Member News

Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) are pleased to congratulate Cambscuisine, winners of the Pure-sponsored “Employer of the Year” category at theCambridge News Business Excellence Awardsheld last night (17 March) at King’s College, Cambridge.

With many of the region’s leading businesses in attendance, the award celebrates an organisation that successfully inspires, motivates, develops and rewards its staff.

Cambscuisine was one of three companies shortlisted for the category and they were successful due to their culture; genuinely placing “people at the heart of the business”. Cambscuisine has 130 people working across six restaurants: St John’s Chop House, Smokeworks, The Cock Hemingford Grey, The Tickell Arms, The Cambridge Chop House and The Crown & Punchbowl and prides itself with having high staff retention in a sector where staff turnover is typically high.

With a number of innovative people development approaches -instead of having a head office and a traditional board, the Directors stay connected by working from their restaurants “surrounded by their team”. The Board is replaced with a team of “challengers” selected from across the business to provide feedback and ideas that has helped to nurture a strong family culture. Their aim is to help staff realise their full potential and many of their General Managers have started in roles such as dish washing and waiting, progressing through the business supported by a personalised development plan.

Lynn Walters, Director at Pure and awards judge, says: “We were proud to sponsor the category for the fourth year – it’s a huge privilege to watch Cambridge’s businesses thrive.”

“This year we met 3 diverse and amazing businesses who all have inspired teams of passionate people who are proud of their organisation and deliver a great customer experience. When a company gets it right, you can almost tangibly feel the culture that permeates throughout the business and Cambscuisine clearly showed a genuine passion for people development which shone through in the presentation. Congratulations to Oliver and his team.”

Lynn is well qualified in judging the best employer categories with a track record of developing employee engagement strategies and supporting talent management with Pure’s clients. In addition to core recruitment services, Lynn runs the highly successful Best Employers Eastern Region initiative – a biennial online survey, in partnership with eras Ltd, a provider of psychometric and talent solutions. The survey is open between April and September 2016 culminating in awards being presented at employee engagement seminars in October 2016, bringing together senior business leaders from the region Congratulations are also extended to the shortlisted companies Newmarket Racecourse and Genie Ventures for their commitment to their exceptionally engaged employees.

To find out more about the Cambridge News Business Awards or the Best Employers Eastern Region initiative, contact Lynn Walters on: 01223 209888 orlynn.walters@prs.uk.com.

I’ve been using JavaScript reluctantly on and off for years. I’m currently working on a project that is highly dependant on JQuery based, handwritten JavaScript. Just as Rupert described in this workshop, I am one of the world’s copy-and-paste JavaScripters, so I thought it was about time I looked at it more closely to see what I was missing. I recently took on an apprentice who also needed to learn JavaScript, so a Norfolk Developers workshop was ideal for us.

We all know there’s a software development skills shortage nationally and very much so locally and this is something Norfolk Developers is trying to do something about by introducing a series of introductory workshops aimed at those with little or no experience. Initially Norfolk Developers will be concentrating on web development skills such as HTML & CSS, JavaScript and JQuery. There are also plans for introductory workshops for iOS and Android mobile development. The group will also continue to cater for the more experienced developers with their regular series of intermediate and advanced workshops.

We all know JavaScript is evil, right? Yes, but it’s a necessary evil and there are reasons it’s evil. This was very well explained by Rupert Redington at Norfolk Developers’ JavaScript Starter Kit, beginners full day workshop. It was created in two weeks and suffered a little because of that, but we are where we are.

What was really great about the workshop for me was that I was able to learn and understand the details of the language I had missed before, such as the different ways things are compared for equality in the language.

After an interesting and in depth introduction to the language Rupert introduced us to NodeSchool, which is a series of tasks designed to help you learn and write JavaScript one step at a time in a rewarding way. You write the code to solve a problem, run the test and it tells you whether you have it right or not. I could have done that for hours!

In the afternoon we brought together a lot of what we had learnt in the morning to write a simple one page web application which used our browser’s API (Application Programming Interface) to find our current location and an external API to look up where the nearest public toilets were to us. It was fantastic to see what we’d learnt solving a real world problem.

Rupert will be back in the summer running an updated beginners JavaScript workshop.

