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Inspired by a recent conversation with a listener, this week’s podcast makes reference to Austin Powers, Tony Robbins, Michael Heppell and Ghandi, as James and Mark provide 3 top tips on how to reclaim your mojo in business and in life. Yeah baby!   Listen here. 

It’s not too late to get a 2020 date!

Please see the PDF file below for more information of the current packages on offer for our exciting Corporate Golf Days.

Upgrades available. Must be booked a minimum 72 hours in advance. Terms and Conditions apply, subject to availability.

Call Sarah Jones, Business development manager on 07449 805801 or email sjones@barnham-broom.co.uk.

Hatch Brenner Solicitors is delighted to welcome the Clinical Negligence, Personal Injury and Professional Negligence team from fellow Norwich Solicitor firm Morgan Jones Pett into the Hatch Brenner Solicitors team.

Following the retirement of David Jones as a Director in Morgan Jones Pett, the entire Clinical Negligence team from Morgan Jones Pett are transferring to Hatch Brenner Solicitors on Theatre Street, Norwich.

From 1 October 2020, top Clinical Negligence Solicitor Sara Westwood will be appointed as a Partner at Hatch Brenner Solicitors. She will be joined by her Morgan Jones Pett team comprising experienced Chartered Legal Executive Simon Bransby, along with their assistants Donna Wright and Hayley Harbord.

Colin Cook, Hatch Brenner Head of Dispute Resolution commented: “We would like to extend a very warm welcome to the Morgan Jones Pett Clinical Negligence team as they join the Hatch Brenner Solicitors Dispute Resolution team. Having known Sara and Simon for many years via the Personal Injury community, it is very exciting to have their talent and nationally-recognised expertise within our team. We admire their practical and professional approach to cases and they have a first-class reputation.

“Clinical Negligence, Personal Injury and Professional Negligence legal support are specialist areas, and we are delighted to be offering a heavy-weight provision of experience, accreditation and expertise to our clients. We feel the two teams complement each other, and it will be great to be able to offer a much broader clinical and medical negligence, personal injury and professional negligence practice alongside our existing services, under the Hatch Brenner Solicitors banner. We will continue to champion access to specialist rehabilitation services and family support alongside compensation.”

Sara Westwood, Clinical Negligence Specialist Solicitor added: “Simon, Hayley, Donna and I would like to extend our thank you to the entire Hatch Brenner team for the warm welcome we have received. We are delighted to be joining such a friendly firm with a broad spectrum of legal services, which also has national reach within Clinical Negligence thanks to the combination of our specialist knowledge and experience.”

Solicitor Sara Westwood is amongst the select few specialist solicitors in the UK to be appointed to both the AvMA panel (Action Against Medical Accidents) and Law Society Panel of Clinical Negligence Specialists. She is also a Senior Litigator member of APIL (the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers) and has over 15 years of specialist experience. She has a particular interest in gynaecological and obstetric claims, orthopaedic cases and A&E errors. In her spare time she enjoys badminton, boating and enjoying meals with friends.

Simon Bransby is a Chartered Legal Executive with over 30 years experience specialising in personal injury and clinical errors across a wide range of injury law cases. Outside of work, Simon enjoys cycling, running, music and cooking.

Sara and Simon have both been listed in the Legal 500 and Chamber and Partners Legal Directories as clinical negligence and personal injury specialists for the East Anglia region. They both regularly volunteer as legal advisors to the Norfolk Community Law Service (NCLS) and the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Their experience complements Colin Cook’s impressive accreditations which include being APIL accredited as a Senior Litigator Personal Injury Specialist and Brain Injury Specialist, a Law Society accreditation for Personal Injury and being listed in the Spinal Injuries Association list of accredited Personal Injury Solicitors for 2019/20 and the Headway Solicitors Directory since 2015. Colin is also on the board of trustees for Headway Norfolk & Waveney and is a member of the Norfolk & Norwich Medico Legal Society, Eastern Region Brain Injury Forum and the Norfolk Area Brain Injury Forum.

