Member News

Norwich based Pippa Shaw, who started her business, Pink Spaghetti PA Services Norwich, last year has proved she has the talent to succeed by being picked as a winner of the Twitter ‘Women on Wednesday’ campaign.

Women on Wednesday, or #WOW, was started by Jacqueline Gold CBE (CEO of Ann Summers) in 2011 to promote women in business.  She is passionate about using her success to promote other women entrepreneurs, and each week encourages female business owners to tweet her using the #WOW hashtag with details of their business.  She then picks her three top entries for that week, choosing businesses she feels have a unique offering and the potential to grow and succeed.

The extra publicity from the #WOW win, including re-tweets and sharing details of Pink Spaghetti with Jacqueline’s 57,000 plus followers, will help Pippa develop her fledgling business and reach potential new customers.  Pippa also gains access to the WOW Facebook group of previous winners for business advice and tips, and a winner’s badge to display.

“Winning #WOW has given my business a new year boost and is the start of things to come in 2019.  The opportunities for growth in the Personal and Virtual Assistant industry are phenomenal, with more and more local businesses seeing the advantages of using a ‘pay as you go’ service.  It’s wonderful that Jacqueline is helping to spread the word about what women in business can offer.

“I am very proud to be one of three winners out of the more than 200 businesses who tweeted using the #WOW hashtag, and am looking forward to seeing my business go from strength to strength this year.”

You can contact Pippa at:

Email: pippa.shaw@pink-spaghetti.co.uk

Phone: 0333 355 0982

or via her website at: www.pink-spaghetti.co.uk/contact-us/pa-service-norwich/ 

Jacqueline Gold’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jacqueline_Gold

The Enterprise Centre, a leading business hub on the University of East Anglia campus, is delighted to be offering free business cards to any new signs ups to one of their virtual tenancy packages. The Enterprise Centre is a vibrant community of start-up and SME companies, totalling over 75 distinct businesses. A wide breadth of sectors and specialisms are included and interested companies are encouraged to contribute to the development of fellow tenant companies to ensure mutual growth and success. Three options for virtual tenancy are available. This is all in addition to the offer of office suites and dedicated co-working desks, for those businesses and individuals who require permanent access to work space. All virtual tenants benefit from use of a very reputable business address, post-handling and discounts. Free use of hot-desks and meeting space is also available with the majority of packages, together with a full series of engagement and business support events. Virtual tenancy with The Enterprise Centre is an ideal choice for those individuals working from home but looking to make the next business development step. It provides an excellent opportunity for mutual support from an engaged and friendly business community. It’s also a very useful option for companies based outside of Norfolk looking to establish a client base in the county or for companies who have colleagues working across different areas who would benefit from one central location. Do get in touch with the team for an informal chat via theenterprisecentre.tenancy@uea.ac.uk or 01603 591366. Further information is also available here: www.uea.ac.uk/adapt/the-enterprise-centre/tenancy. We would be delighted to hear from you and discuss the best option for your business and individual needs.

MENTA has announced it will continue to hold Coffee Means Business on a monthly basis during 2019. The informal business to business networking events are popular with small business owners who gather at different locations across north Norfolk to meet new contacts and make new business links.

Coffee Means Business gives delegates the opportunity to circulate throughout the morning and talk over coffee and biscuits.

Leanne Castle hosts the events and commented, “Coffee Means Business is very apealing to business owners as there are no joining fees or membership requiremnts, just £5 payable on arrival. We’ve introduced two new venues for 2019, The Feathers Hotel at Holt and the Hawk and Owl Trust near Fakenham. These locations have been added to our regular venues of Scarborough Country Inn Hotel at North Walsham and Fakenham Racecourse.”

“The events have a friendly, informal ‘vibe’ and we encourage people to speak to as many of the delegates as possible. Networking is such a useful way to make new contacts and find out about other business services available.”

The next dates for Coffee Means Business are Tuesday 19th February, from 9.30am until 11.30am at North Walsham and 19th March at The Feathers at Holt from 9.30am until 11.30am.

For more details go to the event tab at www.genix.org.uk or call 01284 760206.

We are thrilled to announce our recent partnership and work with Casino Market, a UK online casino affiliate which is looking to revolutionise the way in which the casino market in the UK operates. There is a great deal of focus on casino operators at present (the companies where users play games.) However, there is not too much of a focus on the likes of Casino Market who are affiliates and partners to those very operators.

Rather than prospective players having to ‘shop around’ for the best online casino for their preferences, affiliates like Casino Market bring all the information together to help users make much more informed choices of casino. This also allows users and players to make use of potentially numerous welcome bonuses and exclusive offers. Moreover, Casino Market operates a Responsible Gambling policy which means that those who may be at risk of debt are avoided.

