Member News

James Reed, Chairman of the Reed Global group of companies, will officially open a REED Megasite in Norwich on Tuesday 19th April. The aim of the office will be to continue to serve the business community across a number of fast growth sectors in the East of England.

Employing more than 30 people, the site will deliver specialist recruitment services to businesses across a number of disciplines. These include Accountancy, HR, Finance, Marketing and Creative, Business Support, Hospitality and Leisure for both temporary and permanent workers.

Melanie Marjoram, business director at REED Norwich, says: “Opening an office of this size is a real measure of the growth the city has experienced in recent years. Norwich has an exciting and varied jobs market which is why it needs a recruitment centre that can offer a variety of bespoke options for all recruitment needs.”

In addition to catering for jobs in a number of sectors, the REED Megasite in Norwich will offer enhanced facilities for both candidates and clients. These will include a number of workshops, including skill set and role play workshops, testing suites and interview rooms. There are a growing number of REED Megasites in the UK and across the globe in specially selected areas where jobs and industries require a wide range of specialist skills to suitably provide for the market.

Melanie Marjoram continued: “The facilities for both individuals and businesses at the site are high quality. With a range of training options to improve and expand skills, the opportunities to develop with REED are vast. The skills gained will help candidates and REED work together to set a successful career path, and businesses to flourish. With the new Megasite bringing so much to the local community, it will be great to have our chairman James Reed to open it on April 19th, and launch all the good work we want to do.”

The new REED Megasite is located at Seebohm House, 2-4 Queen Street, Norwich, NR2 4SQ. The Launch will commence from 15:00 to 18:00. Please join us in our celebrations with refreshments and Canapes on offer.

To attend, or for more information, please call Michelle Topley, Office Manager at REED Norwich, on 01603 616190 or email michelle.topley@reedglobal.com

Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) hosted its annual Norwich charity quiz night on Thursday 24 March, bringing local businesses and clients together for a fun evening which raised £2,000 for the East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH).

With 43 teams of four, including teams from Wensum Tailoring and Harrods UK, there was plenty of friendly rivalry on the night. The overall winners were a team from NBI Norwich Biosciences and each team member was presented with a bottle of champagne.

The event, held at the Sprowston Manor Marriott Hotel and Country Club, also included a raffle to help raise further funds. The prizes included cinema tickets, bottles of champagne and an afternoon tea voucher: all kindly donated by local businesses. There was also a silent auction for a tailor-made jacket from Wensum Tailoring, which raised £250.

Joseph O’Sullivan, Manager of Pure’s Norwich Office, said: “This is the seventh year we’ve run our annual quiz night in Norwich and it was a huge success once again. We’re delighted to have been able to raise such a wonderful amount for EACH. I would like to thank everyone that attended, donated and contributed generously to the event and hope they can join us again next year.”

EACH supports families and cares for children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. The charity relies on voluntary donations for the majority of its income and needs to raise almost £6 million to deliver its services every year.

Last year’s Norwich quiz night also raised over £2,100 for this worthy cause. Pure’s annual quiz nights, held at all four offices throughout the year, are just one of the many charity events the leading recruitment consultancy runs throughout the year. To date it has raised over £100k for 24 charities.

Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) are 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 its highly successful Women’s Leadership Programme.

The Women’s Leadership Programme was developed by East Anglia’s professional recruitment specialist Pure and People & Performance Ltd in Cambridge to help women develop their authentic leadership skills and to support local organisations to evolve their culture and remove any workplace barriers to gender equality.

A place on the next course has been sponsored by Suffolk-based Blossom Charity, which supports women in enterprise at all stages in their career, to make this course more accessible to local organisations which may not previously have had the budget to develop their talent pipeline in this way. Applications for the sponsored place are open to charities, social enterprises, not-for-profit organisations, early stage start-ups or SMEs across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex or Cambridgeshire.

Lynn Walters, director at Pure, said: “There is clear evidence that creating an equal gender balance at senior levels brings numerous business benefits, including a more collaborative and creative approach to problem solving and greater profitability. Our programme provides the dual approach of not only developing aspiring female leaders but also the organisations they work for. We want to encourage local employers to mentor and support their female talent to review their progression pipeline and to address any potential barriers or unconscious bias. After all, if employers don’t know why women fail to climb the career they can’t make any changes to achieving genuine diversity at executive levels.”

