Member News

Attleborough-based renewable heating expert Finn Geotherm, is celebrating 10 successful years of installing ground and air source heat pumps across the region.

Established in 2006 by David Alston, Finn Geotherm is the UK’s only approved installer of Lampoassa heat pumps, which are made in Finland. David, who is half Finnish himself, spotted the opportunity to bring this technology to the UK and set up Finn Geotherm to do just that, utilising his degree in Engineering. David ran the business part-time while he worked shifts in an engineering role in the food industry. It quickly became clear that the skills needed from subcontractors to install heat pumps weren’t available in the UK so David took everything in-house to start building a reputation for Finn Geotherm as the renewable heating experts. The business quickly grew and soon became a full-time job.

David was joined in 2009 by commercial director Guy Ransom. The pair met over an air source installation at Guy’s home. Guy quickly recognised the great potential of Finn Geotherm and, with a background in corporate finance, was well placed to help drive the business forward to where it is today. The company has not missed a single sales target in the past seven years and has achieved just under 40% growth annually since then.

In the past 10 years, the company has gone from a team of three installing 10kW heat pumps to 20 staff installing 350kW systems. Other key milestones from the past 10 years include:

• 600+ projects installed to date for all types of building, from churches and cottages to offices and even the zoo.
• A total of around 600km of ground loop installed – enough to reach from Finn Geotherm’s offices in Attleborough to Edinburgh!
• Secured £10m in Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments for customers
• 12MW of heating has been installed for customers
• By switching to ground and air source, in the past year alone, Finn Geotherm has saved 24MWh of heating energy and around 16,000 metric tonnes of C02.

David Alston, technical director at Finn Geotherm, said: “Although heat pump technology has been around for more than 150 years (the first large scale ground source heat pump was installed in 1945 for Norwich City Council’s electrical department), it’s still relatively new in the UK. When I set up Finn Geotherm ten years ago, I could see the great potential of renewable energy and felt passionately that this was the best, most sustainable technology for heating and hot water. Finn Geotherm has continued to grow as more and more consumers and businesses recognise the fantastic benefits delivered by heat pumps.”

Guy Ransom, commercial director at Finn Geotherm, said: “We are delighted to be celebrating our 10th anniversary in 2016 and what a year it’s been. We’ve been shortlisted for more than 10 awards and have scooped the titles of Rural Enterprise of the Year in the EDP Business Awards and Small Business of the Year in the Chamber of Commerce Awards eastern heats and been made a member of Future50. We have a great team on board here at Finn Geotherm who have completed a hundreds of innovative, highly efficient and money-saving heat pump systems for customers across the region. It is an exciting time to be in this industry and we’re certainly looking forward to the next 10 years!”

For more information on Finn Geotherm, see www.finn-geotherm.co.uk.

Chartered accountant and business adviser Price Bailey has appointed Martin Simons as Business Development Manager for Norfolk.

Previously Corporate Relationship Director with HSBC Bank, Martin has more than 37 years banking experience, with the last 10 years working with corporate businesses across Norfolk and Waveney Valley.

This experience involved working with business leaders to obtain a good understanding of their business, their challenges and strategies, advising on appropriate financial and funding solutions and providing introductions to relevant external skill providers to help achieve their business and personal goals.

“I am delighted to be joining the Price Bailey team,” said Martin. “I look forward to working with everyone and to putting my experience to good use to help the firm achieve its growth plans,”

“Martin brings a huge amount of local knowledge and technical expertise to the firm,” said Daren Moore, Price Bailey Partner. “He joins Price Bailey at an exciting time. We have grown considerably over the last few years and are poised to grow and develop even further, Martin will be instrumental in achieving our strategic aims.”

Would you like to improve your health in 2017 but find lack of time a barrier to making changes?

Take part in the Active Lunch 8-Week Challenge by adding some bite size activity into your day and you could win some great prizes this January and February!

Every week you log activity during the challenge – online or using the Workplace Challenge Mobile App – you will be entered into a prize draw to win some great prizes including cinema tickets, shopping vouchers, annual gym memberships and a helicopter flight!

Every minute counts in Active Norfolk’s Active Lunch 8-Week Challenge running from Wednesday 4 January – Tuesday 28 February.