What are we doing for Casino Market?

Casino Market’s website was initially not developed for search engine optimisation (SEO) at all. This meant that it simply did not rank in any way online on Google or any other search engines. We therefore have been working round the clock to ensure this innovative and exciting site is able to be found by potential users online. This has entailed us undertaking some imperative tasks:

Updating the Content Management System (CMS) – Working with the in-house development team at Casino Market, we worked to transition them away from their old, non-optimised CMS to a much more SEO-friendly CMS that can be more easily read by all search engines.

Crawling Factors – This has included updating URLs on the site, fixing every page’s meta data and ensuring that all page titles are optimised for both users and SEO. We have also been working with the developers at Casino Market to make sure that the ideal pages for each type of user are found online.

Getting Them Out There – Having not had any marketing work performed on this website or even its brand, we have been working with various partners to ensure that through the means of online and digital marketing, the Casino Market name and brand gets the exposure it needs. This is also a strong trust signal for Google and other search engines, with popularity and knowledge of brands driving some of the highest quality users

Content – The Casino Market site previously had next to no content on the website. Thus, Google and other search engines were unable to read most of what was on the pages. Therefore, we are working on a strong and comprehensive content strategy to ensure the site can be crawled as well as engage with by all users

At our Best Employers Eastern Region awards conference in October 2018, Bidwells Managing Director Catherine Spitzer and Director of People and Change Julie Archer, shared their experience of completing a total transformation of the leading property consultancy’s Cambridge headquarters to create a truly agile workspace.

Whilst few businesses will have the resources to invest in complete office refurbishment, there is a lot of inspiration employers can take from Bidwells’ story.

During an ‘on-stage’ interview with Jeanette Wheeler, Partner at Birketts LLP, Catherine and Julie described Bidwell’s transformation: 

“Our objective was to create a workplace where our colleagues are empowered to be their best and to reaffirm Bidwells as a great place to work. Our head office at Trumpington Road was not working physically or mentally for our employees. It was a traditional 1970s building and the layout of long corridors and individual offices meant people were very siloed. Colleagues who had worked together for over 30 years didn’t really know each other. We believe people are stronger in teams than they are as individuals, yet we had a whole host of knowledge and experience, which wasn’t coming together. Our aim was to create a workspace which encouraged conversation, engaged employees to share expertise and enabled them to work better, both together and individually. 

“We recognised that some employees would naturally be worried about change and that not everyone would want the same things from their work environment. To manage this we took the approach of treating everyone as individuals. We actively encouraged everyone to have their say and to help shape ideas for the transformation. We asked people what they needed to do their job well, what most frustrated them about the office and what processes and technology would make things easier. As well as asking what people wanted, we also asked what they thought we should ditch because it wasn’t adding any value. We carried out more than two years of research before we began the reconstruction, as we wanted the design to be right.

“The three-storey office has been reconfigured into zoned spaces. It’s not a completely open plan, but there are no internal offices other than meeting rooms. Instead, there are different zoned areas of anchored desks, break out spaces and quiet areas. The idea is to empower our 250 plus staff by giving them a choice of different environments to work in. Everyone is encouraged to move around the office as they see fit and based on the task they are working on. There are options to work seated or standing, a variety of chairs to choose from including comfortable winged chairs in both open and slightly more private spaces. If people need a quiet space, they can find one. If they want to sit on a sofa to catch up on reading without any distractions, they can. Alternatively, there are a huge number of collaborative areas where people can work together.

“There are still people who are naturally drawn to sitting in the same areas, but we really are seeing people moving around more. One of the biggest changes is that people don’t sit and eat lunch at their desks anymore. We all congregate for lunch in our ground floor café. This really encourages conversations and a team mentality as people naturally talk over food and drink – it’s the social glue!

“The new-look office has only been open for less than a year, but so far the results are really good. When you walk in it feels like a ‘happy’ environment. People are working more collaboratively and talking to each other more. We have even had past employees return to the organisation as well as attracting key personnel to the business because of the changes.

“This office transformation is just one element of us evolving the business without wanting to make changes just for the sake of it. It is part of a wider plan to shape our strategy, vision and culture. Having been established for 180 years this year, we are not looking to substantially change Bidwells, just to build on its strengths and to make the firm fit for the future and the size it has become. The new workspace really helps bring our culture to life and it is encouraging everyone to live by our values, which include having fun. We are delighted with the way it has turned out and our employees love it already.”

Find out more about Best Employers at www.best-employers.co.uk

Chartered accountants and business advisers, M+A Partners, has further strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Faith Pearce, Senior Tax Manager.

Faith started her tax career as a private client tax assistant for a large national accountancy firm, where she qualified as a Chartered Tax Adviser.

