Whether it’s a beer garden bumble or a full blown outdoor extravaganza, there’s something about summer in Norfolk that makes you want to get exploring the opportunities to take work…and marketing for that matter, outside. With so many fantastic examples of events leveraging the outdoors as their energizing venue from the Norfolk Show to Norfolk Enterprise Festival, to Fresher than a Fayre, we’ve extended our range of outdoor products ready for the summer events season.
We’re committed to quality and recently launched our campaign for better portables, which we have considered in our choice of outdoor products. So if you or your business are looking to take events outside, there’s more to us than meets the eye and we’re always on hand to offer no obligation advice on getting the most of outdoor events as well as offering a full design, management and production service for all your further needs.
If you’re looking to plan your own outdoor event or have a product in mind, get in touch today to ask how we could help.
Employers urged to get second hand machinery inspected following death
A routine safety inspection could have prevented the death of James Criddle, 29, who suffocated when his clothes became caught in the screener machine, purchased on eBay and missing its safety guards, in May 2017. His employer, Robert Baldwin, of Baldwin Skip Hire in Norfolk, was cleared by a jury at Norwich Crown Court of manslaughter, but found guilty at Norwich Crown Court of neglect in failing to discharge a duty.
Gavin Dearsley, Risk Management Advisor at Alan Boswell Risk Management (ABRM), said the tragic accident was entirely avoidable had the correct health and safety procedures been followed. “Sadly, accidents like this happen more regularly than they should,” he added. “Financial pressures in the business world often lead to companies trying to find ways of saving money by buying machinery that isn’t new, and therefore not built to modern design standards. As we’ve seen, the implications of that, and of then not having a health and safety inspection, can lead to tragic consequences.”
Mr Criddle was operating the £18,000 screener machine, which sorts material of different sizes and includes a cylindrical drum, when the absence of safety guards caused his clothes to become caught. He died from suffocation, just five days after the machine had been brought to the skip hire site. In his defence, Baldwin said it was “not obvious” that the machine was missing vital safety equipment.
Make sure your equipment is safe
But that misses the point, as under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) – the UK implementation of the European Work Equipment Directive – the law requires employers to ensure all equipment is safe for use, and that full training is given to employees. In other words, even if employers think second hand equipment looks safe, they have a legal duty to ensure that it is.
“For us, with a trained eye looking at it, it would have been obviously unsafe,” said Mr Dearsley. “It’s incredibly sad to see this because I know that if we had been out to see that machine before it was used we could have stopped it happening. There is obviously a cost involved, but you can’t put a price on someone’s life. Often they have no instruction manuals, no warranties, and they have issues, whether it’s missing guards or faulty e-stops on electrical machinery.”
He added that, while the “gold standard” would be for engineering and manufacturing companies to only use modern equipment built to European standards and CE marked, such a scenario is economically unrealistic. “It’s completely unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to keep buying new equipment, so it’ll never happen, and you can get some really good second hand equipment that’s built fantastically well,” he said. “But the law requires employers to do a risk assessment of the machinery, and that’s where we can make a real difference.”
Costs for machinery risk assessments will vary depending on the number of machines and the time taken, but could be as little as a few hundred pounds.
Alan Boswell Risk Management can help
If you have questions about your existing equipment, want advice before purchasing something new, or want a full health & safety audif for your business, Alan Boswell Risk Management can help. Based in Norwich and operating across the country, our experts work with companies in a wide variety of industries.
To find out more, give our risk management team a call on 01603 967900.
Freebridge is once again inviting applications to their Community Fund, with £5000 being made available to local community groups and charities.
The housing provider’s annual fund gives local groups the opportunity to apply for grants of up to £1000 to support community and voluntary activities that meet the needs of the community within West Norfolk.
Applications are welcome from groups whose aims include:
Promoting health and wellbeing;
Tackling disadvantage;
Supporting local solutions to local needs;
Promoting community cohesion;
Developing sustainable and supportive communities, and
Improving the environment.
Last year among the successful applicants to the £5000 fund were 4 Transform, Age UK Norfolk, the Hanseatic Union, the King’s Lynn Men’s Shed, Sing Your Heart Out, South West Norfolk Youth Opportunities Project and The Garage Trust Ltd. The allocation of the money available is decided by a panel made up of Freebridge employees and members from their Tenant Panel.
Freebridge Director of Housing, Robert Clarke, said: “Freebridge is committed to supporting community groups and the work they do across our region and through our fund we can provide financial help to projects and initiatives that are making a real difference to people’s lives and helping to support a better West Norfolk.”
Norfolk Community Foundation manages the fund on Freebridge’s behalf. Any community or voluntary group wishing to apply, or just find out more about the Freebridge Community Fund can visit https://www.norfolkfoundation.com/Freebridge-Community-Housing-Fund.html or telephone 01603 623958 or email [email protected]. The closing date for applications is Friday 17 May 2019.