Not currently active? Why not begin by making small changes and building in 10 minutes of physical activity into your day. You could swap a desk-based lunch to an active lunch by taking a quick walk with your colleagues – making the most of the lightest, brightest, part of the day.

Are you the competitive type? If so, you can challenge your colleagues and other workplaces through the Workplace Challenge leaderboards or create your very own leaderboard to compete with friends, family and colleagues.

Visit www.activenorfolk.org/challenge for more bite size activity ideas or to download posters and content to promote the Active Lunch Workplace Challenge in your workplace.

Sign up to Workplace Challenge for FREE at www.workplacechallenge.org.uk/activenorfolk

Sign up to Workplace Challenge for FREE at www.workplacechallenge.org.uk/activenorfolk

Venkat Subramaniam ISBN-13: 978-1680501742

I wanted to start this review simply with “Wow! Just wow!”, but that’s not really going to cut it. It’s true to say that when I first learned that there was going to be a book published called “Test-Driving JavaScript Applications” I was sure it was going to be the book I had been waiting for since at least late 2007 when I was forced to write JavaScript in production for the first time. It’s publication date was pushed back and back, so it really felt like I was being made to wait. However, I wasn’t disappointed and this book was everything I hoped it would be and more.

We all know JavaScript is evil, right? Why is it evil? It’s the lack of a decent type system, the forgiving nature of the compilers and an inability to write meaningful unit tests, especially for the UI (User Interface). It’s difficult to do a huge amount about the first two points, but now JavaScript can be meaningfully unit tested, even in the UI context, with Karma, Mocha and Chai. Test coverage can be measured with Istanbul and System Tests (referred to by Subramanian as Integration Tests – this is my one bugbear with the book) written with Protractor. All of this is described in Test-Driving Java Applications.

I think it’s important to read all of part 1, Creating Automated Tests. The chapters cover everything you need to know to get started writing unit tests for both server side code and UI code, how to test asynchronous code (very important in JavaScript) and how to replace dependencies with test doubles such as fakes, stubs and spies. It’s all demonstrated with a completely test first approach with excellent commentary about how this leads to good design.

I cherry picked from part 2, Real-World Automation Testing. I was only really interested in how to write automated tests for the DOM and JQuery and how to write ‘Integration’ tests. Other chapters included how to write tests for Node.js, Express and two versions of AngularJS. The DOM and JQuery chapter was excellent showing me exactly how to take advantage of test doubles to write fully tested JavaScript without having to fire up a browser, resulting in something I can make immediate use of.

The Integrate and Test End-to-End chapter, which describes how to use Protractor, was almost enough to encourage me to abandon Java (Selenium) for System Tests and move to JavaScript. However, while looking at the latest version of Selenium, there are some other things I want to investigate first.

The final chapter, Test-Drive Your Apps is the equivalent of Pink Floyd playing Run Like Hell at the end after Comfortably Numb. It’s still good, but is really there to help you wind down from the climax and could just as easily have been omitted, but it would feel a bit odd if it was.

If there was one more thing I could get from this book it would be how to send test and coverage results to SonarQube.

If you want to use JavaScript, intend to use JavaScript or are forced to use JavaScript, get this book and automated the testing of your JavaScript.

Following on from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to CBI Annual Conference 2016, Naked Element explains that Industry 4.0 is a revolution individuals and organisations must be aware of in order to prepare themselves for the big changes that lie ahead.

When people hear the words ‘Industrial Revolution’ images of brick built factories come to mind, plumes of black smoke billowing from their chimney stacks, the working men with their faces stained with grease and grime. An image of a bygone age, where the combustion engine and manual labour transformed our world.

Compared to this smog-filled revolution that most ordinary people will be familiar with, the fourth industrial revolution will seem like a work of futuristic science fiction, conjuring up images of Skynet and robots that can think for themselves. Aptly named ‘Industry 4.0’ this forthcoming revolution, like the ones before it, promises to dramatically change how industry works. There is some debate about what the previous three revolutions where, with some focussing on IT related changes only from the 1970s onwards, but most include all major upheavals to manufacturing processes from the end of the 18th century.

The rise of two things in particular can be attributed to powering the tech revolution – cloud computing and the Internet of Things. In simple terms cloud computing enables individuals or companies to work anywhere there is connectivity, to access and share their data by accessing ‘the cloud’ of information, rather than relying on files stored on a work server only. The Internet of Things is exactly what it sounds like. ‘Things’ (your car, your fridge, your central heating system) are connected to the internet and can be controlled remotely through that connection. The combination of these two could mean great things for manufacturers. In fact companies in Germany are already leading the way.

