Member News

We are proud sponsors of the next East Anglian Society of Chartered Accountants (EASCA) welcome event, which will be held on Friday 6 May to celebrate its recently qualified members.

As we specialise inAccountancy recruitment, we are always delighted to support events which champion the exceptional up-and-coming talent we have in this region. The EASCA’s welcome event is a fantastic opportunity for those who have worked incredibly hard throughout their Association of Chartered Accountants (ACA) training to celebrate their achievement with their peers.

The fun, informal event will take place on the River Cam and includes one of Cambridge’s most iconic activities – punting! Invites have been sent to those who have become professionally qualified in the last three years, encouraging them to attend the celebrations and to bring a guest with them.

As well as punting along the scenic river, the free of charge event also includes a Pimms reception on arrival. This will give guests the chance to meet with other recently-qualified ACAs from the region and to hear from Andrew Ratcliffe, national president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

The Pimms reception starts at 6pm at The Granta Pub’s beer garden, overlooking the river, followed by punting from 6.30pm. The evening will culminate with a barbeque and music from 7pm. If you haven’t yet booked to attend, it looks like it will be a great evening and we’d encourage you to come along. To register your place visithttps://bit.ly/1JKfwKn

The multi-award winning Enterprise Centre at the University of East Anglia picked up further accolades yesterday at the British Council for Offices (BCO) awards ceremony. Successful in two award categories; Corporate Workplace and Innovation.

Its 7th annual regional award, the BCO was established in 1990 and is the country’s leading forum for the discussion and debating of issues affecting the office sector. The recognition for The Enterprise Centre is testament to the quality of working space offered within the building to the business community. A visit to all buildings was an intrinsic element to the selection process and the judges’ visit to the building on 8th February clearly impressed them.

Offering flexible work space options from offices suites to co-working desks and virtual tenancy, The Enterprise Centre is an inspirational building. At near 100% occupancy since opening in June 2015 a vibrant and dynamic community has already formed. The original vision to become the location of the region’s most successful green business hub is already in evidence, primarily supporting the SME and start-up community.

Not solely concerned with office space, The Enterprise Centre is also a creative and impressive location for exhibitions, events and conferences with facilities including a stunning roof-top terrace, 300-seater lecture theatre,seminar and meeting rooms.

Following success at the East Anglia and Midlands ceremony on Thursday in Birmingham’s prestigious Town Hall, The Enterprise Centre will now compete at a national level in a bid to win the property sector’s highly respected ‘Best of the Best’ award at a ceremony at the Grosvenor House in London on 4th October.

Today (Wednesday 27 April) is known as Administrative Professionals Day, the perfect opportunity to recognise and celebrate the work of secretaries, PAs and all types of administrative assistants working all over the world.

Here at Pure we are strong advocates of all those working in office support roles. Because we recognise these positions as being integral to the success of an organisation, we’ve built a dedicatedprofessional office recruitment teamwith an outstanding track record of providing effective temporary and permanent office recruitment solutions.

Those working in professional office support roles are often the unsung heroes of many organisations and there are still many misconceptions among the general public about the level of responsibility which comes with these types of roles.

Nowadays many PAs and executive administrators make key decisions and manage big budgets every day. They work alongside chief executives and leaders and in a recent survey of more than 1,700 PAs and secretaries, 16% said their boss regularly took their recommendations on business decisions. In many cases, PAs in particular have become among the most powerful people in a company. Another recent survey showed that three quarters (76 per cent) of PAs were privy to confidential information such as mergers and acquisitions long before the rest of the company.

Our Professional Office Recruitment team is dedicated not only to helping local employers find effective temporary and permanent office support, but also to supporting the on-going career development of those working in this field. Many networking and training events held across the region are mainly designed for managers, directors or HR personnel. We believe the hard-working, ambitious people working in professional administrative roles should be included in the networking and training scene, and we have been hosting targeted events for a number of years now.

So, if you’re working in an office support role, keep an eye on ourevents pageand follow us onFacebookandTwitterfor details about future events we’ll be creating just for you – because we think administrative professionals should be celebrated all year round!

TaxAssist Accountants, the successful and award winning UK franchise with a Support Centre based in Norwich, is pleased to announce that it has smashed through two milestone figures, now servicing the needs of over 60,000 clients across the UK, with a combined fee bank of over £40 million. This news follows on from TaxAssist recently hitting another milestone, having recently passed the 200 TaxAssist Accountants mark.