Ever wondered whether TV advertising is still important, and how it’s adapted over the years? Here’s a great podcast with the MD of JMS Group Francesca de Lacey based at Hethersett just outside Norwich. JMS are leaders in the field of TV advert creation, working with leading brands to create imaginative capmapigns that deliver. They don’t just create TV adverts, but anything to do with media in their purpsoe built studios and they have a fascinating history.
If you are among the business owners who are worried about the strategies that can help your business get well-known enough that people know about your product, you do not need to worry anymore. There is a technique through which a lot of small businesses have got an advertising benefit as well.
That is a technique known as pay per click advertising. There are a lot of companies in the business world that utilise this form of marketing. If you look on Gogle alone and simply search for ‘specialist PPC agency in London‘ you will find countless companies. There are a lot of benefits of a PPC agency.
PPC boosts the traffic on your website
If you have spent a lot of time creating an attractive and user-friendly website, but no one knows about it, what benefits are you getting out of it?
It is always better to use the techniques employed by a PPC agency, and that is that the paid advertisement of your company would appear on the very first page that you open on the search engine and that is how people will get to know about your website. The more the traffic is on your website, the greater the chances that someone will purchase the product that you offer.
You only pay for clicks
PPC is a cost-effective marketing technique as you do not have to pay for anything unless someone clicks on the ad. When someone does so, it means that the ad is getting a degree of recognition and therefore so is your company.
Not difficult to produce
It is not difficult to have a PPC ad per se. You can make it yourself or even hire a professional to make it. And with the time you can have that ad running, that too is not a lot of time.
You can analyse the performance in real-time
With other marketing strategies, the results are unknown until the marketing strategies are applied and the work has been ongoing for some time. However, in the case of PPC advertising, everything happens and runs in real-time, from the number of clicks to all other real-time data. That is better for a small company so that one can easily analyse how the company is performing and if they need to improve their methods in advertising or to get people as their loyal customers.
Whether you have an office full of hayfever sufferers, or you and your family suffer from this annual problem, you may not immediately think of blinds as a solution. However, Louvolite, one of our fabric suppliers, has created Pollergen™ – a unique fabric treatment that has the Allergy UK seal of approval.
Pollergen™ treated fabrics contain an active ingredient that captures and then neutralises the pollen, thereby helping to reduce the effects of hayfever. All Pollergen™ fabrics can be washed or wiped down with little effect on the pollen reducing qualities. This is because the active formulation continuously migrates to the surface of the fabric, providing many years of protection. Norwich Sunblinds make bespoke blinds for homes and offices, and Pollergen™is just one of the options available. If you are looking for commercial blinds, we can also help you with other options such as antibacterial and antifungal finishes, solar protection and anti-glare coatings, and we can ensure that your blinds are fire-retardant. We’ll visit you to chat through your needs and to take measurements. We can also help with extra large or unusual shaped windows in commercial buildings.
More than a business park, King’s Lynn Enterprise Park is a dynamic hub designed for high-growth industries, collaboration, and sustainable living.
Set in a scenic riverside location with seamless regional and global connectivity, our 15-hectare site offers ready-to- develop plots within a thriving enterprise zone. Backed by government investment and integrated into a growing community, we provide businesses with the space, support, and infrastructure to shape the future of the region.
It will not come as a surprise to you that the customer reviews are integral to any business.
But do you know why?
Customer reviews help to refine the ‘customer experience’. As a business that is built upon respect, knowledge and passion, it is in Chatsbrook’s nature to prioritise our clients over the revenue we receive. What this means for a customer-centric business, is that we wish to make every point of contact outstanding to our clients – from the initial enquiry to the delivery of your asset(s).
Harnessing customer reviews helps us to analyse and review the service that you receive as well as to celebrate the parts you enjoyed! For instance, we have recognised that many of our clients were impressed by our timeliness, transparency and friendliness.
Our mission is to provide a reliable and trustworthy service to everyone. We want potential clients to feel how much we care about our ‘customer experience’ through the online reviews.
Chatsbrook would like you to know that it is worth putting your trust in us.
The ‘customer experience’ at Chatsbrook has been modelled by what we, ourselves, expect from other services. We expect businesses will communicate efficiently, respect us and understand our needs. Chatsbrook is no exception to this. It is our pleasure to serve you, which is why from the offset we make it our mission to understand you and your needs. Our team, out of courtesy, make a continual effort to keep you up to date during every stage of the process- so you don’t have to worry.
Online reviews are often used to consolidate our ethos to employees we train. Chatsbrook value our testimonials so much so, that they are used as the standard of how we interact with our clients. Since the beginning of the business over two years ago, we have yet to receive a bad review. If we were ever to, we would treat that client with the same level of respect as we treat any other client. We welcome honest feedback as it could present a learning curve -of which future clients would benefit from. It is important for all businesses to recognise the importance of the ‘customer experience’ because there is always room for improvement.