Production machines that can connect to the internet can be monitored remotely. They can also connect to the other machines on the production line. Give that machine access to the cloud and it can access data gathered from the rest of the factory. A connected ‘workforce’ that has real-time production data available to it can monitor itself, has the potential to self-diagnose and adjust its actions accordingly. This may all sound a little far-fetched but it’s more of a reality than one might think.

There are companies already taking advantage of the advance in data collection brought about by the Internet of Things. Identifying where improvements can be made to processes to increase yield, or using 3D printing to reduce production time and increase profit margins, or simply analysing data to pinpoint exactly what customers desires are, and how much they’re willing to pay to have them met, to increase turnover. These are all real world examples of how Industry 4.0 is already changing how industry works.

How should businesses prepare for these big changes though? For many the biggest obstacle is cost. Updating technology, replacing machines and employing developers is expensive and the investment may just be too much for some. For those that can afford to make changes, it is essential that there is a strategy in place. It’s all well and good collecting lots of data, but how is it to be used? What advantages can it give and how are changes to be implemented once improvements have been identified? The way companies do business is also something to be considered, as the manufacturing process is changing so does the market place and business must be prepared for competitors to emerge. The other point to take into consideration is once data has been collected, and used to its potential, how will that data be managed? Is the cybersecurity up to scratch? And, just as importantly, is the tech and development team? One thing that is agreed upon is that there is no stopping Industry 4.0. It will have a revolutionary impact on the way we manufacture and business needs to be prepared. Let’s just hope we don’t need John Connor’s help in our futuristic landscape.

Briar Chemicals firefighters paid a special visit to Mile Cross Primary School to help pupils learn about fire safety as part oftheir Great Fire of London project.

The eager youngsters were thrilled to meet Fire Safety Officer, Sam Fisher, to learn about fire safety in the home. As part of the fire safety educationfor children in local primary schools, Briar Chemicals use their training and expertise to deliver key messages, in a reassuring way, to make sure children understand the importance of fire safety.

Year 2 pupils have been learning about the Great Fire of London, which swept through the central parts of London in September 1666. The children made a model village, including the bakery in Pudding Lane where the fire started, which Samused to show the children the dangers of how quickly fire can spread.

Stuart Allen, Head Teacher said: “It’s great for our children to receive a visitfrom a Fire Officerat Briar Chemicals. From barbecues to bonfires, outdoor events happen all year round and for a lot of people, lighting a fire is a great addition to the atmosphere and the event itself. However, just as fire safety is important indoors, it is also crucial that we take all relevant precautions for outdoor fires, too.”

“Having the opportunity to listen to a Fire Officer and fire safety messages, as well as having a go in a Fire Engine, is something that will have a lasting impression on the children and hopefully help them to stay safe around fire.”

120 pupils, aged 5-6 year old, at Mile Cross Primary were treated to an up-close look at a real fire engine and all the equipment. The children pretended to be part of the fire crew and sat inside the fire engine whilst firefighter Sam turned on the sirens. They also had the opportunity toaim the water hose andknock a ball off a cone in the playground.

Briar Chemicals’ Fire Safety Officer, Sam Fisher, said: “We work with local schools to educate young people about fire safety; helping them to identify potentials hazards and learn how to stay safe from fire. These visits are an effective way of delivering an important message, in a fun and memorable way.”

Fire safety advice is available on the Norfolk Fire Service website; www.norfolkfireservice.gov.uk

Dynamic Print was established in Norwich by Barney Phillips back in 1999.Barney spends his days designing and thinking of type. He prides himself in his typeface knowledge and is known in the trade for his ability to identify various fonts. He is even sad enough to go on-line and enter a competition recognising different fonts; his score being in the top 25 in the country!The team at Dynamic Print thought it was time to explain why hestill loves to print, even after a lot of years. This is where Eye Film could help, we love telling stories. Together we have created this hopefullythought provoking video, explaining very simply Barney’s motivations – somemany of us may connect with ourselves. Shot over a a couple of days, out on his bike, at home and at work, the result was’Type’.

Human Capital Department featured in the “Caring Times” – article about how HRMS can help drive efficiencies and cost savings in this hard pressed sector.

