozens-Hardy.”

Added Chris Groves, Senior Partner:

“Property work has long been a core of Cozens-Hardy’s legal services to local businesses, so we are very pleased that Caroline has joined us, bringing her extensive local knowledge and specialist skills. Caroline is a great addition to our team and benefit to our business clients.”

– Ends –

For further information please contact: Clare Haylett ph: 07764 270570 and clare@clarehaylett.net

The education and development of engineering technicians is critical for the success of the UK.

Mott MacDonald Ltd in partnership with TEN Group invites you to an Advance Apprenticeship in Civil EngineeringLaunch Event to demonstrate the business case for a partnership approach as well as explaining the opportunities available, particularly to employers.

When: Tuesday 18th June 2013 10.30am – 12 noon.

Where: St Andrews House, St Andrews Street, Norwich. NR2 4TP.

Who should attend this meeting?

The meeting is being held specifically to inform the construction industry about how employing technical apprentices in Civil Engineering can be of benefit and how participation can be measured as a return on capital investment.

Reasons to attend this meeting

Embedding the opportunity for a professional qualification in the academic course and supporting this through work-based learning will be shown to promote employee self-confidence and lead to motivated and productive employees who understand your business and ways of working.

Colleges are increasingly beginning to

understand why simply offering traditional courses no longer meets employer expectations. Case studies from successful employer consortia already established in England will illustrate how added value can be successfully integrated into course structures and how advent of the new Technical Apprenticeship in Civil Engineering, is an exciting initiative and how companies can benefit from Government funding to support training costs.

As an industry we have forgotten

that Technical Apprenticeship courses offer the possibility of leading to the highest levels of professional attainment and are a valid alternative to full-time university education. This conference will enable you to give advice on the choices, based on robust evidence and will show how the Institute of Civil Engineers has acted as a catalyst for change and can be a major contributor to the relevance and quality of vocational courses.

As the construction market is rapidly changing through commercial and technical developments, for example BIM, the Technicians will be at the forefront of this change, allowing your companies to be aware of new developments and enabling your existing staff to learn through these young and enthusiastic construction students.

To book your free place or for more information contact:

Laura Howes

Marketing and Business Development Co-ordinator

Mott MacDonald Ltd

T: +44(0)1603 226703

E: laura.howes@mottmac.com

Food Safety Week is an annual event organised by the Food Standards Agency – its starts on the 10th June and the theme this year is the Kitchen Check ( a copy of the leaflet is attached to this post)

RedCat will be blooging throughout the week- but we have devised a quiz which will be posted at www.redcat.gb.comon Monday and will be open to all to enter until the end of Friday 14th June

The prize is to win a ‘Food Safety Inspector’ type visit to your premises; one of the RedCat team will come along with our swabbing machine and check the cleanliness of your kitchen

But some Food Safety tips- linking to the key themes of Food Safety Week are

Cleaning Hands are one of the main ways germs are spread. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and warm water before preparing and handling food, cooking and after touching the bin, going to the toilet, handling pets or handling raw food. Wash or change dish cloths, tea towels, sponges and oven gloves regularly and let them dry before you use them again. Dirty, damp cloths are the perfect place for bacteria to breed.

Our kit will be able to tell how clean your surfaces are; we also use an Ultra Violet Kit on our training courses to see just how good hand washing is

Avoiding Cross Contamination • Cross contamination occurs when harmful germs/bacteria are spread between food, surfaces and equipment. You can help to prevent this by removing clutter that you don’t need and cleaning worktops before and after food preparation. • Always use a chopping board. Wash the board and other utensils in hot, soapy water when you’ve finished using them and in between preparing raw food (meat, poultry, eggs, fish and raw vegetables) and ready-to-eat food. Better still, use a separate chopping board for each type of food.

Chilling • Make sure your fridge is set between 0 and 5 degrees, you can use a a fridge thermometer to check. This is to prevent harmful bacteria from multiplying to dangerous levels • Don’t overfill your fridge. This allows air to circulate and maintains the set temperature. • Store raw meat and poultry at the bottom of the fridge and properly wrap or cover it to avoid raw juices contaminating other foods.

Cooking food thoroughly • Cook food thoroughly until it is steaming hot in the middle. This will kill any harmful bacteria that may be present. You do not need a probe for this- check that the juices are clear and that there has been a colour change

This is particularly important with BBQ’s!

