We’re excited to announce the upcoming Aviva Charity Gala, a special event dedicated to raising funds for Dementia UK . As part of this initiative, we’re inviting local businesses across Norfolk to contribute products, services, or experiences to our charity auction or raffle.
In return, your business will receive:
✅ Promotion and recognition at the gala
✅ Exposure in event materials throughout the night
✅ A chance to align with a meaningful cause and connect with the local community
Whether it’s a luxury hamper, a weekend getaway, a unique experience, or a voucher for your services – your contribution will help us make a real impact.
Interested in getting involved or want to know more ?
Please reach out to Disha Rai at [email protected] to discuss how your business can be part of this exciting event.
Let’s come together to support a great cause and celebrate the power of community
Here at EACH we are pleased to share with you our brand new edition of Footprints with a fresh new design this Autumn/Winter.
No parent wants to go through the grief of losing a child. Sadly this is the reality for many families we care for at EACH.
“When families arrive through the door of the hospice their world has been rocked. Every family’s experience of grief is different – we work with them as individuals, getting to know them as a family and help them find ways to navigate their way through this time.” – Amy, EACH Counsellor
In this issue we tell Annabel’s story. Annabel sadly passed away in June 2020 at just five-years-old with the rare condition Cockayne Syndrome. You can read how EACH stepped in to provide bereavement support to parents Kelly and Gary.
We also take a look at the opening of the new Jetty Courtyard at The Nook, the events that were finally given the go ahead over the summer, the re-opening of our shops and feature some of your fantastic fundraising stories.
If you would like to get involved in supporting EACH over the next few months take a look at our upcoming events and campaigns:
£23 Challenge – it takes this much an hour to fund a Clinical Nurse Specialist. If you and your colleagues raise just £23 each think of how many hours you could fund!
Happy Christmas Ipswich 2 – back again for 2021, Griff Rhys Jones is gathering his peers for another night of comedy and music at The Regent Theatre on 6th December.
The Big Give – the Christmas campaign is happening again this year. Watch this space for more details on how your donation could be match funded.
Ride for Life – *NEW DATES* – 3 Counties, 3 Days, 1 Challenge! Join us for a cycle ride across the beautiful East Anglian countryside, with one and three day routes available between 6th-8th May 2022.
In a week where heat pumps have been recognised by the Government as the future of heating in the UK, Attleborough-based renewable heating expert Finn Geotherm, has scooped two prestigious national awards for heat pump installations it has completed for housing association Flagship Group and museum and visitor centre West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village.
Finn Geotherm was awarded Non-Domestic Ground Source Project of the Year at the National ACR & Heat Pump Awards on Wednesday night. These top national trade awards celebrate the highest achievements across the heating, ventilation and air conditioning sector, and Finn Geotherm was recognised for its landmark £1.4m communal heating scheme (also known as district heating) installed in Felixstowe for Flagship Group. The project saw Finn Geotherm design a six-phase system which heats a total of 115 houses, bungalows and apartments using ground source heat pumps located in six plant rooms around the housing estate. The heat pumps replace expensive and inefficient electric storage heaters, saving residents 70% on their heating bills and cutting their carbon emissions by 70%.
The company’s second award win this week was at last night’s RAC Cooling Awards, which celebrate best practice, achievement and the environmental progress of the industry. Finn Geotherm was awarded Building Energy Project of the Year for its heating and passive cooling project at West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk. The project uses a ground source heat pump to heat the four main buildings on the site. Using its expert knowledge of heat pumps, Finn Geotherm also created a passive cooling system. This enables West Stow to maintain a steady temperature across the site all year round – something which is vital for maintaining its precious artefacts. By replacing an oil boiler and underfloor electric heating, the new heat pump has cut carbon emissions by 70%, which is also supporting West Suffolk Council’s aim to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030.