Words: Paul Grenyer

Blue Sky Professional Development held their annual Student Graduation this week at the Assembly House, which coincided with their 3rd birthday. Students, their families, tutors and guests joined Kate Woods and Beth Russell, Directors of Blue Sky, for a celebratory evening of drinks, superb canapes and the presentation ceremony. They were joined by Steve Way, HR Manager with Aquaterra Energy Limited who gave a very interesting speech on the transferable HR skills required in a range of Industries and what Steve saw as the future issues facing HR. Also giving a brief talk on the Chartered institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) was Tony Chapman, Centre Development Liaison with the Institute. This year was another successful year for Blue Sky’s students with all 3 levels of CIPD qualifications being achieved, as well as, for the first time, the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management.

Blue Sky Professional Development delivers ILM qualifications in Leadership and Management at levels 3 and 5, and CIPD Qualifications in Human Resources and Learning and Development at levels 3. 5 and 7 to students from across East Anglia from their offices in Norwich, and training venues in Colchester.

www.blueskypd.co.uk

Realise Futures Careers Solutions

£13,900 pro rata

Norwich, Norfolk

Part-time – 22.2hrs (subject to change)

Permanent

A vacancy exists for the role of Business Support Administrator for Realise Futures Careers Solutions. The prime purpose of this role will be to offer administrative assistance to the RFCS team. You will need to ensure that tasks are completed within a timely manner and to the levels of RFCS and the challenging demands on 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 senior managers.

For more information or to apply please contact samantha.austin@realisefutures.org or 01473 238601.

Closing date: Monday 4th April

Interview date: W/c Monday 11th April

Two teams from Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) are set to get extremely wet and muddy this Sunday (20 March) as they tackle ‘Only the Brave’, an extreme obstacle course race in aid of the East Anglian Air Ambulance.

Eighteen runners from Pure’s Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge offices will be racing across a vast area of land, usually used for farming and military training, at Elveden, near Thetford. But this isn’t an ordinary charity fun run as the teams will face at least 20 different obstacles throughout the course, including having to scale 7ft walls, landing in a pool of mud on the other side.

Becky Wilson, Managing Consultant HR recruitment at the Norwich office, is the captain of the team taking on the Intrepid, five-mile race and Scott Woodrow, Associate Director at the Ipswich office, is the captain of the team facing the Fearless, ten-mile race.

Pure wanted to support the event as the East Anglian Air Ambulance is a client of the professional recruitment agency, although Becky admits they are also wondering if they must be a bit mad to have willingly agreed to take part.

Becky said: “We’re trying not to think about it too much in case we change our minds! But even if we do get exceptionally wet, cold and muddy for a couple of hours, it will be worth it to have been able to raise money for such a fantastic cause.”

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.

Becky added: “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, 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 raise will help to make all the difference.”

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. To date the Pure team has already raised over £700 and are aiming to reach at least £900.

Led by Directors, Ian Walters and Lynn Walters, several members of the team are from the Ipswich office. This latest fundraising mission will also be part of the #IpswichBig10 anniversary campaign. Team members at the Ipswich team have pledged to take part in, or organise, ten different events to raise money for local charities to mark the ten-year anniversary of the Ipswich office.

To sponsor the Only the Brave Pure team, visit https://www.justgiving.com/Team-PRS

-Ends-

For more media information please contact Dawn Humphreys or Amy Larman at FOUR agency on 01603 627294 or email dawn@fouragency.co.uk or amy@fouragency.uk

Notes to editors:

About Pure Resourcing Solutions

Formed in 2002 from a single office in Cambridge, Pure Resourcing Solutions are now the professional recruitment specialists in the East of England; with offices in Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Chelmsford.

Pure specialises in Accountancy, Financial Services, IT, Human Resources, Marketing and Office Support recruitment solutions at all levels, including board level appointments through its specialist Executive division.

www.prs.uk.com

Next week Peter from Human Capital Department will be jetting off to Qatar and Dubai. “It sounds like a holiday but it’s really not” said Peter.

The purpose of his visit is to meet potential clients of Human Capital Department’s HR Consultancy and Training Serivces.

In particular Peter is working with companies looking to improve and streamline their leadership development programmes.