Over 30 local organisations have already participated in the programme since it launched in 2014, providing their female talent with a great forum to build their leadership skills, boost their confidence and to develop a network of like-minded professionals. This has included local charities and not-for-profit organisations, who remain part of the strong alumni network developing across the Eastern region.

Lynn Morgan, Chief Executive of the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity in Cambridgeshire, has sponsored a female colleague to take part in the programme. She said: “I have been delighted with the way that the leadership programme has given my team member the time and opportunity to explore issues around leadership and personal development with other very bright young women. The facilitation on the programme has been first rate and I believe the participants have benefitted significantly by being involved.”

Pri Pinnaduwa, HR Director at the not-for-profit organisation RAND Europe in Cambridge, was also a delegate on a previous programme. She added: “I so enjoyed the course and really appreciated the time to discuss leadership and the networking opportunity, as well as the chance to focus inwardly on things I can do to personally to achieve my goals. I can see how much thought and work has gone into developing this programme and hope it continues to go from strength to strength.”

The sponsored place is for the next 2016 course with the modules 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. 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 your colleague, should be awarded the sponsored place.

Just heading back from Qatar and the GCC – it was interesting to speak with clients about the new economic environment there [post oil price slump] and consider the implications for HR and People Management Strategies. The attached article was published recently in People Management Middle East which summarises our thoughts and perspectives on more enlightened clients. We are currently working with a downstream oil and gas company to revitaise and re-focus their leadership development programme. Give me a call or drop me an email if of interest: peter.lawrence@humancapitaldept.com

Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) will be hosting the latest Employment Law Seminar in partnership with Birkett Long on Wednesday 4 May at the Holiday Inn, Brentwood.

The free session starts at 830am and will be split into two sessions led by senior practitioners from Birkett Long. Session one will highlight the latest Employment Law update, particularly focussing on Government’s increased attention upon business regulation corresponding the increase of criminal prosecutions. Session two will look at how organisations can be informed of the regulations in order that they can protect themselves and their staff in the event of a regulatory investigation or potential prosecution.

Ben Farrow, Pure , said: “The session will be of value to anyone in HR or responsible for leading Employment Law in their business to ensure that they are up-to-date with the latest legislation and how they can ensure that they are compliant.”

“We are delighted to partner with the leading Employment Law specialists in our region, Birkett Long, and Pure as an organisation is committed to delivering high quality and relevant support to our clients in the Essex area”.

The session will take place in Elm Room 2, Holiday Inn, Brook Street, Brentwood, Essex CM14 5NF. If you are interested in attending or would require more information, please contact Ben Farrow (Ben.Farrow@prs.uk.com) by Wednesday 18 April 2016.

We were delighted to have John Beer of the Centre for Advanced Knowledge Engineering speak at the fourth Norfolk Developers breakfast at the Maids Head in Norwich.

I’ve heard a lot in the last week about how the problem with getting young people leaving school in Norfolk into jobs is a lack of aspiration. I’ll go into some of the reasons I’ve heard this is the case in another post. What’s interesting is what’s being done about it in West Norfolk.

The Centre for Advanced Knowledge Engineering is a £350M development being built on the old Burnham Market RAF base. The intention is to attract Artificial Intelligence and other high tech firms to the region. As well as office space, the site will include a conference centre, incubator space and a new site for a local academy allowing it to double in size to 1500 students in anticipation of the growth expect in the region as a result of building the centre. Local infrastructure improvements, including an upgrade to Ely station, and 600MB broadband are also planned as part of the development.

John Beer is clearly passionate about making a difference and I believe that the Centre for Advanced Knowledge Engineering will do just that. I also think it will even out the distribution of tech jobs and firms in Norfolk. At the moment, as you would expect, it’s very Norwich centric.

John told us about the plans for the centre, the history of the project, the companies involved and his personal story along the way. It was fascinating and would have easily made a much longer session.

The Norfolk Developers breakfasts are held quarterly with the intention of exposing people with a more general interest in tech to the group. They take place in the Oak Room of the Maids Head in Norwich which comfortably holds 20 people and the excellent breakfast is from the buffet.