Guy Ransom, commercial director at Finn Geotherm, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been recognised in these two major award schemes. This week there has been so much talk about heat pumps and their ability to cut carbon emissions and provide effective, efficient heating. These two award wins show just how brilliant this technology is in real life. We have always known the heat pumps are the future of heating – we’ve been installing them since 2006 – so for us to receive praise for two significant projects for Flagship and West Stow is testament to the dedication of the team at Finn Geotherm and our absolute passion and belief in what we do.”
For more information on ground and air source heat pumps and details on Finn Geotherm, visit www.finn-geotherm.co.uk.
What does it really take to work in one of the most respected and well-known military branches in the world? And what can business leaders learn from the lessons it teaches?
James and Mark chat to former RAF Fighter Pilot and Executive Officer of the Red Arrows Dan Lowes, who reflects on his 16 years as a fast jet pilot and qualified weapons instructor (aka Top Gun School!) and how business leaders can learn from the resilience, mistakes, lessons and discipline it takes to make it to the Red Arrows. As he says, it’s not just about being the best pilot (although that does help!)
Dan knew what he wanted to be from a young age, skipping the opportunity to go to university in order to pursue his dream of taking to the sky quicker than others, after all, why do four years at university when the outcome would be the same, just later in life. Dan’s focus on his dream was what drove him forwards in his career, with his goal never wavering, something most business owners can probably relate to!
Dan talks us through the art of a good de-brief, why they’re more important than the briefing and how businesses should embrace them; why role play is a helpful tool for businesses to adopt, helping to road test potential scenarios; how the Red Arrows stop complacency created by repetition; classic goal setting; the true meaning of team work and of course, Top Gun!
We also learn about ‘Red-teaming’, the ‘Half error technique’, and why in briefings you are called by a number not by your name – the answer may surprise you! These are insights not to be missed.
Dan now works as a private jet pilot by day and as a keynote motivational speaker by night. He will soon be found alongside Scott Radford, hosting Performance Hackers, a podcast about discovering the actionable hacks and habits experts in their respective fields can offer to help others achieve their next goals.
We would love to hear from you – you can get in touch with us on [email protected]
If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible or wherever else you get your podcasts, and whilst you are there, we would really appreciate a 5* review, as this helps other people find our podcast!
We are very pleased to announce that, following our journey over the last several months working with ORE Catapult as part of the New Anglia cohort, Proeon are one of 4 companies who have achieved Fit for Offshore Renewables (F4OR) “Granted” status.
Proeon was among 15 companies selected to participate in the latest regional programme. We were accepted onto the programme due to the company’s desire to further increase our capability, competence and competitiveness, and accelerate growth in the offshore renewable energy industry.
Proeon took part in the Fit 4 Offshore Renewables (F4OR) programme to improve its knowledge and understanding of the offshore renewables sector and its points of difference to other sectors the company currently operates within. This allows the company to identify how transferrable its current skillset and offerings are to this new sector and enable it to grow a share of the market within its sphere of operations.
The company was assessed over two phases of the F4OR programme – the first industry-agnostic Business Excellence phase focused on core business management systems and the second Sector-Specific phase focused on key competencies required for success in the offshore renewable energy industry.
In the Sector-Specific phase, areas identified for improvement were related to its understanding of the industry sector itself, specific HSEQ requirements, how to converse in the language of the sector and where to look for relevant information, portals to join to gain access to potential work.
The programme has enabled Proeon to identify how transferrable its current skillset and offerings are to the offshore wind sector and has allowed them to develop relationships with other likeminded organisations.
Dr Dorian Hindmarsh, Business Development Manager at Proeon, said:
“We believe F4OR “Granted” status is a benchmark of our continued development into the Renewables sector and will act as an enabler for future business, continuous improvement and support our drive into a low carbon future”.
Andrew Stormonth-Darling, ORE Catapult’s F4OR Programme Manager said:
“It’s a pleasure to see another set of impressive companies join the ever-growing community of those with F4OR granted status. Over the last 12 months, these companies have benefitted from being part of a cohort, increasing their industry engagement, growing their confidence, raising their profile and their market awareness. They have developed new relationships, technologies, capabilities and experiences, adding value to the UK supply chain. Completing the programme also ensures that the positive culture of continuous improvement is embedded and sustained long term. I wish these five companies well in the coming months and hope that they will reap the rewards from their new ‘Granted’ status.”