Contact us for more details Tel. 01553 609968

Email. info@humancapitaldept.com

Norwich website design agency, Bigfork, have designed and launched a brand new website for engineering recruitment specialists, Technique Solutions. The new website has a refreshed, modern design with improved site navigation to help visitors effortlessly search current vacancies. You can see the new Technique site at https://www.technique-solutions.co.uk/. Bigfork, who specialise in website design, search engine optimistaion and online advertising, have had an extremely successful year with a record turnover and many new clients wins.

Bigfork LtdWe make websites stand out T 01603 513080www.bigfork.co.uk

Airport Introduces new scheme for passengers with hidden disabilities

Norwich Airport has been working closely with numerous local charities to help make air travel accessible to all and improve the Special Assistance Service offered at the airport. As part of this commitment the airport is pleased to announce the introduction of a new scheme to assist passengers with hidden disabilities.

From Monday 5th December coloured wristbands will be available free of charge for passengers and any friends/family colleagues travelling with them to wear as a discreet sign to airport staff that additional support may be required whilst travelling through the airport.

Jamie Price, Norwich Airport’s Security Manager commented “Working with passengers who have or are affected by hidden disabilities such as autism, hearing impaired or sight loss can really help ease the fear of air travel. As a result we have made many changes to our Special Assistance Service including providing the opportunity to talk with us, on a one to one basis ahead of travel to try and alleviate any anxieties or fears they may have about using the airport. We are also able to facilitate a ‘trial run’ at the airport before their chosen flight which has already proven to be successful. We are keen to improve the airport experience for anyone travelling with a hidden disability and the new wristbands available for passengers who wish to wear them, is just another step towards improving the overall passenger journey through Norwich Airport.”

The pale blue wristbands will be available from the Special Assistance desk located just inside the terminal building.

For further information on the Special Assistance/PRM (Passengers with restricted mobility) facility at Norwich Airport please call 01603 420672 or visit www.norwichairport.co.uk/special-assistance

Steve Jenkins Design have worked with Schäffer in the UK for the past two years on their Marketing and Advertising material, contributing to a growing market share in the UK. SJD’s successful approach has even been adopted by the German parent company. We have just created the new 2017 campaign to reach across all medias including journal advertising, social media and exhibitions.

When it comes to articulated telescopic loaders, Schäffer machines are the most successful in their class with the widest range worldwide. Precision performance on any terrain, with lifting heights and loads that you will not find in comparable machines from the competitors. The compact design, which is characteristic of all Schäffer loaders, makes them easy to use particulary in hard-to-reach areas, where size matters! Add to this the renowned Schaffer reliability, built in user friendly controls, modern and purposeful styling and you have the perfect material handling solution.

You know what it is like. You buy a car. Your dealer may give you half a tank of fuel with the deal. It’s only going to take you so far before you have to fill up again. This is pretty much the same with a website. You need to fuel it up every so often. If you don’t it is like putting a Ferrari on the Autobahn with a Skoda engine inside it: It will look fantastic, but it will never perform to its full potential.

Until now companies have(typically) relied on an SEO agency to ‘fill up’ their website, on a monthly basis and have commited to beingin a long-term contract. This may be good for some, but invariably the process becomes stale and the impetus is lost as nothing really changes. Filling up your website means that you need to have the right ‘juice’ to gain improvement online. But, it is likely your competitor will change their ‘additives’ (content on page and off) and therefore likely that you will have to too. So, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is likely to fail.

SEO is a methodical process. It takes time, understanding of your market, and skill in changing and replacing code to satisfy the cravings of the engines. It is up and down – like fuel prices! The needs and requirements of the search engines are also up and down.

At Metalfrog we have always tried to do something a little different.

So what makes us different? Well, Metalfrog is on page 1 Google UK and .com for a number of major searched key phrases covering SEO services and associated practices. There are testimonials and endorsements across the Internet and stored at its offices too.

We know that there are many companies out there offering the kind of services we do, but we’ve never seen this particular type of offering before.

If you want more details please checkout our new page on the website:https://www.metalfrog.co.uk/pay-as-you-go-seo-the-new-way-to-improve-your-websites-ranking

If this interests you please get in touch and we can tailor make a package for you and against your competitors. We look forward to speaking to you soon.

Metalfrog: creative search engineers.