Norfolk Chamber’s new International Group will be holding its first meeting on Wednesday, 30 October 2013. The meeting will take place at the Chamber offices at 3.00pm, ending at 4.30pm.
The Group (NITAG), has been established to provide the local business community with a panel of experienced exporters and trade experts, who will be there to help local firms navigate through any problems you may encounter, when trying to export.
Issues with accessing new markets, language barriers and finance issues – whatever the problem, the group will be able to share best practice and steer you in the right direction.
The British Chambers of Commerce recently carried out a trade survey, in which they raised the question of barriers to export. A number of Norfolk firms responded with the following reasons:
I do not have a product/service that is suitable for export
I have enough business in the UK so don’t need to export
Limited knowledge of commercial aspects of exporting
Concerns over the paperwork involved
Cannot find the resources to make it happen
In response to this, we have set the theme for the first meeting as: Growth through Exporting
If you or your company can relate to any of the above reasons, please come along and join the discussion – it’s FREE to attend.
Please click here for details of the panel members.
The University of East Anglia offers the one year, full-time Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) teacher training route leading to Qualified Teacher Status and 60 credits at Masters Level. Find out more about teaching in the Primary school age range (3-11 years) at our Primary Teaching Information Session where representatives from the UEA Primary Teacher Training team will be on hand to answer your queries. All Primary key stages will be covered, including Primary Modern Languages (French, German or Spanish). Generous bursaries apply (subject to eligibility).
The event will be held at the Thomas Paine Study Centre, UEA, Norwich.
We will begin the event at 10:00 with the General Information Presentation. Please ensure that you have arrived by this time.
Commenting on the Labour Party Conference speech by the Shadow Chancellor, Rt Hon Ed Balls MP, John Longworth, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said:
“Ed Balls identified many issues of concern to business in his conference speech, including infrastructure and growth finance. Yet Labour’s policy alternatives on the key long-term economic issues remain embryonic at best. Many policy reviews have been undertaken, but Labour’s renewed credibility with business rests on swiftly setting out concrete and clear measures on the key issues facing companies across the UK. And Labour must address worrying hints that they are starting to lose their nerve on transformative investment projects, including HS2, in favour of current spending.
“I can’t help but feel that many speeches during the party conference season so far are missing the relentless focus on growth that is still sorely needed. Britain’s political class is already focusing more on electioneering, spending commitments and populist rhetoric than on transforming the UK economy from good to great. New tax burdens are being proposed to fund giveaways at a time when we need to be focusing on growing the overall size of our economy, not simply carving up what’s already there.
“Balls made several encouraging commitments, such as new funding to help capitalise a British Business Bank and a pledge to create an independent infrastructure commission. These are important steps in the right direction that all parties could build on.”
Norwich School Young Chamber will be running a business networking breakfast on the 27th November. It will involve four guest speakers including Michelle Jarrold, from Jarrolds, and Matt Bartram, from Heritage Developments. The theme of the event is Company Creation. This includes topics such as growing sales, selling to new markets and creating business in the new digital age.
It will be a fantastic opportunity to network with local businesses and to learn how you can develop your own business.
LSI Architects has been ranked the best UK Employer for Workplace Wellbeing in Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Index 2020-21.
The Practice was ranked top of 114 organisations taking part in Mind’s fifth annual Workplace Wellbeing Index this year. Based on surveys with its employees, the Practice was recognised with a Gold Award, meaning it has successfully embedded mental health into its policies and practices and demonstrated a long-term, in-depth commitment to staff mental health.
Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Index is a benchmark of best policy and practice, celebrating the good work employers are doing to promote and support positive mental health, and providing key recommendations on the specific areas where there is room to improve.
This year’s Workplace Wellbeing Index Awards were hosted by Mind’s Chief Executive Paul Farmer, and took place online on 8 June. The event saw around 200 people come together to celebrate and recognise employers of different sizes and sectors who have prioritised and promoted staff wellbeing.
Every employer depends on having healthy and productive employees – valued and supported staff are far more likely to perform better and achieve peak performance. Mental health problems are common among employees, and research suggests that the past year has been particularly challenging for staff. Mind surveyed more than 42,000 employees across the 114 employers participating in the Index and included an additional section on the impact of Covid-19. The mental health charity found that two in five (41 per cent) of Index employees whose employers were taking in part said their mental health had worsened during the pandemic.
Ben Goode, Director at LSI Architects said:
“We’re incredibly proud to have been accredited Gold in the Mind Workplace Wellbeing Index again this year, and to have placed top of the Workplace Wellbeing Index in 2020/2021 because the achievement is largely based on what our teams have said.
“This has been such a challenging year and I don’t know anyone whose mental health and wellbeing hasn’t been affected.
“Mental health education is conspicuous by its absence in most people’s lives. As businesses, what we can do is help people to access more information around mental health and wellbeing to understand it, recognise triggers and provide strategies to keep people well and resilient.