“Companies across the GCC region are feeling the effect of low oil price on revenue and profits and implemeting cost reduction strategies. At the same time they do not want to cut back on investement in national talent as this represents the future for the region – we can help in re-focussing existing talent mangement strategies and re-design of management and leadership programmes”.

It is a short trip but should prove productive as Peter lived and worked in the region for eight years and so has many contacts there and will be also be speaking at the Qatar HR Forum on the 23rd March. .

We are delighted to welcome a new senior member to our team as we continue to grow our leisure, tourism, food and drink expertise.

With over 15 years’ of PR and marketing experience, Angi Davies joins Reflection PR as a Senior Account Manager to deliver results-driven campaigns for clients.

Joining the agency from Robinsons Motor Group, Angi’s brand portfolio includes Volkswagen, Audi, Adnams Brewery, The Royal Norfolk Show and The RSPB.

Angi says: “I’m looking forward to working with a wide variety of clients and helping to develop the business further.”

Suzy Pettican, Managing Director of Reflection PR, is pleased to welcome Angi back to the team.

“Angi first worked with me in my spare bedroom four years ago, so I’m delighted to welcome her back at an exciting time for the business.”

Find out a little more about Angihere. And hopefully you will meet her soon.

Ateam of 10 apprentices are on track for successful new careers after being selected to join train operator Abellio Greater Anglia.

The operator has launched a bespoke scheme for 18 to 24 year-old applicants not previously in employment, education or training which will see the new recruits work in various roles across the company’s customer service department while completing a Level 2 NVQ qualification.

Recruited through skills specialist Ingeus, the new starters will be based in Norwich where their exciting journey will introduce them to a range of roles over the next 12 months including working in the ticket office, on the platforms dispatching trains and as part of the train presentation team.

The 10 successful recruits were amongst more than 150 applicants for the apprenticeships. They will receive one-to-one training while working in the company’s customer service department at Norwich, earning a wage while gaining recognised qualifications and on-the-job skills.

Bryony Bridgewater, 19, from Gorleston in Norfolk was unemployed for two years before being recruited onto the apprenticeship, which is her first ever job.

Having moved from London, Bryony found it hard to get to know anyone in the local area, and even harder to find work with no experience to offer employers. With Ingeus’s support she successfully prepared and applied for the newly launched Abellio apprenticeship scheme and along with nine other talented recruits couldn’t be more excited about getting her career back on track.

“I am keen to learn and wanted a customer service role but got nowhere applying for apprenticeships on my own. Ingeus really helped, and even if I hadn’t got the job, I thought I’d come a really long way in building my confidence and employability skills,” Bryony said.

Fellow apprentice Reece Orford, 21, from Costessey, said: “I moved back to the UK from Canada in 2010 and have since worked as a business administrator. I wanted to join Abellio Greater Anglia because the apprenticeship offers so much scope for progression.”

Ingeus is a leading employability skills provider which provides fee-free recruitment and skills services to national and regional employers. It worked closely with Abellio Greater Anglia to develop the comprehensive recruitment and apprenticeship programme as Catherine Prosser, National Employer Services Team Manager at Ingeus explains:

“Ingeus advertised the opportunity, processed the applications and organised bespoke recruitment days on behalf of Abellio Greater Anglia. We have sourced some really talented young people who just needed the right opportunity to show their skills and motivation to work. We are now supporting the induction of the new recruits and will be assessing the apprentices’ progress throughout every step of the programme.”

Andrew Goodrum, Customer Service Director at Abellio Greater Anglia, said: “We are very pleased to welcome our new apprentices. This customised training course will offer a range of transferrable skills. The railway is a great place to work with a wealth of opportunities and fantastic benefits. We already operate a very successful engineering apprenticeship and this new scheme will help strengthen our customer service department.”

The apprentices’ appointment coincides with National Apprenticeship Week which runs from 14 to 18 March and celebrates apprenticeships and the positive impact they have on individuals, businesses and the wider economy.

Cooper Lomaz Recruitment is pleased to announce the appointment of their new Commercial Director, Simon Brown; Simon has over 12 years of experience within recruitment throughout the United Kingdom and we are happy to welcome him to the team.