If you wish to tell us your experience of Chatsbrook, or if you would like to view our reviews for yourself follow @Chatsbrook on Facebook. Alternatively, you can read our Google reviews if you simply type ‘Chatsbrook’ into Google.
At the 54 hour hackathon that is Sync The City, in 2017 Callum Coombes and his colleagues won with their brilliant concept to protect lone workers. They won because of a solid business case, having spotted a gap in the market with clever use of technology. It’s one thing winning a competition, however hard that may be, but another altogether to actually bring their concept to market. The key question was is there a market in the gap they had identified?
Hear their journey here in this insightful podcast. The lessons learnt, how they operate as a team, what they would do differently if starting again.
Crucially in less than two years, they have a fully functioning product and proposition – ready to launch to the world!
Yesterday I went on a trip with the Norfolk Chambers of Commerce. It was a backstage tour of the Theatre Royal in Norwich. It was absolutely fascinating.
It’s great to see the auditorium and look it out from the stage and see what the actors see. But the most fascinating part of the visit was going backstage.
It was extraordinary how big the theater was behind the scenes. The stage is actually a tiny part of it, and the auditorium is not much bigger. But backstage is absolutely massive. It is a rabbit warren of dressing rooms, star dressing rooms, wardrobe rooms, props rooms, a long line of pulleys that make all the scenery and the curtains work, everything. It was enormous.
This got me thinking about us at LiveLink. We are the backstage of the theater. We’re pulling up the curtains, moving the props, making sure everything is ready for the actors to do their job. Our clients may be the star, they may be working in the clinic, or running their hotel. They are the ones that are showing off at the front. They’re the star. They’re the person in the spotlight. Whereas, we’re the people pulling on the pulleys behind them. Getting all their bits to work so that they can do their job.
We’re answering the telephone calls; we’re speaking to the clients. We’re listening to all their woes and worries and concerns when they’re calling, so that our client can just be this very big smiley person at the front with the big arms open wide, saying “Welcome”.
Everyone needs someone to shift the scenery. Who moves yours?
Tudor Lodge Consultants is happy to reveal we are working with a new loans broker in the industry, My Financial Broker (https://www.myfinancialbroker.co.uk/). The company helps customers find the best loan product available to them through their affiliate lending network. The service is completely free for potential borrowers to use, and instead, lending partners receive a commission. If a loan application is successful, it is possible for funds to be transferred within just an hour.
Our SEO team has been called on to help improve the firm’s online presence through our tried and tested methods, knowing that we have a strong reputation for achieving excellent SEO results. Here is what we have achieved so far.
What we are doing for My Financial Broker
Writing new landing pages – one of the best ways of building an online presence and establishing an excellent reputation is through producing concise, relevant landing pages. This indicates to users that the loan broker has a strong level of expertise and knowledge of its industry making it trustworthy. Strong, in-depth landing pages are also important SEO wise: by ensuring that these pages are structured correctly to meet SEO requirements. For example, our team has done this by choosing relevant content topic titles, as well as using the right H titles, such as h2 headings and internal links which are detected by Google algorithms.
Site clean-up – Our SEO team understands that making sure My Financial Broker’s website is fully optimised is vital for its Google ranking success. As a result, we have carried out a thorough clean up of the website to improve its SEO rating. For example, we have ensured that all titles, descriptions, internal links, response codes and image-alt text have all been optimised and fixed, helping to facilitate the indexing of the website by Google.
Acquiring links – another way we have been helping the loan broker has been through acquiring links to promote trust and authority of the website. We have made sure only reputable websites are now linking to My Financial Broker, which also makes it easier for Google to crawl the site and consequently improving the sites ranking.
HMRC have wisely decided to delay the introduction of the much maligned Domestic Reverse Charge.
The DRC, that was due to have a major impact on the way VAT is collected and reported within the building and construction industry from 1st October 2019, has now been postponed by twelve months.
With the uncertainty of Brexit looming and as many as two thirds of businesses within the industry not even aware of the DRC, the delay represents a victory for common sense with many industry representatives having long called for the new legislation to be postponed due to a lack of effective communication from the Revenue.
HMRC claim that they are still committed to the introduction of the DRC, which now comes into effect from 1st October 2020, stating that it will “work closely with the sector to raise awareness and provide additional guidance and support to make sure all businesses will be ready for the new implementation date.”
Despite the industry breathing a collective sigh of relief with the announcement, some businesses will have already spent time and money preparing for the changes, leading no doubt to frustration at the decision that has been made at the eleventh hour.
For more information on the DRC, including news of the delay that was announced last week, visit www.astonshaw.co.uk/drc.