The list of New Anglia Cohort F4OR companies achieving “Granted” status is on the ORE Catapult website:
Businesses on average will spend upto 11.4% of their total company budgets on marketing.
With statistics as high as this it is essential that you ensure your company that your marketing budget is optimised to your business objectives and goals.
At Netmatters, we have created a handy new tool to help businesses review their current marketing budget.
Our Marketing Budget Calculator
We have created our free to use marketing budget calculator. This has been created to help provide guidance on what budget your business will need, to align your marketing budget with your specific business goals and targets.
We’ve made it easy for you to determine whether you are getting long term value from your current marketing budget. All you need to do is fill out the fields in the marketing calculator with information about your values and goals and it will provide you with figures you should be considering for your marketing spend to achieve the amount of new customers from your marketing efforts.
Visit our Marketing Budget Calculator today and see what your current budget will potentially bring to your business, you can find our calculator on the following page https://www.netmatters.co.uk/marketing-budget-calculator
Small businesses are one of the success stories of the UK and are arguably the envy of many other countries.
Because of that apparent success, business owners can be unwilling to engage with financial advisers as they feel that they can make better returns by investing in their own business. Some will profess that ‘their business is their pension’.
Whilst investing in your own business should give better returns than those from a well-diversified investment portfolio, this isn’t a free lunch due to the risk of the business failing.
We aim to help business owners achieve financial independence, i.e. having sufficient resources outside, and separate, from their business so that the client is completely financially secure, and their future can be funded entirely independently from the business.
Death or ill health can hit at any time, and that can devastate not only the client and their family but also the business.
So, financial independence is crucial regardless of the client’s plan for the business as it enables the client to have much greater freedom. Whether they want to retain the business, sell it, or pass it onto their children, there is almost no scenario where acquiring financial independence by building up assets outside the business is a bad idea.
Our aim is to help you work out what your aspirations and goals look like; -thus coming up with that all important strategy to get you there.
If you would benefit from understanding how we can help you achieve the above, then please register to attend the FREE Finance webinar and join our panel of experts on 28th October. We are pleased to announce we are partnering up with Bright Business Advice, Saffrey Champness Accountants and us at Ascot Lloyd, the home of Independent Financial advice. The link to register is :- www.brightbusinessmasterclass.com
Chief Executive of accountancy training firm First Intuition, Gareth John, has commended the government for their plans to extend the apprenticeship incentive scheme and thereby support more career opportunities for young people at a time when they need all the help they can get.
In his Autumn budget statement Chancellor Rishi Sunak pledged increased apprenticeship funding in England to £2.7 billion by 2024-25, this is on top of an extension to help and support employers who recruit apprentices.
The government confirmed that employers who recruit apprentices between 1 October 2021 and 31 January 2022 are entitled to incentive payments of £3,000 per eligible learner. This is the second extension to the financial incentives offered to businesses who take advantage of the wide range of benefits of using apprenticeship programmes to develop and retain talent.
Speaking about how the scheme has helped young adults into work since it was first implemented in early 2020, Gareth John said:
“The first round of apprenticeship incentives offered during 2020 and early 2021 did a great job of giving employers of accountants the confidence to continue with their entry-level recruitment plans during a period when they were balancing increased workloads with high levels of economic uncertainty. This recruitment has really helped them with resourcing rising demand now that the economic recovery is in full swing.”
Furthermore, Gareth talks about how the extension and increase to the incentives in early 2021, prompted by the ongoing pandemic, has had an even more positive impact:
“Given the growing difficulties employers in the accountancy and finance sector have been experiencing retaining talent, the extension and increase of the incentives for new apprentice hires through to 30 September 2021 was extremely welcome. It seems clear that at a time when a cohort of young adults leaving education needed as much support as possible in securing their first professional roles the increased incentives stimulated a record number of entry-level vacancies. Well done to the Chancellor for this well-targeted and timely support for job creation!”