Simon started his career in recruitment in 2004, in an internal role within the Financial Services Sector, recruiting across three sites before attracting the attention of two prominent recruitment agencies who offered him the opportunity to work agency side. After careful consideration Simon took one of these opportunities based on the range of recruitment roles and development the organisation offered.

After a successful first 10 months working a permanent recruitment desk covering the Merseyside area, Simon applied and succeeded in getting a role he very much wanted as National Account Manager. In doing this role successfully for four years Simon was able to grow into the role of one of the company’s most successful Business Development Managers. During his time in the role Simon specialised in Managed Service Contracts across the UK, winning contracts from Cornwall to Strathclyde. It was during this time that Simon became familiar with East Anglia, by working on and winning the Norfolk Constabulary recruitment contract. During the 5 years he spent with the company, Simon won over 20 Managed Service Contracts, which we think is pretty good work!

Simon then took the decision to relocate and take a new opportunity with a leading Public Sector recruitment agency as Client Development Manager where he reported directly to the MD and covered all three offices – Birmingham, London and Manchester. Success within this role and organisation saw Simon embark on a wide range of business areas and opportunities which ultimately saw him get promoted to the UK Board of Directors in March 2015 as Commercial Director.

2016 sees Simon embark on his most exciting career move to date in joining Cooper Lomaz as Commercial Director, Simon said of his recent move:

“I am proud to have joined such a valued and recognised professional recruitment organisation in Cooper Lomaz. The welcome I have received from across the organisation has been amazing and something I am extremely grateful for; it’s certainly helped ease my transition into the company. I am excited to work across the Sales and Client Development teams at Cooper Lomaz, helping to build on the excellent results the organisation has delivered to clients and candidates across East Anglia over the last 25 years.”

We’re really excited to welcome Simon to the team, and the lovely region of East Anglia, as we know he’ll be a real asset and a lovely chap to work with.

Jen Little, Practice Recruitment Specialist at the Cambridge office of Pure Resourcing Solutions (Pure) is about to take on the gruelling challenge of walking for a week across the Sahara desert to raise money for the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity (ARHC) in Cambridgeshire.

Having spent the last six months undergoing some intensive preparation training, Jen is one of eight people who have signed up for the extreme adventure in support of the charity which is the only adult hospice in Cambridgeshire. The other members of Team ARHC include the charity’s CEO Lynn Morgan, staff at the hospice and other local business people including Steve Mitcham, CEO of Cambridge Business Society.

Team ARHC will fly out to Morocco this week, ready to start the epic walk on Thursday 17th March. They will be trekking over 70km in weather conditions which will range from a scorching 40 degrees during the day to just 0 degrees when they are camping out at night.

The idea first came about last August during discussions on how to raise money for the new 24-bed facility at the hospice, which is dedicated to providing specialist palliative care and support to adult patients and their family, friends and carers. The new building is set to be an exemplar in hospice design and will offer patients a more spacious, attractive and therapeutic environment.

The charity is extremely close to Jen’s heart and she has been an ambassador for the hospice for eight years. She said: “It really is an amazing place and supports many people during what can be a very difficult period of their lives. The staff are incredible and very caring and the volunteers who give their time are true inspirations. When the fundraising idea of walking across the desert came up I thought why not! But having committed myself, I realised I needed to do some serious training preparation. I took part in an eight-week fitness boot camp, have since lost a stone in weight and I now feel like I live at the gym.”

The team, which includes a real mix of ages, has also been group training walks together, which has given them time to discuss other important preparations.

Jen said: “I’ve been testing out and considering so many different types of socks to find the ones which best protect against blisters. We’re not allowed to take much with us as our baggage will be carried by camels as we hike across the sand dunes. That makes the decisions on what we do decide to pack even more important.”

All the team at Pure are supporting Jen in her fundraising mission. The recruitment company is already a keen supporter of the hospice, and has raised more than £6k for the charity over the last few years. The directors have given Jen the time off for the challenge and kick started her fundraising with a £250 donation.