By capturing things early we can signpost people to suitably qualified people earlier, often before they become a bigger issue. Employees who are less likely to experience poor mental health are simply more likely to be able to do their jobs effectively.”
Emma Mamo, Head of Workplace Wellbeing at Mind, said:
“Many congratulations to LSI Architects for being recognised as our top employer in this year’s Workplace Wellbeing Index. It has been amazing to see their journey over the last five years, going from strength to strength. Despite the challenging times we have all had recently, staff at LSI Architects told us they feel valued and that there is an open culture around mental health. I look forward to seeing how their approach to workplace wellbeing will continue to evolve.”
This event aims to help businesses across North Norfolk better focus and strengthen their marketing strategy.
A recent survey by Larking Gowen showed that 45% of retail and tourism based businesses thought there was a need for more advertising and PR and 20% thought promotion was poor in their local area.
The Business Marketing Conference will cover simple and cost-effective ways to increase awareness and sales of your business and brand.
We’ll look specifically at digital and online marketing as in the survey only 19% of the businesses who responded thought there was a significant benefit to their business, 31% some benefit and 21% little benefit.
The conference is designed to help small and micro businesses and our speakers and talk titles are listed below.
We have two experts to help guide your business message, covering how you can capitalize on FREE marketing through social media.
Nick Pandolfi works with businesses across the UK. enabling them to reach new markets, showing best practise on content creation. You will learn how best to use social media to reach new markets and engage them with them. Which platform works best? What to post and how to be sure your business is noticed are just two of the the answers you will take away.
Paul Britten holds remarkable insight to business internet presence with its mesh of websites, apps and social media, Paul brings together a lifetime of learning photography, art, computer programming, music and combine this with all the stunning new techniques of 360, 3D, virtual and moving reality with different perspectives given by aerial drone techniques. Content being the king of websites, social media and a general presence online he has developed the tools to bring any website, blog or app alive.
Supported by North Norfolk District Council and Sponsored by Hugh J Boswell.
Food Matters Live 2019 is pleased to unveil a bespoke, curated pavilion dedicated to showcasing the latest sustainable and nutritious food and drink innovations from around the UK.
Open to the creative and innovative food and drink start-up community, this pavilion will connect UK buyers looking to meet and do business with the UK’s most promising brands of the future.
Who can apply and how does it work? UK start-ups who are less than two years old are invited to apply for a place on this prestigious pavilion. What makes it unique is that a panel of food and drink experts, involved in the buying process, will be reviewing all the applications and selecting the participants for the Future Brands Pavilion.
The judges include Paul Hargreaves, Chief Executive, Cotswold Fayre; Wan Mak, Head of Nutrition, Sodexo; Olivier Sevenou, R&D Lead – Future-facing Health & Wellbeing, pladis Global; and Tom Elliott, Origination & Development Manager – Future Brands, Sainsbury’s.
As well as an innovative concept that meets consumer demand in health and wellbeing, the judges will be looking for proof of commercial success to date to include the number of existing customers, marketing and distribution channels and future growth strategy.
Every start-up will receive feedback on their application, which will help inform their future business development. Successful applicants will be invited to display their innovations as part of an attractive, purpose built pavilion designed by Food Matters Live
Taking matchmaking one step further
A targeted marketing campaign will promote the Pavilion and run alongside a tailored matchmaking service provided by the Food Matters Live partnerships and hosted buyer team.
Briony Mansell-Lewis, Director at Food Matters Live commented: “With SME’s now representing 97% of the food and drink businesses in the UK* we are seeing how these small, agile and creative food and drink producers are transforming categories, changing retail shelves and providing consumers with a great variety of nutritious, sustainable choices.
With the rise in the number of start-ups, we also recognise the pressure on buyers to keep ahead of the most innovative brands coming on to the market.
By taking this curated approach to creating a UK Future Brands Pavilion, we believe that we can add value to both communities – on the one hand, providing buyers with an efficient way to meet and do business with the brands of the future and on the other, helping ambitious, entrepreneurial start-ups succeed in a competitive market.”
If you are a start-up food and drink producer and would like to apply for a place on this unique Pavilion, get in touch…. Entries close 12 July 2019.
The sixth Food Matters Live will take place on 19-20 November 2019 at ExCeL London with the launch of the UK Future Brands Pavilion. This unique event brings together the food and drink industry, retailers, foodservice providers, government, and those working in nutrition and health. In addition to an extensive exhibition, Food Matters Live offers a multi-stream seminar programme and thought-provoking theatre attractions, featuring hundreds of speakers covering wide-ranging topics – from the latest food and public health policies to the future for the free-from food and drink market, latest trends in sustainable retailing, packaging design and exemplar brand strategies.
Join us at the Town Hall in Attleborough for the next South Norfolk Focus Event. As well as having the opportunity to discuss key topics, you’ll also be able to network with fellow businesses.
