The award winning Chef, Franck Pontais, Offer now Private Cooking Master Class for you and your friends at home.
This is the opportunity to Learn from a Master in the comfort of your own residence, don’t worry about the size or facilities in your kitchen, Franck will bring his own equipment with him.
Courses are from Beginners to very keen cooks and will be designed upon your own needs.
For more information please contact Franck on 07960 700 538 or consult his website at www.franckpontais.co.uk.
Greater Anglia has introduced a new Business Plus ticket on the Norwich to London mainline services, which is perfect for the business traveller looking for increased value and some of the benefits of First Class travel, from a Standard ticket.
Business Plus is an advance purchase ticket priced between the Standard Anytime and First Class Anytime fare and provides comfortable, spacious seats with more legroom in First Class accommodation, with complimentary tea or coffee, mineral water and snacks.
Business Plus is available for return journeys only for travel from Norwich, Diss, Stowmarket and Ipswich to London and can be purchased through Greater Anglia’s Business Travel Department and existing corporate sales channels. A Business Plus return offers savings of up to 32% off the First Class open return.
Greater Anglia has also introduced a new advance purchase Business Return fare for travel in Standard Class, aimed at the business traveller and offering savings of up to 30% on the standard open return fare. Ticket holders must have a compulsory reservation on their outward journey but the ticket offers extra flexibility by allowing return travel on any train, even during peak times.
Eleni Jordan, Head of Sales for Greater Anglia said: “We’re really keen to deliver good value for our business travel customers and these new products aimed at the corporate sector offer new and cost-effective options for the business user in Norfolk and Suffolk.”
Seven Day Epic is the creation of James Bonham, a Norfolk lad who has decided to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. James’ dad, John, was looked after by Macmillan during his illness when James, who now lives in Surrey, couldn’t be there. James said “their help, guidance and support was absolutely fantastic, no task was too big or too small whilst maintaining an exceptional level of professionalism throughout a very difficult time”.
James decided he wanted to do something for Macmaillan as a symbol of his gratitude and so he has assembled a great team of friends who are willing to take their bodies to the limit next May, 2014, and cycle 1,400km over 7 days, from Barcelona to Box Hill.
James’ target is to raise £30,000 and has already raised over £5,000.
Leah Phung, Marketing and PR Executive said “We are proud to support James with this fantastic cause. Chris Beck is a member of James’ cycling team and is also the husband of Chantal Beck, in the Leathes Prior Insolvency Team, so we are very well aware of the training and dedication this needs. We wish James and his team every success and will support them all the way to the finish and hope they achieve their target of raising £30,000.”
Specialised Management Services (SMS)will be exhibiting at the 40th SPE Offshore Europe Conference and Exhibition, Aberdeen at the beginning of September 2013, as part of the Alderley Group.
Alderley has won over £57 million worth of orders over the last 10 months and will be delivering a range of projects that include brownfield refurbishments of metering and control systems in the North Sea, produced water treatment and bespoke hydraulic solutions. As an independent system integrator, Alderley has supplied more than 250 systems in the North Sea alone and at Offshore Europe will be demonstrating how they provide clients with technology that best fits the application, is best in class and best for their clients’ business.
Eric Maddock, Group Business Development Director says, “Alderley have been providing a range of applications to the North Sea fields ever since 1975 when we became the first to measure oil from this region. We have used our experience in technology and local standards to delivery technical excellence throughout our projects.”
Eric continues by saying, “We look forward to returning to Offshore Europe 2013 to further establish our relationships with our local clients and highlight our range of capabilities and new offerings in the oil and gas industry.”
Over the past 18 months, Alderley have delivered to the Jette Field a Hydraulic Power Unit and Topside Umbilical Termination Unit to NORSOK standards, a Produced Water Treatment skid package designed to to treat produced water from upstream production and test separators to the Luno field and are in the process of shipping a gas metering system and an oil metering system along with their associated controls systems to Korea for the BP Quad 204 project.