Although starting out in private client tax, Faith has experience in corporate tax compliance and more recently has been involved in a number of tax advisory projects, covering various aspects of tax planning for land owners, high net worth individuals, shareholders and business owners.

As a growing firm, that is very much looking to the future, M+A are delighted to be consolidating the knowledge within their senior tax team and expanding this area of the business.

M+A Partner Clare Goodswen commented “Faith brings extensive tax expertise and specialist knowledge to the firm. I know her as someone that can confidently manage and advise on all tax matters, giving our clients an excellent level of service.  We are thrilled to welcome her to M+A Partners and wish her all the best in her new position.”

WHAT IS THE NEW ANGLIA SCALE UP PROGRAMME AND WHO IS IT FOR?

The Scale Up programme has been launched to support businesses with high growth potential up to 20% in terms of turnover. These companies have been categorised as ‘Silver’. Those achieving growth in excess of 20% in terms of turnover or FTEs are categorised as ‘Gold’.

The mission of the Scale Up programme is, therefore, providing the business support to turn ‘Silver’ businesses into ‘Gold’ businesses.

The objective of the programme is to engage with potential high growth businesses throughout the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk and to create an exclusive community of like-minded peers and industry and topic experts. This programme will provide ongoing support and also understand and develop the nature of the high growth ecosystem required to generate growth across the New Anglia region.

KEY BENEFITS TO SME TO JOIN THE HIGH GROWTH PROGRAMME

– Access to members only workshops, information tools, meetings and events

– All businesses at these events are like-minded and keen to grow and develop their businesses in Suffolk and Norfolk – peer to peer support and discussions

– All businesses are in Norfolk and Suffolk

– Access to industry experts and information from dedicated growth/scale-up bodies and people

– Access to inspirational local and national businesses who have been on the scale-up/growth journey

– Three-year programme in place to take them into the next step

– Cross organisational support (i.e. Tech East, Invest East, Councils, Chambers)

EVENT & CONFERENCE

New Anglia Growth Hub is delighted to announce the launch of the Scale Up programme.  There are two launch events planned so far and more to come.  The first two events are supporting Digital Tech and Manufacturing.

The first event is for Digital Tech. The event and conference is on the 6th February 2019 at Bedford Lodge Hotel, Newmarket CB8 7BX.

The second event is Manufacturing.  The event and conference is on the 26th March 2019 at Barnham Broom Hotel, Norwich, NR9 4DD.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

These events and support are free, but booking is by invite-only through signing up and being accepted on to the programme. This too is a free and simple process but will require review and approval by our High Growth Adviser. If you have not already been contacted you can apply through the simple form below, which will then be reviewed and you will be contacted by phone or email, either to discuss this a little further or get your full details to add you to the programme.

After you have been accepted, you will be able to get invites directly to your inbox for all our events, and be able to access to the supporting information from these events will be through the New Anglia Scale Up Portal on the New Anglia Growth Hub Website.  As this is all free, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Kick start your growth today and apply below.

To read more please click on the leaflet and agenda below.  If you wish to discuss this further before completing this form, please contact our High Growth Adviser, Morgan Potter through his email: morgan.potter@newanglia.co.uk

New Anglia Scale Up & High Growth Launch Event Leaflet

New Anglian Scale Up & High Growth Launch Event Agenda

APPLY TODAY!

Following a year in which companies have been faced with additional security and privacy requirements such as the GDPR, they are increasingly looking to technology to help them adapt to the challenges ahead.

As an IT services provider, Breakwater helps clients identify and manage the technologies to support this ever-changing world. Key to delivering this, is a team with the knowledge to recommend the right solutions for each individual client and the sector they work within.

Breakwater are delighted to begin 2019 with an experienced team of individuals and to be in a position to promote internally, with the appointment of two new Directors in its senior leadership function.

Jack Fisher takes on the role of Operations Director and Stuart Moll, Technical Director.

Jack has worked for Breakwater since 2013 and was previously Service Delivery Manager, creating a knowledgeable team of engineers that manages client enquiries. Jack’s new position will see him further strengthen the expertise within the Service Desk, enabling future growth for both the business and its clients. There will be a focus on investing in apprentices and talent from within the region.

Jack commented “This is an exciting time for both Breakwater and myself in the new position of Operations Director. I am looking forward to building on the knowledge we already have within the business and creating efficiencies that mean we continue to provide a very high level of service. There will be a real focus on training and equipping engineers with the skills to capably respond to all enquiries, transforming operations with the most effectual technologies.”

Stuart Moll was previously Breakwater’s Senior Systems Engineer, and in his new position as Technical Director will focus on the solutions, products and processes used to ensure the smooth-running of clients’ systems.