Words: Paul Grenyer

JMS Group has been listed in Campaign Magazine’s Top 30 Regional Agencies.

Campaign is aleading magazine in the advertising industry that often features work from the biggest London brands and agencies. Every year,they publish a ‘School Report’ that ranks agencies according to billings,based on datafrom Nielson.

2016 is the first time that JMS has been featuredin the published list and is the only company based inEast Anglia, with the exception of creative production houseFall Off The Wallin Hertfordshire. It can often be challenging for a rural media company to compete with others from large media hubs, such as London, Manchester and Birmingham, but 2015 was a busy year for JMS that involvedworking with big names in cruising, toysand services.

The company is thrilled to berecognised amongst the top players in the industry and looks forward to helping more brands grow this year through TV advertising, which continues to be the most effective advertising medium and is constantly evolving to become more targeted and more accessible for smaller brands.

If you would like to know more about TV or radio advertising, visit the JMS Group website or call 01603 811855.

David Paulson, Senior Manager for UK and International Recruitment, and James Mattam, Senior Business Development Manager at TaxAssist Accountants, are back from a successful trip to Australia, where they delivered training, looked for future shop sites and attended the Sydney Franchising and Business Opportunities Expo with TaxAssist Master franchisees Terry Murphy and Celeste Godwin.

Terry and Celeste are business partners who have been running their own practices across New South Wales and Queensland for over 10 years and are TaxAssist’s first Australian Master Franchisees. They have so far rebranded three of their existing premises in Forster, Woolgoolga and Taree into TaxAssist offices, and have taken on their first franchisee, Avendra Narayan, who has opened a shop in the Liverpool district of Sydney, New South Wales.

David comments, “Terry and Celeste have done a fantastic job so far in promoting the TaxAssist brand in Australia. Myself and James have enjoyed seeing how far things have come already, and offering advice and guidance on further development. The potential for both master franchisees and franchisees is huge in Australia, which has a buoyant small business market which is largely untapped. The franchise exhibition, at which we had a stand, was very well attended and we were inundated with enquiries, so we are hopeful that we should see more franchisees joining us soon.”

To learn more about TaxAssist Accountants in Australia please visit www.taxassistfranchise.com.au

TaxAssist has been operating successfully in the UK for over 20 years and has over 280 practices in the UK and over 20 in the Republic of Ireland.

Avendra Narayan CPA has become the first Australian TaxAssist Accountants franchisee. Avendra, who has over 45 years’ experience in accounting, business and finance has opened a shop in the Liverpool district of Sydney, New South Wales.

Joining Australia’s newest network of accountants, and becoming its first franchisee held no fear for Avendra, who was attracted to the shop concept and business development initiatives offered by TaxAssist. “Many people will ask what makes TaxAssist so different?” said Avendra. “Really, it boils down to offering a more comprehensive, all round service, specifically for small businesses – if you like – a ‘one-stop-shop’.”

All TaxAssist shops are based in accessible, convenient locations. Avendra continues “The look and feel of the shops are completely different from traditional accounting practices. We know clients will appreciate our open, welcoming look and we want clients to enjoy coming through the door. Gone are the days of feeling inhibited by a trip to your accountant. The shop certainly seems to be working too, in the first two weeks of opening, I signed 14 clients, the majority of which were walk-in clients!”

The Liverpool shop joins the Forster, Woolgoolga and Taree branches, which opened in January and are operated by Master Franchisees Terry Murphy and Celeste Godwin.

TaxAssist is looking to grow its network by joining forces with other accountants. If you are interested in finding out more, please visit the Australian franchisee recruitment website www.taxassistfranchise.com.au.

TaxAssist has over 280 practices in the UK and over 20 in the Republic of Ireland.

M+A Partners wasproud to recently host it’sfirst annual Owner Managed Business survey breakfast at Norwich University of the Arts’ Ideas Factory.

Those attending were told about some of the key issues that are at the forefront of the minds of Owner managed Businesses, both locally and nationally.

Please click here to download your copy of the Survey. If you would like a hard copy sent to you, please contact Ryan Nesbitt on 01603 227600 or ryan.nesbitt@mapartners.co.uk

A team from Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) has raised over £1,000 for the East Anglian Air Ambulance by tackling the Only the Brave charity obstacle race on Sunday (20th March).