Phil Sullivan, Group Operations Director of The TaxAssist Group, was full of praise for the Accountants in the network and the Support Centre staff. “Reaching these milestones is a phenomenal achievement. The figures are testament to the commitment of the accountants in our network and the dedicated staff at the Support Centre, who work so hard to provide a first class service to our accountants, who can in turn, offer a first class service to their clients.”

“We continue to see double digit growth year after year, and the pace of our growth is increasing. The latest 10,000 increase in clients has come in only 19 months, half the time it took to grow from 40-50k. These figures can only endorse our business model and strengthen the TaxAssist brand.”

TaxAssist Accountants is the UK’s largest network of accountants specifically servicing the needs of small businesses and the self-employed and is the UK’s leading accountancy franchise. It also operates in the Republic of Ireland and recently expanded to Australia. Further expansion is planned both in the UK and overseas.

Established in 1995, TaxAssist Accountants is now recognised as the UK’s 24th largest network of accountants in the UK. The head office is on the Broadland Business Park, just outside Norwich, where it employs 40 people. There are two TaxAssist Accountants operating in Norfolk, one in Norwich and one in Attleborough.

Seven business women have graduated from the highly successful Women’s Leadership Programme, run by Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) and People & Performance Ltd to help support professional women across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire to develop their leadership style and progress to more senior roles.

The Women’s Leadership Programme was first developed by professional recruitment specialists Pure, in conjunction with strategic HR consultancy People & Performance Ltd, in 2014 and over 30 organisations across the region have already participated.

The latest graduates to complete the programme are from both public and private sector organisations in the region including Suffolk-based Events under Canvas, Buckles Solicitors based in Peterborough and Victory Housing Trust based in Norfolk. The job roles of those graduating ranged from Learning and Development Managers through to Head of Finance. The seven exceptional graduates will now join a growing alumni network, developing across the East of England, of previous programme graduates and employer sponsors. This will provide a great forum for them to continue to build their leadership skills, boost their confidence and to develop a network of like-minded professionals.

A special graduation event took place at Paddocks House in Newmarket on Thursday [21 April] where the delegates and alumni network heard from guest speaker Steve Turpie, business transformation expert and founder of Bright Stars charity speak about the power of vulnerability in leadership.

Lynn Walters, Director at Pure, said: “I would like to congratulate all of our latest graduates and I hope that the programme has boosted confidence, developed their leadership skills and helped them on their own personal journey of becoming some of the best business leaders of the future. I would also like to praise the employers who have sponsored our latest graduates for taking such a proactive step to help to develop their female talent and on working with them to address any potential barriers or unconscious bias within their organisation’s progression pipeline. Diversity is widely understood to be fundamental to the sustained growth of any business and having an equal gender ratio within the talent pipeline will create more meaningful, purposeful businesses of the future.

The Women’s Leadership Programme consists of two modules which take place over a six-month period, encompassing a mixture of coaching, seminars and inspirational guest speakers.

Pure is offering the chance for one aspiring female leader, working at a deserving organisation in the East of England, to receive a part-funded place on the next intake of the Women’s Leadership Programme, with modules in running in June and September. The full cost of the programme is usually £2,750 but this will be reduced to £1,375 for the chosen delegate. Applications are open to charities, social enterprises or not-for-profit organisations across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex or Cambridgeshire. To apply for the place, or to nominate a member of your team, email lucy@prs.uk.com by 29 April with details of why you, or a colleague, should be awarded the sponsored place.

We’ve planned a special Norfolk Developers event in West Norfolk which will be on Wednesday 11th of May. We have Richard Bang of FreekStorm games talking about Designing for room scale VR and Dom Davis talking about “Space, the final frontier”.

This will be held at Heacham Manor Hotel, PE31 7JX and you can RSVP for it here:

https://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/230069172/

This week marks the sixth consecutive year that JMS Group have produced the Weather Sponsorship idents for ITV Anglia. After a competitive pitch we were delighted to be chosen as the production house by their new sponsor, TrustATrader.com.

From the creative concepts suggested, the client chose ‘Whatever The Weather’, as it conveys reliability and trustworthiness. In a series of idents we see a friendly tradesman making house calls throughout the seasons, battling the elements to arrive at your door. Creating all of the different seasons called for some interesting special effects, from snow to autumn leaves to a rain machine (and one very soggy actor!) These visuals were supported not only by shooting on the Arri Amira but also through careful soundtrack development (crunching snow, blowing wind, you get the picture).

With British weather being what it is we really were in the hands of the gods to some extent – it’s near impossible to film a sunny day if in reality it’s chucking it down! We maximised our chances by scheduling the shoot around the weather forecast and the position of the sun.