Jen added: “All my colleagues are being extremely supportive. They know I’m just as nervous as I am excited. This challenge will definitely take me out of my comfort zone. Although I’ve been to the desert before, I’ve never spent a week walking across it, or camped in it overnight. But I am doing this to raise money for the hospice and to boost the profile of the fantastic work it does. Even if I end up in a bit of discomfort as a result, it will all be worth it.”

To sponsor Jen visit her Just Giving page at https://www.justgiving.com/Jen-Little1/

Image: Jen Little from Pure Resourcing Solutions takes on a training walk in preparation for a week-long trek across the Sahara desert to raise money for the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity.

For more media information contact Dawn Humphreys or Amy Larman at FOUR Agency on 01603 627294 or email dawn@fouragency.co.uk or amy@fouragency.co.uk

Notes to editors:

About Pure Resourcing Solutions

Formed in 2002 from a single office in Cambridge, Pure Resourcing Solutions are now the professional recruitment specialists in the East of England; with offices in Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich and Chelmsford.

Pure specialises in Accountancy, Financial Services, IT, Human Resources, Marketing and Office Support recruitment solutions at all levels, including board level appointments through its specialist Executive division.

www.prs.uk.com

NorDevCon 2016 was yet another resounding success for Norfolk Developers. With an impressive array of speakers and workshops we had more attendees than any previous year. This year, for the first time, we had students and teachers attending from some of the local schools and academies as well as the usual range of techies and business people. It was great to see them mingling and discussing the various sessions they’d attended.

This year my 12 year old grandson, Nathan, also came along for the first time. I asked him to write about his experience and this is what he came up with:

“The conference was very good. We met Michael Feathers when having breakfast at the hotel and he was very nice and then we walked to the conference with him.

The first activity I did was the android course by Paul Lammertsma. It was very well done and easy to follow. The tutorial he made explained everything really well and when there was something that was not working or was hard to set up he helped with it and knew how to sort any issues. By the end of the 6 hour course I had learnt how to make simple android applications. After this was the pre-conference dinner where I met a nice guy called Giorgio who was talking to me through dinner.

Then the next day there was a keynote by Michael Feathers which was interesting but confusing. Then there was an OpenShift 3.1 workshop by Ed Seymour and Keith Lynch who work at Redhat. This was complicated but fun and did what it was meant to do; explained how to use OpenShift 3.1.

After this was the session ‘Fake it Until You Make it’ by Dom Davis. It was funny, interesting and easy to follow. After that was another talk by Michael Feathers called Collection Pipeline Design Techniques. I understood a lot more of this than his first talk and found it very interesting and it taught me a lot of things.

Following a tea break was a talk by Darren Cook called WebGL is Serious Fun! It was funny and made sense and was interesting to listen to. It helped people to get started with WebGL and was not hard to follow.

After this was a talk by James Taylor about making passwords safer. I learnt about a usb device you can plug into your computer for 2 factor authentication which made it impossible to get into any account you own without it, so it makes hackers jobs harder. He also talked about 2 step authentication and it was all very interesting. Then there was a sponsor’s presentation by Elizabeth Scholefield who talked about mobile phones and how they were socially acceptable and it ended with an interesting video of a man rapping about how we replace phones with human interaction.

After this presentation was a closing keynote by Jon Jagger who talked about pair programming. It explained a lot of things I did not already know and was very easy to follow.

The next day there was a talk about smart wear by Paul Lammertsma and it taught you how to make a watch face for smart wear and explained the basics of making a smart wear application. It was a good tutorial and easy to understand.”

I think this demonstrates well that when there is genuine interest there are no age barriers!

Caroline Hargreaves

Riverbank Chinese Buffet Restaurant in Norwich helped make a significant contribution towards the ongoing work of local charity Nelson’s Journey. The proceeds of 40 meals were kindly donated to Nelson’s Journey following a Chinese buffet meal in the restaurant. Together with theraffle, the total amount raised on the evening was around £800. Simon Wright (former MP for Norwich South) will be skydiving later this month to raise more awareness and financial support for the charity, of which he is currently CEO. Nelson’s Journey offer support to children who are suffering the loss of a loved one.Pictures on the evening were taken by Joe Lenton (commercial photographer) – further images can be seen here: https://www.joelenton.com/portfolio/nelsons-journey-fundraising-dinner/