For more information on Specialised Management Services and the projects they have delivered you can visit them at stand C60 at the Offshore Europe 2013, Aberdeen from the 3rd – 6th September 2013.
Norse Commercial Services has expanded and upgraded its call centre, creating six new jobs at its Norwich head office.
The new facilities have been created to handle increased volumes of facilities management operations, brought about by the company’s consistent growth over the last 12 months.
“We’ve seen over £30 million of new and renewed business over the last year,” said Sales Director Geoff Tucker, “with a number of new multimillion pound joint ventures with local authorities around the country, and substantial new contracts with private sector and educational establishments. All this has created increased demand for the support services that are controlled via our call centre hub.”
The helpdesk is the communication hub for Norse’s Facilities Management Division which operates at approaching 300 sites across the UK.
“The FM Division has always had a 24/7 function but with the growth of not only the FM Team but the organisation as a whole, there was a need to move to new, larger dedicated facilities at Fifers Lane, where there is room for further growth,” commented Emma McMurdock, FM Business Manager at Norse. “There has been a substantial investment, with new offices, operations facilities and meeting rooms being created, all of which will help maintain a highly efficient service to our clients’ sites.”
The centre which currently employs 10 call operators, has also invested in the latest computer telephony technology to log and monitor work requests.
“As the company continues to grow, and call volume also increases as more service divisions start to use the centre, there will inevitably be further job opportunities in the future,” McMurdock said.
As well as receiving and coordinating tasks such building maintenance issues, security issues including alarm activations, cleaning requirements, staffing calling in unwell, and management of the company’s lone worker system, it also manages all the associated administration.
The centre even got a call recently regarding the whale that was stranded on Gorleston beach, as Norse is often a first point of contact for local authorities looking to escalate environmental or human welfare problems under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
The new building work was carried out by the Norse in-house teams of FM Service Engineers who installed the electrics, air conditioning and data cabling, with local contractors building the internal structure.
I was really pleased to receive a written testimonial from one of our new customers, Climate Air Conditioning Ltd. Company Director, Phil Rees, wrote “having only 2 telephone lines with a ‘least cost routing company’, I didn’t think it would be worthwhile looking at; however my bill arrived the day before my meeting with Kevin so I gave it to him just in case. His response was immediate, not only was he able to offer me better rates for line rental and calls he also found I was paying for a service I didn’t need. Just by switching to Breakwater I will save over £400 per annum”.
The moral of Phil’s kind letter was to emphasise that you are never too small to take the time to review your telecoms services and look for saving. However, my view was quite different because you are never too big either. If a business with just 2 lines can save £400 per annum, does that mean a 4 line customer can save £800 and a 20 line customer save £4000?
So how did I save Phil money, especially when he was using a so called “least cost routing company”? It was easy, over the last 18 months the wholesale cost of fixed to mobile calls have reduced twice and line rental is reducing this September. At Breakwater IT we are very fortunate because our wholesale partner has passed discounts onto our customers all 3 times! So, I reduced Phil’s line rental by a little and his cost of calling mobiles by a lot, 70% in fact.
Having 20 years’ experience in the telecoms industry, I am very quick to identify cost savings and calling plans that just do not work for customers. Call commitments, call capping, call allowances, call set-up charges, minimum call charges, inclusive minutes, are all terms that just don’t seem to deliver what they promise especially when they are not billed properly. Earlier this year I met Julian Garrood, Director of Drayton Caravans and Norfolk Caravan Hire. I completed a similar audit of their telecoms bills. They have 5 lines so according to Phil’s experience they should get a saving of £1000? In fact annual projected saving was £1290, but that’s not all. 4 of the lines were digital ISDN2e and were on a tariff called “Start-Up” which includes a £20 per line per month call allowance. However their provider was not passing the allowance on due to a billing error. Julian was very pleased with an additional refund of £391 which we claimed back.
So, if you like the prospect of saving money on your telephone bills together with the comfort that your rates are pro-actively monitored then a free Breakwater IT telecoms audit could be for you. Not only that, our fixed line services are only contracted over 30 days as we are confident that you won’t need to look no further.