The first ident, ‘Spring’, was broadcast on ITV Anglia from April 2016.

Read our beginner’s guide to TV sponsorship production.

Abacus Hotels are delighted to have been nominated for the second year running as a finalist in the 2016 Group Travel Awards in the category ofMost Group-Friendly Hotel Chain or Group. Best Western Plus Orton Hall Hotel & Spa in Peterborough, one of the hotels in the Abacus group, has also been nominated in the category of Best Individual Hotel for Groups.

The Group Travel Awards are decided by the readers of GTO magazine and have earned an enviable reputation as the most distinguished and respected event serving the group travel market; they reflect a highly valued endorsement from customers in this most important market sector. The voting procedure for 2016 has entailed a voting form appearing in the joint November/December issue of GTO and in the January 2016 edition, together with online voting.

The awards ceremony; celebrating their 20th Anniversary, will be held at The Park Plazza, London and will be hosted byChristopher Biggins.

Julie Gibson, Sales & Marketing Manager said “We are absolutely delighted to have been selected as a national finalist in these prestigious awards for the second year running. This reflects not only on our range and quality of facilities but also recognises the excellent care and attention to detail shown by our teams.”

Celtic Manor in Wales was the first class venue once again for the TaxAssist Accountants Annual Conference.

Over 490 franchisees, staff and business partners were in attendance for the exhibition, conference and evening gala. TaxAssist children were also welcomed and fantastically catered for throughout the weekend.

The morning exhibition included over 40 stands for franchisees to visit, meet and talk with strategic partners. This was followed by an afternoon conference highlighting the growth of the franchise in the UK and Internationally. The multitude of changes and initiatives accountants are having to embrace due to new government policy and technology/software developments were also highlighted, together with how TaxAssist is addressing them.

TaxAssist unveiled a mutually beneficial new relationship with the Federation of Small Business, CCH talked about imminent new initiatives to enable clients and accountants to get better connected and Quickbooks highlighted the booming small business market and how their cloud based software will enable franchisees to be more time efficient and create greater profit.

TaxAssist also showcased the new fully responsive TaxAssist websites and bespoke software for franchisees to use when signing up new clients, which offers time savings and much greater efficiency.

Phil Sullivan, Group Operations Director of The TaxAssist Group comments, “This has been a fantastic conference and we have been inundated with positive feedback from franchisees. All of the attendees will have come away in no doubt that TaxAssist is a forward thinking and digitally ready network of accountants on both a national and local level and that whatever the future holds, TaxAssist has it covered. The TaxAssist brand is now so powerful, that we can attract suppliers who can offer superb deals for franchisees and their clients alike, as we unveiled during the conference. All at TaxAssist are certainly feeling very positive for the future.”

John Mayer, Weston Super Mare franchisee commented, “As per normal, thanks to the fantastic TaxAssist team for putting on the conference. It really does cut a very favourable impression with my staff, and I regard the cost of bringing them along as an investment. They come to appreciate the size and the power of the franchise, and its sheer professionalism. They come back to the office with real enthusiasm, and full of ideas to improve the practice. It is so good to catch up with the support centre staff, and my fellow franchisees and the exhibitors.”

Jason Everton, Solihull franchisee commented, “A fantastic event, thank you. An interesting day, wonderful evening and very rewarding event. My sincere thanks to the whole support team.”

April 2016

More choice and variety for East Anglia’s sun-seekers Thomson and First Choice increase capacity from Norwich airport and introduce new route to Rhodes

21 April 2016 – Thomson and First Choice are today announcing increased capacity at Norwich airport for their summer 2017 flying programme. This includes a new route to Rhodes as well as new 10 and 11 night breaks to Ibiza and increased capacity to Majorca, which gives greater holiday flexibility to holidaymakers flying from East Anglia.

The move to introduce new routes is part of the holiday company’s strategy to ensure customers across the UK can fly from their local airport and stay at the best hotels in some of the most exciting destinations. The new routes will go on sale today in line with the launch of summer 2017 holidays.

Customers travelling on the new route to Rhodes will now have access to some of Thomson and First Choice’s most popular flagship hotels, including Thomson’s 5T Sensimar Imperial Resort & Spa by Atlantica. The adults only hotel sits right next the beach and has a huge lagoon pool surrounded by sunbeds and parasols.

Those flying on flexible breaks to Ibiza can visit Thomson’s 5T Sensatori Resort Ibiza where they will experience stylish interiors, a luxurious spa and a selection of chic restaurants serving up a mixture of international and Mediterranean cuisine.