Performance and train services

Performance continues to be very good with punctuality in the current 4-week period over 95% across our network. Everything went smoothly last week as schools re-opened and more people returned to work. We were already running a full service everywhere except the intercity service, where most services are running, and the Stansted Express, where an extra 8 services a day were added to the current half hourly service from Monday 7 September. We’ll maintain our daily monitoring to enable us to assess when it’s appropriate to add in the remaining intercity and Stansted Express services.

Travelling with confidence

Across the rail industry, train operators are encouraging customers to “travel with confidence”, reflecting all the steps taken to provide an excellent service for passengers. The actions in our safer travel pledge, which are focused on providing more services and capacity, additional cleaning, making it easier to keep your hands clean and providing information to help you travel safely, are all being delivered.  We’ve outlined a number of the extra steps we’ve been taking here at Greater Anglia in support of this commitment in previous updates over the last few months.  

Just a helpful reminder that it is mandatory for customers to wear a face covering when using public transport, in stations as well as on trains, to help reduce the spread of coronavirus. Children under the age of 11 and people with a disability or medical condition which means they cannot wear a face covering are exempt from wearing them. The vast majority of people are complying with the requirements, but the British Transport Police do have the power to impose fines of £100 for non-compliance, if necessary.

We have invested in additional cleaning measures – including more train cleaners, new PacVac equipment for turnaround train cleaning during the day and special testing equipment to carry out random hygiene tests on trains (to help us raise standards even further) – as well as cleaning every single carriage with fogging guns (which disinfect all surfaces, including seats, arm rests, grab handles and windows) to supplement the extra cleaning already being implemented in these high contact areas. We’re also carrying out extra cleaning at stations, where the fogging guns come in handy for larger indoor areas, such as waiting rooms.

It’s still important to observe social distancing. We’ve introduced a wide range of measures to make it easier for customers to do so at stations and on trains – including floor markings, one-way systems, new signs and queuing systems.

We’re looking forward to seeing more and more people taking the train again in the weeks and months ahead. 

Thanks again to everyone across Greater Anglia for delivering a very good service to our customers and communities across East Anglia, with valuable support from colleagues at Network Rail, Siemens, Stadler, Bombardier and our other rail industry partners

Larking Gowen, Chartered
Accountants and Business Advisors are delighted to announce that the firm have
been awarded “Best Benefits to Support Work-Life Balance” at the
Employee Benefits Awards 2025. This accolade highlights our commitment to
promoting a supportive and balanced work environment for all our employees.

Julie Grimmer, Managing
Partner at Larking Gowen, commented, “We are incredibly proud to receive
this award. It is a testament to our ongoing commitment to creating a work
environment that supports the well-being and work-life balance of our employees.
This recognition is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of our entire
team.”

Photo
Credit: Employee Benefits Awards 2025

Picture
front centre: Chloe Alexander (left, head of the People Team at Larking Gowen
and right, Julie Grimmer Managing Parter, Larking Gowen. Joined by members of
the team at Larking Gowen

The Employee Benefits Awards
is the UK’s leading voice on reward and benefits, attracting 130,000 monthly
visitors to their website and hosting Europe’s largest Employee Benefits and
Reward event annually. This year, Larking Gowen faced stiff competition from
notable organisations such as Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust,
Lincoln College Group, Lloyds Banking Group, PepsiCo UK&I, Bosch UK
Holdings, and Sopra Steria. Our innovative approach, including the use of
annualised hours, impressed the panel of 24 judges and secured our win.

The awards ceremony took place
in London on Friday 27 June at the Honourable Artillery Company and was hosted
by comedian Maisie Adam. Representing the firm at the event were Board members
and partners, Julie Grimmer, Ian Fitch, Lizzy Lloyd and Ian Webster as well as
members of the team from across the firm representing Well-being Champions, Mental
Health First Aiders the Employee Forum.

Winner announcements can be
found on the Employee Benefits website.

WLP have a new addition to the team!

“We are extremely pleased to announce the arrival of Lydia Stephens to our growing team of specialists”

Take a look at Lydia’s bio to find out more about her expertise and experience in the healthcare sector.

https://w-l-p.co.uk/author/Lydia-Stephens/#Lydia-Stephens

We are excited to introduce to you our Founder & Principal Consultant, Darren Chapman. Here you can find out all you need to know about the person behind one of cyber security’s up and coming security companies, CyberScale, in a recent 60 Second Interview.