And again, you are never too big or too small to use Breakwater IT for telecoms services. Phil will receive his line rental reduction on the 1st September along with East Anglian Air Ambulance, Seajacks, M+A Partners, Norfolk Country Cottages and many more.
Breakwater IT offer IT Support and Business Telecoms solutions across the East Anglia region.
The recent case of Newbury v Sun Microsystems [2013] serves as a useful reminder of the importance of expressing documentation to be “subject to contract” whilst under negotiation. In this case the High Court held that correspondence between two parties negotiating a settlement sum amounted to a binding agreement. In order for negotiations to have continued the parties should have used the words “subject to contract” in the correspondence.
An employee (Newbury) brought a claim for unpaid commission. In response the employer counterclaimed for the recovery of overpaid commission, thus a dispute entailed. To avoid going to trial the employer’s solicitor sent a letter offering a settlement sum to the employee’s solicitor containing the following terms:
“Our client is willing to settle the entire proceedings by paying the Claimant within 14 days of accepting this offer, the sum of £601,464.98 (the “Settlement Sum”) inclusive of interest by way of damages, by means of an electronic transfer into his nominated bank account, in full and final settlement of the Claim and counter-claim plus the sum of £180,000 in relation to his legal costs, such settlement to be recorded in a suitably worded agreement.”
The letter was not expressed as being “subject to contract” and the employee’s solicitor responded accepting its terms. As a result there was an offer, an acceptance, consideration and an intention to create legal relations; all the ingredients required to form a legally binding agreement.
The employer had intended to negotiate further terms of the settlement contract, in particular with respect to income tax, confidentiality and the form of the consent order. Therefore the employer argued that there was not an intention for the correspondence to form a legally binding agreement.
The High Court held that there was a contract contained in the correspondence and that the conduct which occurred after the date of the letters could not be used to determine whether there was an intention to create a legally binding agreement. As the letter was not expressed to be “subject to contract” there was a demonstration that there was an intention for the offer to be legally binding. If the words “subject to contract” had been used, then it would have been clear that the terms would not be binding until a formal contract was finalised and agreed.
This case is a classic example of why, when offering or negotiating a settlement of any dispute or agreeing terms of a contract, it is important to add the words “subject to contract” to correspondence where it is intended that further terms are to be negotiated. In fact it is often very sensible or even tactical to focus on key terms at the initial stages of negotiations to enable efficient progress and to then look to introduce certain subordinate or ancillary terms later.
So remember: always express correspondence to be “subject to contract” until you are satisfied with all of the terms and you intend to make the agreement legally binding.
Norse Commercial Services has been awarded a major building cleaning contract by Norfolk Educational Services.
The three-year, £2.5 million contract covers cleaning at four institutions within the Transforming Education in Norfolk (TEN) Group: City College Norwich, City Academy Norwich, Wayland Academy Norfolk and Fakenham Academy Norfolk.
Norse Commercial Services Director Ruth Metcalf says that the contract covers a wide range of services including daily, periodic, specialist and window cleaning. Norse already provides grounds maintenance and security services to NES, and the addition of this cleaning contract confirms Norse’s position as the leading FM provider in the East of England.
Jan Benson, Managing Director, Norfolk Educational Services, said: “We are delighted to be working with Norse Commercial Services on this major new contract across institutions as part of the TEN Group’s pioneering shared services model.”
“Our aim is to work together to raise the bar in this area, delivering value for money for the college and academies in TEN Group, exceeding the expectations of students and staff with the quality of service provided, and energising the newly transferred staff through a new approach that we believe others will look to follow.”
Sales Director Geoff Tucker says, “This follows other major contract awards for Norse in recent months, totalling over £5 million. In a highly competitive environment, it’s great to win yet another prestige contract. “
Around 90 staff will transfer to Norse under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations, (TUPE), bringing the company’s workforce to 8,500.