Karen Switzer, Director of Aviation Planning for Thomson and First Choice, said: “Adding more capacity from Norwich airport and the introduction of the new route to Rhodes, demonstrates our commitment to the airport and the local area.

“Expanding access to our portfolio of destinations and hotels is a key part of our overall strategy and will enhance the holiday experience for our customers.”

Richard Pace, General Manager at Norwich Airport, said: “This is great news for holidaymakers looking for even more choice from Norwich Airport. Being able to travel to a wider range of destinations and top hotels from so close to home will be welcomed by people across the region.”

ENDS

TUI UK & IRELAND

TUI UK and Ireland is the UK’s largest tour operator with key brands including Thomson, First Choice, and Thomson Cruises. Sub brands include Thomson’s Sensatori, Thomson’s Sensimar, Thomson’s Family Life, First Choice Holiday Villages and SplashWorld Resorts.

TUI UK and Ireland’s airline, Thomson Airways is the UK’s third largest airline with 62 aircraft operating to over 88 destinations in 30 countries. Thomson Airways was the first airline in the UK to take delivery of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.

TUI UK and Ireland has a team of more than 10,000 employees and serves over 5.5 million customers each year.

TUI UK & Ireland is a member of TUI Group.

Four growing rural businesses based in Norfolk and Suffolk are set to benefit from funding from the first tranche of a £9m European funding,managed by Norfolk County Councils’ Rural Programmes Team. More than £147,000 has been awarded via the LEADER programme by Local Action Groups (LAGs).

The four businesses to benefit are:

Flint Vineyard receives a grant of £42,500 from the Waveney Valley Local Action Group. The applicant is planting a new 2.5-hectare vineyard and Leader funding will help equip a state-of-the-art winery at Camphill Farm, Earsham. The project also includes a new visitor centre and a state-of-the-art winery with specialist equipment to enable the best handling of juice and wine.

Panther Brewery at Reepham has generateda new alcohol free real ale called HOPSTA, which is believed to be the first in the UK. The project was awarded £26,296 by Wensum & Coast Local Action Group to introduce a new bottling line to automate the bottling and labelling facility. When not working at full capacity, the facility will be offered to other breweries who may wish to contract their bottling to the only ‘real ale’ bottling facility available in the county.

New company Squilla and Squidge, based in Swanton Morley received a grant of £10,245 through the Wensum & Coast Local Action Group, to turn a 1969 VW Adventure Wagon into a high quality artisan food wagon. After a full mechanical refurbishment, the wagon will be fitted with a serving hatch and a kitchen. The business will offer a healthy and flavourful menu of falafel and halloumi wraps, salad pots, sweet potato fries and a ‘Norfolk Berry Smoothy’ to be inclusive for the gluten free and vegetarian market and encourage people to eat more healthy food.

Lakenheath based Sunset Barn Care Farm has received a grant of £68,190 through the Brecks Local Action Group to increase the number of people who can benefit from their service. Specifically this grant will fund a purpose built building to create additional facilities for Farm Helpers, Volunteers and Staff at the Care Farm. This will provide additional seating, private break out areas, washing and toilet facilities, additional bedroom space, a large work area and food preparation facilities with additional cooking capacity.

Each LAG operates by using the Leader approach, which is community led local development, made up of representatives from businesses, community organisations and public authorities. Decentralising the decision and funding powers allows the partnership to support the rural economy, at a local level, by helping micro and small businesses to create and sustain employment within the area.

The five respective LAG areas managed by the Rural Programmes Team are:

The Brecks (including parts of northern Suffolk) The Broads Wensum and Coast Waveney Valley (including parts of northern Suffolk) West Norfolk

Information on each LAG and how to apply for funding can be found at: www.norfolklags.co.uk.

Salary: Careers Adviser £22,000 FTE or Trainee Position of £18,000 FTE (plus the opportunity for Level 3 qualification in Information, Advice and Guidance)

Norwich, Norfolk

Full Time 37 hours

Permanent

A vacancy exists for the role of Adult Careers Adviser for Realise Futures Careers Solutions. The prime purpose of this role will be to offer information and advice to customers both unemployed and employed 19 years plus (18 if supported by JCP). You will need to ensure that you are target orientated and have excellent levels of IT skills to meet the needs of our service and the challenging demands of the National Careers Service contract.

This is a varied and complex role that requires excellent communication skills and the ability to liaise with peers and partners whilst meeting targets.

*This position is available for those with a Level 3 IAG qualification or those looking to complete a Level 3 IAG.

For more information or to apply please contact Samantha.austin@realisefutures.org

Closing date: Wednesday 11th May 2016