Tell us briefly about your background in IT?

I’ve been in IT for longer than I care to remember (it’s more than 20 years!), in a range of roles from 1st line support through to managing high performing consulting teams.  Throughout that time, I’ve had a lot of involvement in security, but also a lot on the productivity side, so I understand that balancing both sides is critical in business.

How do you keep up to date with trends in the industry?

Lots of discussions with peers and peer groups including government and law enforcement, dedicated time for me (and the rest of the team) and a thirst for learning. Podcasts and audiobooks are gold!

What does the future look like at CyberScale?

Bright, exciting, scary and fun.  I feel like we’re building something that can really make a difference to our client’s ability to deal with an ever-growing business risk without stifling their ability to do business.

What process is most important in creating a secure business environment?

Understanding what you have and why it is important to your business and your clients.  It’s not until you’ve done that that you can really make good decisions about where to put your focus.

Where do you see the enterprise IT department in the future? 

Ever changing, ever more critical to the business.  IT (and security) should be a business enabler, that’s what it’s there for.  Automation is huge, but we’ll always need smart people.

What advice would you give to your 21-year-old self over a coffee?

Hey 21-year-old Darren – when you create your web design company in a couple of years, and it seems like it’s not going anywhere – stick with it!  You’ll be a bit too early, but it’s going to be huge!

What professional accomplishment are you most proud of?

There’s two – consistently positive feedback from employers and clients over the entire course of my career and building CyberScale from nothing after a huge leap of faith!

You can connect with Darren on Linkedin here or follow CyberScale here

Please click onto the document to read this week’s Market Summary.

The UK government has issued guidance on placing manufactured goods on the market in Great Britain (GB) from 1 January 2021. This includes guidance on when the new UKCA mark should be used and how to use it. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-the-ukca-mark-from-1-january-2021 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/placing-manufactured-goods-on-the-eu-market-from-1-january-2021 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/placing-manufactured-goods-on-the-market-in-great-britain-from-1-january-2021 All those manufacturing and distributing products in the UK should read the guidance and consider what immediate action is needed. You should identify which rules apply from 1 January 2021 and the guidance focusses on goods which are subject to the EU’s “new approach” product safety rules, which includes toys, electrical and electronic equipment, and personal protective equipment. There are different rules for chemicals, medicines, vehicles and aerospace. You should check to see if you need to change your conformity assessment or marking. —————————————————————————- In other news with new legislation being published this week, the ban has now come in regarding plastic straws, cotton buds and plastic stirrers from 1st October 2020. Charging for single use carrier bags is extended in April 2021 to all retailers and the minimum charge is changing from 5p to 10p. Drink containers with straws attached are banned from 3rd July 2021. There are some exemptions and businesses are allowed to use up existing stock obtained before the legislation came into force but only until March 2021.

Alex Chidlow has opened his first shop at 33 Queens Street, Horsham.

Experienced accountant Alex Chidlow has recently opened a walk-in tax and accountancy shop servicing the small business community in Horsham.

Alex has almost 20 years’ accountancy experience behind him, in a variety of roles which has provided him with a broad commercial and financial knowledge from which to draw on to support his clients.

He said: “I really enjoy getting to know clients and helping them with their businesses. Obviously, it’s been a real challenge for many small businesses over the last six months, but it’s been rewarding to have a direct impact on their survival by assisting with cash flow projections, furlough and grant applications.

“I’m really pleased the shop is now open for business and I’d like to encourage anyone interested in finding out more about our services and how we can help to pop in for a free consultation. We are also operating a telephone or online service for those who feel more comfortable with these methods. We provide a comprehensive tax, accountancy and advisory service and can offer a range of software solutions, to help clients select the right package for their needs.”

For more information about Alex’s services, visit his website www.taxassist.co.uk/horsham

If you are interested in joining the TaxAssist Accountants network, regular Virtual Discovery Days are being held, where you can find out more about the technical, marketing and business development support on offer. Call 0800 0188297 to request attendance.