Employers are reminded that those who recruited apprentices between 1 April 2021 and 30 September 2021 and who will have started their apprenticeship programmes by 30 November 2021 need to apply for their incentive payments via the Apprenticeship Service by 30th November 2021.
In the Autumn 2021 Budget the Chancellor confirmed a further extension to the apprenticeship incentive scheme which is likely to prompt further recruitment. Employers will be eligible for a payment of £3,000 per apprentice with an employment start date from 1 October 2021 to 31 January 2022. Applications will open via the Apprenticeship Service on 11 January 2022 and close on 15 May 2022.
Gareth comments on this further extension to the scheme: “After seeing first-hand the beneficial impact that the previous two phases of apprenticeship incentives have had on employment opportunities being offered to young adults, it is great to hear the Chancellor has used the Autumn budget to further extend these incentives to the end of January 2022. On top of record intakes of new accountancy trainees being taken on this Autumn I already know of a number of firms whose continued workload growth is now driving a second intake in early 2022. Even more great career opportunities available for even more ambitious individuals.”
Successful business-to-business (B2B) marketing agency Full Mix Marketing has expanded their team by welcoming experienced marketer, Karina Zimmermann.
Karina joins the team with over 11 years’ experience gained delivering marketing for one of Norfolk’s most iconic businesses, Bernard Matthews Foods.
“From strategy to digital marketing, I’m so keen to apply my skills in such a fantastic new environment. It’s slightly different to marketing Turkey Dinosaurs but the fundamentals are the same! It’s about delivering effective marketing which really communicates to our client’s customers” says Karina of her new role.
Originally from Koblenz in Germany, Karina arrived in the UK as a teenager partly through the German city’s twinning with Norwich and went on to study business management at the University of East Anglia.
In over a decade as Marketing Manager for Bernard Matthews, Karina led many significant projects including two rebrands, nationwide multi-channel advertising campaigns and a number of packaging redesigns.
Karina’s new role at Full Mix Marketing sees her swap the leading brand of turkey-based family foods for a wide range of clients in sectors as varied as flow chemistry equipment, intellectual property law and lorry tension curtains.
Karina adds: “Having taken a break to have my daughters, I’m eager to rekindle my love for marketing. I can’t wait to make a positive difference in the team that has already made me feel so welcome!”
Full Mix Marketing has become East Anglia’s leading B2B marketing agency, delivering strategic, digital and creative marketing for a growing number of clients across the region and beyond.
The agency often acts as another business’ marketing department, delivering a comprehensive range of marketing including strategy, PR, website development and social media.
“Karina joins us with a wealth of experience, gained in a large and well-respected company. We can already see the big benefits it will deliver our clients” says Full Mix Marketing’s Managing Director, Sarah West.
Karina is the third member of Full Mix Marketing’s growing team to have been born outside the UK.
“The great benefit of a diverse team is that it provides different perspectives. It undoubtedly makes us even more effective at delivering the best results through marketing for our clients” concludes Sarah.
Having moved to larger city-centre offices in 2020, Full Mix Marketing now has a team of seven and has recently doubled its number of clients, many of which have worked with the agency since it began in 2016.
Karina’s role as Marketing Executive sees her take responsibility for delivering key aspects of marketing for clients including the UK’s largest supplier of gift cards, the designers of innovative new cleaning technology and one of the country’s leading contract electronics manufacturers.
We finished off lastweek by welcoming Regency Security Groupto our digital signage networks across Norfolk! The ad was created by Impact Media Group using a combination of static imagery, a clever use of personal messaging targeted to the audience and some basic motion graphics to draw the eye.