Understanding ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates • ‘Use by’ dates are typically found on perishable products (dairy, meat and fish) and are based on scientific testing to determine how long these foods will stay safe. After that date, food could be unsafe to eat even if it is correctly stored and looks and smells fine. • ‘Best before’ dates are used on foods that have a longer shelf life and tell us how long the food will be at its best. After that date it may be safe to eat, but its flavour and texture might have deteriorated. • The exception to this rule is eggs which have a ‘best before’ rather than a ‘use by’ date. Providing the eggs are cooked thoroughly, they can be eaten a day or two after their ‘best before’ date but not longer than this. • Check the ‘use by’ dates on the food in your fridge on a regular basis and be sure to use (eat, cook or freeze) food before its ‘use by’ to help you avoid throwing food away unnecessarily. • Once food with a ‘use-by’ date has been opened, follow any storage instructions such as ‘eat within two days of opening’.

Using leftovers safely Using up leftovers can be a good way of making a meal go further. • If you are going to store leftovers in the fridge, cool leftovers as quickly as possible (ideally within 90 minutes) cover them well, get them in the fridge and eat them up within two days. • If you are going to freeze them, cool them before putting them in your freezer, to minimise temperature fluctuation in the freezer. Once foods are in the freezer, they can be safely stored there forever – but the quality will deteriorate so it’s best to eat them within three months. • Make sure you defrost leftovers properly first. Defrost them in the fridge, or in the microwave if you intend to cook them straightaway. • Eat leftovers within 24 hours of defrosting and do not refreeze. The only exception to this is if you are defrosting raw food, such as meat or poultry, once you have cooked this it can be refrozen. • Cook leftovers until steaming hot throughout. • Don’t reheat leftovers more than once.

If you would like to enter our quiz or if you have any Food Safety Questions- then do please contact us

Norwich based IT Support company, Breakwater IT are doing their bit to help Norfolk charity, Big C.

Kelly Hemingway, Account Manager at Breakwater, will be doing a skydive at the Beccles airfield on 26th July. Breakwater have supported several local charities in the past and Kelly this time has handpicked Big C as the one she would like to donate her proceeds to.

Kelly said ‘I like to support cancer charities and this time it’s nice to be able to pass the funds onto a local one that does such invaluable work’

For updates on the skydive follow @BreakwaterIT on twitter and to donate visit https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/KellyHemingway

MigSolv, (Migration Solutions), has been awarded PCI DSS accreditation through external audit of its systems for security and compliance. PCI DSS is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and is a standard that all organisations, including online retailers, must follow when storing, processing and transmitting their customer’s credit card data. Customers of any colocation provider who transact credit cards should ensure that the provider has PCI DSS accreditation as, otherwise, they could fall foul of the standard.

There are two ways in which accreditation can be obtained; this first is to self assess, i.e. state that you have looked at your own systems and are comfortable that you are compliant, the second is to be assessed by a third party auditor who will issue an ‘Attestation of Compliance’ if they deem you to be compliant. Whilst many colocation providers choose the simpler, self assessment route, MigSolv considered the matter of security of such importance that they elected for third party audit. MigSolv MD, Alex Rabbetts, said, “At MigSolv we take security very seriously indeed. Whilst it would be much easier to simply say ‘we comply’ and hope for the best, we think the security of our customers, and that of their customers, to be of sufficient importance that we wanted to provide the comfort that we have been audited by others and it isn’t just us saying ‘we’re compliant’, it is a professional auditor that is saying,’MigSolv is compliant’. We believe this is a much stronger statement for our customers to rely on.”

Tim Holman, CEO of Qualified Security Assessors 2-sec said, “Migration Solutions have demonstrated they take information security seriously and have exceeded the security requirements laid down by PCI DSS during their recent Level 1 Service Provider audit.“

Following receipt of the Attestation of Compliance, MigSolv further submitted an application for registration on the Visa Merchant Agent website. This is an important step as Visa Europe state clearly on their website that: ‘With effect from 31 December 2012, Visa Europe acquiring members must ensure that their merchants use only merchant agents that are registered by Visa Europe and listed on www.visamerchantagentslist.com‘. They further state, ‘If a merchant or retailer has engaged you to provide services that involve processing, storing or transmitting cardholder data, (directly or indirectly), then you are a merchant agent.’ This clearly puts colocation in the frame. MigSolv has subsequently been listed on the Visa Merchant Agent list and is one of only two companies that is listed as colocation and having been externally audited for Level 1 PCI DSS compliance.