Stuart commented “Having the right technologies and supporting processes in place shapes the way a system works. I am thrilled to be taking on a role that allows me to directly influence both the solutions used within Breakwater and those we recommend to our clients. I will be working with our network administration and centralised services functions to offer a proactive service that develops with the client.”

John Gostling, Managing Director commented “It is wonderful for us as a business to have the existing talent to be able to promote from within. Jack and Stuart are both an asset to Breakwater and have worked hard to ensure we have progressed in both the service we offer clients and the processes and systems we create. I wish them all the best in their new roles and look forward to seeing the successes I know they will continue to achieve.”

HR Apprenticeships in Norwich

Blue Sky Professional Development in partnership with Colchester Institute have spaces available on their HR Support (level 3) and HR Consultant/Partner (Level 5) apprenticeship programmes starting in February and May. These courses include a CIPD qualification and can be totally funded through your apprenticeship levy. Don’t pay the levy? 90% of the course can be funded by the government, the organisation pays just 10%. To ensure you or your colleague will have a place, or to find out more contact us now –  beth.russell@blueskypd.co.uk 

Are you aware of the Hebron Trust, a charity based in Norwich and what they do?

The Eye Film team were very happy to work with them to create a short film that helps them to explain exactly what they offer and who they are here to help. They, like many, are subject to Government cuts and subsequently need to fundraise to make up any shortfall in order to continue to provide a safe, nurturing and intensively supportive community environment for women in which to rehabilitate from drug and alcohol dependency and the life-dominating problems that serious substance misuse can cause.

Do watch this space for the launch of their social media campaign soon to support their good work.

Surely all wine is vegan friendly – I mean it’s just grapes, right?

Wrong.

As the JMS Group recently discovered!

We were asked by Broadland Wineries to create a social media video exploring this very subject.

We learnt that there are actually a number of wines that use animal-based products during the production process. However, Broadland Wineries brand of Proudly Vegan wines use plant-based alternatives – without compromising the quality and flavour. In fact, the brand is 100% vegan friendly, right down to the ink and glue on the label!

The video gave us the opportunity to film at Erpingham House – the fabulous vegan restaurant in Norwich’s Tombland. The owner Loui Blake, a passionate vegan spokesman, is filmed extolling the virtues of the Proudly Vegan brand.  The restaurant also specially prepared some dishes to pair up with the vegan Merlots, Rosés and Sauvignon Blancs.

It seemed appropriate to be making this video in January – it is Veganuary after all! It’s very interesting to be spreading the message about one of the biggest growing food trends – and despite the abundance of wine on the shoot our team was still safe to drive the van back to base, but then our team are consummate professionals! Now get pouring!

Want to see more? Look out for the finished video – coming soon!

A Norwich-based equipment manufacturer has stepped up its global presence by supplying bespoke equipment for an Australian snack maker. Fabcon Food Systems has provided a full seasoning system for Snack Lovers, a savoury snack manufacturer known for the unique shapes, textures and tastes of its products which are sold across Australia. Working closely with the Melbourne firm’s owners, Fabcon has completed the installation of a full bespoke seasoning line at the company’s factory as it looks to increase its output and product range.

It’s Fabcon’s eighth installation outside of the UK in the past 12 months – on top of new orders in Nigeria, Romania and further business in Kuwait.  Trevor Howard, managing director of Fabcon Food Systems, said: “Snack Lovers has a long and successful history in the Australian snacks market so we’re really delighted to be part of the company’s ongoing success story. We clicked straight away with the team and understood what they needed to help support their seasoning process.

“Our system is now fully installed and playing a key role in the production of many popular potato snacks. We’re looking forward to developing our relationship in the months and years ahead.” Ewan Busch, co-founder of Snack Lovers, added: “We met the Fabcon team at a trade event in Vienna in 2017 and were really impressed with the quality of their seasoning equipment and its pricing.

“We had specific quality improvement needs for our systems and Fabcon really stepped up to the challenge and reacted quickly. We’re delighted with the installation and it has really improved our production process for our snack products. Our relationship with Trevor and the Fabcon team goes from strength to strength.” Formed in 2015, Fabcon Food Systems manufacture, supply and install innovative handling and processing equipment for the food industry. Designed and built at the company’s Norwich factory, Fabcon’s team of 25 supply systems and machinery to customers in the UK, mainland Europe, the Middle East, Australia and Africa. Snack Lovers was founded in 1999 by Mr Busch and his wife, Sharyn. Readers can find more information through www.snacklovers.com.au

Technical overview Fabcon Food System provided the following equipment to Snack Lovers:

• A vibratory product infeed conveyor • A volumetric draw seasoning screw feeder • A Scarf plate feeder • A retractable support structure for both feeders to facilitate access to the tumble drum for cleaning • A stainless steel tumble drum