Established in 1993, with commitment to both customers and staff alongside a strong ethos of a standards driven approach, Regency Security has grown to become one of the premier security companies in the UK providing a complete range of security services to an ever changing marketplace. These services include; Door Supervision, Close Protection, Event Security & Stewarding, Guarding, Mobile Patrols, Key Holding , Alarm Response and tailor-led Training Courses from an award winning, fully accredited Training Company.
Digital-Out-Of-Home, synonymous with new creative options for your communication: Modern and innovative, DOOH is the new communication solution for advertisers looking for a means of communication with a high level of proximity, impact and attraction. Thanks to the great flexibility of its utilisation and content, digital advertising can be adapted in different environment. Well used, it becomes an inevitable venue that enhances the recognition, reputation and allocation of the brand.
East Anglian based chartered accountants, Larking Gowen, is proud to be announced regional winner of the Workplace Wellbeing Award in the British Chambers of Commerce ‘Chamber Business Awards 2018’, it has been announced today.
“Attitudes to workplace wellbeing are rapidly evolving. I’m proud to be seen at the forefront of that in this region,” says Jon Woolston, Managing Partner at Larking Gowen. “For us, the wellbeing of all of our team isn’t just a desirable ‘add on’, it’s a fundamental part of our business culture, with positive impacts right across our business.”
Since launching its wellbeing programme, which is being continually developed through engagement with employees and Wellbeing Champions and covers physical and mental wellbeing, as well as wider career, financial, social and community aspects, the firm has seen increases in employee retention and productivity, as well as a reduction in sickness absence.
“We monitor the impact of our wellbeing measures closely,” says Amanda Ninham, Head of Human Resources at Larking Gowen. “We operate in a competitive sector where we have to work hard to attract and retain people. If our employees feel happier at work and are staying with us for longer, that’s a clear indication our approach works”.
“The partners at Larking Gowen are owner-managers,” continues Managing Partner, Jon Woolston, “and this means we still have a personal interest in and can directly influence the kind of environment we want to work in. The nature of our business, with strict submission deadlines, results in periods of intense pressure. It’s particularly important to create a culture where all employees are as happy to discuss mental health and wellbeing as they are to talk about physical health.”
Larking Gowen will now go forward to the national finals of the Chamber Business Awards. The winners will be announced at a gala dinner at Tobacco Dock in London on 29 November.
A multi-disciplinary construction consultancy with head office in Colchester, Essex is celebrating 75 years in business this year with a ‘charity challenge’ for staff launched this month.
Daniel Connal Partnership (DCP), with offices in Norwich, Colchester and London, launched their one-year challenge on Friday 24 September 2021, in an effort to ‘give something back’ as a lasting legacy.
The team of up to 30 DCP staff is aiming to raise £7,500 for Young Minds Trust (www.youngminds.org.uk) by walking, running, cycling and/or sailing 7,500kms over the coming 12 months – as a combined team effort, all logged on the Strava app.
Young Minds Trust is a leading UK charity fighting for a future where all children and young people have access to the best possible mental health support. They work to provide young people with tools to look after their mental health, building resilience and confidence. The Trust also works to empower adults to be the best support they can be to the young people in their lives.
Commenting on the launch Robert Dale, Senior Partner at Daniel Connal Partnership, said: “We wanted to do something special to mark our 75th anniversary and with a few keen cyclists, runners and walkers among our staff we do like a physical challenge for a worthy cause!”
“Supporting the next generation is very important to our DCP family. With recent challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown having a particularly heavy impact on young people, we feel that the work of Young Minds needs to be supported now more than ever,” he added.
The 75th Anniversary Challenge will run for a full calendar year. At the launch event last week 25 members of the DCP team - 6 from the Norwich office – walked, ran or cycled around beautiful Dedham on the Essex/Suffolk border. The brilliant blue skies and blazing sunshine on the day really added to the occasion, which saw participants total 383km of the 7,500km total target.
Established in 1946, Daniel Connal Partnership (DCP) offers a range of specialist construction services right across the UK, with key expertise in education sector builds and public interest projects as well as specialist Health and Safety training. Find out more at www.danielconnal.co.uk