David Manning, Operations Director at MigSolv said, “Our PCI DSS compliance, combined with our listing as a Visa Merchant Agent, makes a very strong statement to our customers. Customers that are subject to the PCI DSS standard really only have two choices, one of the two externally audited Level 1 colocation companies listed with Visa Europe, or a risk – I know which route I would prefer!“

About MigSolv MigSolv, (Migration Solutions), is Europe’s leading independent specialist Data Centre Consultancy. Independent of any vendor, MigSolv offers informed, unbiased advice on all aspects of data centre design, operation and migration. Uniquely, MigSolv also operates its own, state-of-the-art, data centre in Norwich meaning that its consultancy is based on real, up-to-date, data centre operational experience and knowledge.

For more information please visit: www.migsolv.com Contact: Alex Rabbetts, Managing Director, 0845 251 2255, alex.rabbetts@migsolv.com

Hi there

We thought we would give you an update on what’s happening here at the BEST WESTERN Brook Hotel…

Last Thursday’s Welcome Event was a great success and was lovely to see some of our fellow Chamber Members and other local business representatives for a glass of wine, Sean Goodman our Magician and Peter with his Casino Tables were very entertaining and helped make the evening.

We have now been live on the Best Western system for 3 weeks and seengreat response as a result which has contributed to us being fully booked most nights this week.

Norfolk Chamber are boked in with us for their next “Meet the Chamber” Event which is to take place here on Wednesday 4th September.

Father’s Day is coming up and we are running 2-4-1 mains and desserts from 12pm to 6pm so come along with the family to ttreat your dad to his favourite meal – a delicious British Roast!

Anything you need as always feel free to contact Sarah any time on 07436 162697 or by email to sales@brookhotel.co.uk

See you soon!

CHECK OUT THIS MONTH’S NEWS!

STM Packaging Group appointed Bigfork to design 4 new websites for each group company (STM Group, Sefton Transmail, The Polythene Company, Shirplass). STM manufacture polythene packaging and mailing products and wanted the websites to have a strong visual impact. You can see to full story and websites on our website.

Bigfork – we make websites stand out

t:01603 513080

www.bigfork.co.uk

Check Out Our Latest News Update On Our Website And Find Out How Uclan Race Engineering Are Getting On With Their Car On The Run Up To Formula Student 2013!!! Almost Time For Silverstone! https://www.emkayplastics.co.uk/news

Howes Percival’s employment law experts are advising employers to ensure that they are aware of the forthcoming changes to employment law that may affect their businesses.

In particular, a new fee regime for the submission of employment tribunal claims, is due to be implemented on 29 July 2013. Under the new fee system, like in the civil courts, a claimant will be required to pay a fee (or provide an application for fee remission against that fee) to present an employment tribunal claim, as well as a further fee if the claim proceeds to a full tribunal hearing.

Also in the pipeline is the introduction of a new type of employment status, from 1 September 2013, which will provide for an “employee shareholder” to be awarded shares in their employer, in exchange for giving up certain of their employment rights, including the right to unfair dismissal (except for automatically unfair dismissal protection) and the right to a statutory redundancy payment.

Harriet Howes and Nicola Butterworth will be discussing these reforms, and the potential impact they may have on local businesses, at the forthcoming Chamber of Commerce HR Forum on 25 June 2013 at Dunston Hall. The session will also look at the tax implications of paying in lieu of notice and practical pointers for managing redundancies.

To book a place please go here

Half Term Holidays… UK City Breaks, Norwich isthe perfect escape!

With the little ones of school again so many people are at a loss and stuck for things to do!

We have just reduced the rates for the last of our rooms for you to come and take a trip to Norwich for a quick City Break, the chance to get away and entertain the kiddies without breaking the bank…

Norwich has so much to offer with the Norfolk Broads, Norwich City Centre for the shopping, museums, restaurants and more, bowling, cinema, skating or nature walks all within easy reach of the Brook, Norwich by car or by bus.

Check out the deals on our website and make sure you tell your friends, you wouldn’t want them to miss out on the chance to come and stay for a little break away!www.brookhotel.co.uk