Our aim is to have groups in many cities, towns, market towns, and villages across Norfolk, to connect, support, and give voice to every business in Norfolk. These groups are accessible to all businesses, whether you are a Chambers member or a non-member.
These groups will provide you with a platform to debate issues that are most important to you, and your business and the Chamber network will lobby and influence on your behalf, using our dedicated team, our website, social media channels, and our digital platform.
Your feedback will be used by our team and the Chamber’s Board to help shape the strategic direction of Norfolk Chambers to ensure we can truly be the voice of Norfolk businesses.
Whether the local challenge is skills, road, rail, digital infrastructure, recruitment, or the rising costs of doing business, we want to hear from you.
Norfolk County Council, Norfolk Chambers and Vattenfall have been successful in securing funding from New Anglia LEP’s first ever revenue fund.
£22,000 has been secured to deliver a project (overall value £59,000) to build supply chain capacity in the onshore and offshore industries for the energy sector, by seeking to alert SMEs to supply chain opportunities and get ready for them to potentially bid for these. The aim will be to support the creation 15 full time high value jobs, 47 learners and 40 apprenticeships.
Commenting on the funding award, Nova Fairbank, Head of policy for Norfolk Chambers of Commerce said: “We are delighted to be awarded the funding to start building capacity into the Norfolk supply chain. By working in partnership with Norfolk County Council and Vattenfall, we hope to engage with a wider range of SMEs. In understanding where the barriers and gaps are in their capability to be part of the supply chain, we can work with them to improve skills and raise their aspirations.”
Commenting on the labour market figures for April 2019, published today by the ONS, Suren Thiru, Head of Economics at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said:
“The strong increase in employment, coupled with another fall in the number of people out of work, suggests that the UK labour market remains in good order.
“However, behind the strong headline figures a number of key challenges remain.
“Businesses are increasingly reporting that persistent hiring difficulties, cost pressures and ongoing uncertainty are dampening recruitment intentions. If this trend is sustained it could well translate into a weakening in UK jobs growth over the next year.
“Pay growth continues to comfortably outstrip price growth, and in real terms is likely to remain in positive territory for some time to come. However, the combination of a sluggish economy, weak productivity and high upfront costs for business is likely to limit the extent of pay rises.
“The record high number of job vacancies is further confirmation of the perennial skills shortages plaguing UK businesses, which continues to hold back business activity and growth.
“To protect the long-term health of the UK labour market, businesses need answers to key questions on how firms will be able to manage their future workforce needs over the next few years. Brexit has distracted government and Westminster for too long, much more must be done at home to address the UK’s chronic skills shortage, including easing the burden of upfront business costs to help firms to hire and train staff.”
The Norfolk Chambers of Commerce are very pleased to announce the launch of Coastal Co.nnect, a dedicated monthly Chamber space in the heart of Great Yarmouth.
What is Coastal Con.nnect? Coastal Co.nnect is the name of the monthly sessions we will be running in partnership with Great Yarmouth Borough Council from the Town Hall. Whether you’re a member or non-member these are a great opportunity to come and meet us to find out how we can support your business. As we run more sessions we will also have business experts with us who can give advice and guidance on a variety of topics – we’d actually love to hear from you about what kind of expert advice your business could benefit from, please get in touch with us using the details below.
How will they look? Initially we will be running morning networking sessions, 09:30 – 11:30, from the space to encourage local businesses to connect with not only ourselves but also each other. Each week we’ll have a different guest speaker with us covering a range of topics useful to any business. There will be plenty of tea and coffee to keep everyone hydrated and we might even throw in some biscuits! The chamber team will then be available for a further two hours to allow anyone to drop in over lunchtime to say hi, asks questions, find out more about us, whatever you need. The rest of the day will then be spent visiting businesses in the area who want to explore membership further or just want to see our lovely faces.
What happens now? These really are your sessions so as we run them we’d love your feedback to make sure they’re as successful as possible, we welcome all fantastic ideas about how we can benefit our members and the wider business community in Norfolk. For all the early birds out there there’s no need to panic, our networking breakfasts are continuing as normal (we love them as much as you do) Coastal Co.nnect is just another way for us to support our lovely members in East Norfolk.
I’d love to get involved… If you’re an expert in your field and would like to volunteer some of your precious time to help fellow business-people in the Greater Yarmouth area, please get in touch. These sessions are designed to add value to the business community so anyone who’s interested in passing on their expertise in a non-salesy way will be warmly welcomed. We’d love to hear from you!
Sounds amazing, when and where are they? All sessions will be held in the Assembly Room at Great Yarmouth Town Hall, the first is Thursday 16th May. After that they will be: • Friday 14th June • Thursday 18th July • Thursday 15th August • Thursday 19th September • Thursday 10th October • Thursday 21st November • Thursday 12th December
To get involved or find out more please contact Jordan Domin, Customer Experience Team, on 01603 729707or at Jordan.domin@norfolkchamber.co.uk.