The runners from the recruitment agency’s Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge offices looked anything but pure by the time they had completed the tough, muddy course, but they all confirmed it was worth it to have raised £1,100 for such a fantastic cause. There are also still more donations coming in for the team.

The Pure runners took part in two teams, with one completing the 5-mile Intrepid course and the other team taking part in the 10-mile Fearless course, both of which were held at Elveden, near Thetford. Both teams faced a range of different obstacles throughout, including having to scale 7ft walls, landing in a pool of mud on the other side.

Becky Wilson, Managing Consultant for HR recruitment at the Norwich office, was the captain of the team taking on the Intrepid, five-mile race. She said: “I recently visited the air ambulance and heard the team talk first-hand about their experiences, and how the service is completely reliant on fundraising, which really makes you think. We go about our day-to-day lives, but everything pales into insignificance compared to what they have to deal with every day. The money we have raised will help to make all the difference. It was definitely worth getting exceptionally wet and muddy for a couple of hours and it was also a great team bonding experience!”

The East Anglian Air Ambulance has cited the charity’s pilots, doctors, patients and families as the inspiration behind organising this fundraising event. The air ambulance flies 365 days a year, taking highly skilled medical teams to people who have been unfortunate enough to be involved in accidents or medical emergencies in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. The crews need to be brave, and overcome physical and emotional obstacles every single day. Sponsorship from the event will help to keep the East Anglian Air Ambulance in the sky, as the charity needs to raise £10.2m this year to keep flying.

Several members of the team taking part, including Directors Ian Walters and Lynn Walters, were from Pure’s Ipswich office. The East Anglian Air Ambulance has been included as one of the charities for the #IpswichBig10 campaign, where team members have pledged to take part in, or organise, events to raise money for 10 local charities to mark the ten-year anniversary of the Ipswich office.

A Norfolk firm which specialises in finding and structuring funding to help local business prosper and grow has been recognised with a prestigious national award.

B2B Cashflow Solutions, which has been a finalist in the Business Moneyfacts Awards for the past four years (‘Highly Commended’ last year and ‘Commended’ in 2014), this year became national winner in the category ‘Best Asset Based Finance Broker’ against stiff competition from eight other finalists across the UK at the Lancaster Hotel in London on 17th March.

Launched in 2006 by directors Ian Hart, Nick Flower and Simon Reynolds, who between them have nearly 90 years commercial finance and business banking experience, B2B Cashflow Solutions is an independent commercial finance brokerage and consultancy, based in Framingham Pigot, which has developed a range of products and services to accommodate the whole-life finance cycle needs to support the growth aspirations for local businesses.

Since becoming one of the first commercial finance brokers in the UK to be authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in March 2015, the firm has invested heavily in its infrastructure to underpin a 47% growth in its team of financial professionals throughout East Anglia and across the UK.

This geographical expansion has been complemented by further diversification of skills within the team. An accountant, a real estate consultant, and a business coach are among the seven highly experienced professionals B2B Cashflow Solutions has successfully attracted so far this year from financial organisations, and banks including HSBC and Barclays.

Simon Reynolds commented ‘Our aim has always been to develop a brand which local businesses could trust and identify with to find and structure funding which helps them prosper.

We believe our Business Moneyfacts Award represents recognition nationally that a Norfolk firm is leading the way in helping other local and UK businesses to achieve their own growth aspirations’.

Specialising in finding cash for businesses, and restructuring existing funding for companies to reduce debt burden and improve cash flow, B2B Cashflow Solutions aims to deliver these solutions, often where traditional mainstream funders have failed, through a diversity of alternative markets, and works closely to support its banks relationships and other professional partners.

Examples of success in helping local businesses range from delivering funding within a £2.6 million project to build an anaerobic digestion plant for Muntons Plc’s maltings facility in Stowmarket, to sourcing the investment which facilitated the management buy-in of Quinto Crane and Plant Ltd, a leading crane hire company based in Norwich.

Products include asset finance, fundraising against existing working assets, invoice finance, unsecured business loans, commercial mortgages, grant funding, and research and development relief. The company has also developed its own financial health checks to help business owners reduce debt and improve cash flow.