A chance to share business ideas with a group of like minded small business owners, all looking to grow and expand. We always have an interesting and packed agenda, covering all aspects of sales and marketing – practical easy to do things that will make a difference.
I can promise an action packed start to your day, plus the chance to meet some great local business owners. No need to book, just turn up and we have free tea and coffee too!
We meet in Poringland with an 8am start, finishing by 10.
Flagship is a housing association with over 22,000 homes across East Anglia. We are a strong business looking for inspirational leaders to help us turn our aspirations into reality.
Director – Legal
c£80k (plus package)
Permanent, Full time
Based in Keswick, Norwich
We are seeking an experienced, highly motivated property lawyer to set up and lead a new in-house legal team, providing property and housing management legal services across our business. As an experienced property lawyer with a strong commercial focus, you will also lead on our ambitious growth plans with our private lettings ans sales portfolios. Working as part of the Senior Management Team, you will have responsibility for the operational direction of the day to day business.
Essential requirements for this role include:
Being a qualified solicitor with compehensive post-qualification experience in property law.
Experience of developing strategies and influencing Board decisions.
Experience of leading, supporting, educating and developing teams.
Managing and delivering complex operational issues on time with quality and to budget.
Constantly seeking conntinious improvement.
Being prepared to question the current way of doing things and taking managed risks in the pursuit of excellence.
If you are interested in this new and exciting opportunity, for more information and to apply, please visit: flagship-housing.co.uk/director-recruitment.
Greater Anglia’s Revenue Protection team has been awarded the prestigious ‘Investor in People’ Silver status in recognition of its progressive approach to business improvement through its people.
Around 350 members of staff work in the train operator’s Revenue Protection team, the team is made up of Revenue Inspectors, Making Travel Safer officers and Gateline Operators.
The team was able to demonstrate that they have achieved the 39 requirements needed to secure the standard IIP Status, which they have held since 2009, plus an additional 76 points of evidence that led to them achieving the Silver Status. The award shows that the Revenue Protection team takes a forward thinking and expansive approach to cascading best practice through every level of the organisation.
In his report, the IIP Assessor commented that: “There has been excellent development of a more appreciative culture throughout Revenue Protection. Employees at all levels acknowledge the efforts made to show appreciation for their contribution to the success of the organisation.”
Abellio Greater Anglia’s Head of Revenue Protection, Kim Gorman, said: “The award of ‘Investor in People’ Silver Status for our team is another key milestone in our approach to offering customers a consistent, professional and high-quality standard of service. I am pleased to offer my warmest congratulations to the team, who have all worked extremely hard in achieving this award.”
Currently just 6% of UK businesses achieve the Bronze, Silver and Gold IIP accreditations.
Other teams within Abellio Greater Anglia to hold the accreditation include the Catering Team (Silver Status) and the Customer Contact Centre (Gold Status).
We want to communicate our services in the most effective way and encourage as many businesses as possible to engage with us. TMS Media have been commissioned to produce a communications and marketing strategy for the growth programme and you can help shape that by completing this survey. If you provide your name and contact details, you will be entered into a draw to win a £50 Amazon voucher*. The survey takes just 5 – 8 minutes to complete and will really help us develop and improve our services.
We want to communicate our services in the most effective way and encourage as many businesses as possible to engage with us. TMS Media have been commissioned to produce a communications and marketing strategy for the growth programme and you can help shape that by completing this survey. If you provide your name and contact details, you will be entered into a draw to win a £50 Amazon voucher*. The survey takes just 5 – 8 minutes to complete and will really help us develop and improve our services.
We’re continuing to analyse the responses we’ve received through the consultation, particularly the letter and email responses and the ‘free text’ elements of the consultation survey, so we don’t have a complete picture of the consultation responses as yet. We plan to publish the full results when we announce our preferred route, alongside all the other information which has informed our decision-making – the date is to be decided due to a change in the County Council’s constitution (which will see us move from a committee system to a cabinet system later this spring).
However, because we know there is likely to be significant interest in the consultation results, we wanted to share some of the headline facts and figures with you at this point. These are:
The consultation website was viewed by 3,475 people and a total of 1,245 people came to 17 consultation events staffed by members of the Norwich Western Link project team.
We received more than 1,900 responses in total, with 1,825 responding via the consultation survey available on the consultation website and 104 sending their responses by letter or email.
Initial analysis of the responses to the consultation survey suggests there is strong agreement among respondents that there is a need for a Norwich Western Link road, with Option D ranking as the most popular solution, Option C the second most popular and Option A the least popular.
As mentioned, there is still a lot of important information we need to consider which will help us identify a preferred route for the Norwich Western Link. The project team are continuing to work hard to gather and take account of all this information before any conclusions are made.
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:
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.
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).
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.”
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.