Karl Alderton, the founder and managing director of Norwich-based telecoms company, Comms Supply, an EDP Future50 company, has hit out at other suppliers in the business telecoms sector. He is calling for all suppliers to pass on recent wholesale telecoms price reductions to their existing clients.
Wholesale telecoms costs have dropped three times during the past 18 months. The first two reductions were in landline to mobile call costs. These were triggered by Ofcom, the independent regulator for the UK communications industries, capping the cost of mobile termination rates. Ofcom introduced a staged plan to reduce costs which will conclude by 2015. The most recent wholesale reduction is in physical line rental.
Increased competition amongst the biggest players within the industry is also bringing about improved access to advanced technologies and cost efficiencies. For example, Talk Talk, Vodafone (who have recently taken over Cable & Wireless) and BT Wholesale are pushing hard against each other, particularly in the area of leased lines. Leased lines, or Ethernet services, allow data to be transmitted over a direct fibre ‘pipe’ from a client’s office to an exchange and have, historically, been too expensive for smaller businesses. With the big three players making major advances in this technology and making it available to smaller businesses, leased lines are becoming a cost effective option for more and more organisations.
These price drops, technological advances and efficiencies have saved business telecoms suppliers significant amounts of money across their client contracts and yet the vast majority of suppliers have not passed any savings on to their existing customers.
Comms Supply has passed all their wholesale savings straight on to customers and will be making a further reduction in charges on 1st September 2013. This means that customers will see the third reduction in their monthly bill in less than two years.
“I’m sure that many business owners would say that my decision to reduce our potential profits by passing on wholesale price reductions to customers is a foolish one,” says Karl Alderton. “But I set up Comms Supply with a very public commitment to treating my customers with respect and being open and honest in the way we operate. If I didn’t pass on these savings to customers then that promise would be completely meaningless.”
“I’m incredibly frustrated by the widespread business practice of offering new customers a special deal or reduced rates to tempt them in,” continues Karl. “In my view, existing customers deserve the very best service and prices we can provide. That’s the only way we will secure their loyalty and have the opportunity to stay with them as their businesses grow.”
Comms Supply launched in early 2012, providing customers across East Anglia – and beyond – with a range of business telecoms services: from basic phone or broadband line rental to complete systems. The company has invested heavily in developing new technology including a hosted solution which provides a cost effective and efficient option for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Comms Supply’s open and honest approach has been well-received by customers. The company reached an annual turnover of £1million in June this year and has more than doubled its workforce in the past 12 months.
To find out more or to arrange a free business telecoms audit please call 0333 2020 900 or visit www.commssupply.co.uk.
Norvic have some exciting news we hope will be of interest to you.
This autumn we are opening a brand new training centre on the outskirts of Cambridge. The venue at Glenmore Business Park has the benefit of ample free parking on site.
Open courses in First Aid will commence this October and will run every month. Our venue will also be available for those clients looking for an off-site location for their closed courses.
Course dates for this year can now be found on our website.
Norwich based solicitors, Leathes Prior, one of East Anglia’s leading law firms, will be working with East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) over the next 12 months to raise funds and help support local families.
EACH is a charity that runs three hospices, including Quidenham in Norfolk, providing care and support to local life threatened children and their families.
Staff at Leathes Prior have a number of events and challenges planned from the mental to the physical including their annual Golf Challenge.
Leah Phung, Marketing & PR Executive at Leathes Prior, said: “We’re delighted to be supporting EACH this year and raise awareness and funds for such a great cause. The main event is our annual Charity Golf Challenge which is a league based competition during the summer and then ends with all the players taking part in a finals day in September. We look forward to working with EACH during the course of our Golf Challenge and raising money for this Charity.”
Gary Cook, EACH Norfolk Fundraiser, said: “We’re delighted and extremely grateful to Leathes Prior for choosing to support EACH and we look forward to working with Leah and the team on some interesting and exciting projects. Leathes Prior really play an active part in the community and supporting a local charity that helps local families only go to strengthen those ties.”