Meeting Shorts! GRAHAM KEAL NBC Press Officer

Action Man Tim

Newark Business Club Action Group Chairman Tim Shaw gave himself a new title for this month’s meeting – car park attendant.

Tim hadn’t given up the day job, indeed he and colleague Shelley Bakewell of Hogdson Elkington had sponsored the meeting to tell members about their residential lettings service.

But the club had to meet in the Stuart Goodwin Pavilion at Newark Showground, around the corner from our Cedric Ford Pavilion home, and Tim got the short straw for standing outside from 6.30am on a windswept December morning to re-direct members.

Later on Tim introduced “Shelley and the bump” (a happy event is due in the not-too-distant…) to point up Hodgson Elkington’s impressive record of maintaining high occupancy rates for lettings and generating vital feedback from landlords and tenants to ensure high-quality service.

Tim’s skills as a crowd marshal are an unexpected bonus.

Small wonders

Business people are much like policemen, they keep getting younger, or so it seems, but it’s rare for the club to be addressed by 12 and 13-year-olds.

This happened however with a presentation by a team of four Grove School pupils – Rhoda Roberts, 13, Rebecca Beeching, 12, Beth Walls, 12, and Jade Leo, 13 – addressing the need for better language skills.

They were the winners of this year’s Optima Training Language Project after responding to the challenge to create a presentation aimed at convincing primary school children of the importance of learning foreign languages.

Before introducing them, Jo Small of Optima training produced statistics showing that 61 per cent of companies are not satisfied with the international cultural awareness of school leavers, and 76% are unhappy with school leavers’ language skills.

In today’s global economy, language skills are increasingly important, so anything Jo and Co. can do to reverse the decline in language studies has to be good news for the UK economy as well as for education in general.

Beeching cut

Newark Embroidery’s Steve Beeching cut a dash, of sorts, at the meeting, dressed in impossibly loud black and white check “leisure trousers” topped by a canary yellow sweatshirt with bright red trim. Santa Claus would have looked dowdy by comparison.

By turning up in this attire on his 65th birthday, Steve won a bet with David Rogerson of Chattertons Solicitors to the value of a bacon butty. Since Chattertons also supplied free mince pies to the assembly, David was metaphorically feeding the 5,000. Or more than 100 at any rate.

Awards applause

Newark Advertiser Commercial Director Rachel Mosedale prompted a well-deserved round of applause for all the winners of the Newark Business Awards. Rachel won’t be resting on her laurels though – next year’s event will be on November 27, 2012, so the countdown has already started.

Website reborn

Jon Finegold announced that the club’s completely revamped website was “almost live”, which more or less summed up how I felt when I staggered out of the front door at 6.45am. But it’s good to know that the new website is virtually complete.

Robin Hood beware

MP Patrick Mercer congratulated the Grove pupils and their teachers on their linguistic achievements and went on to talk about plans to introduce elections next year to select the Police and Crime Commissioner for Nottinghamshire. Such elections will take place around the country but as Patrick noted, ours is the only one who will inevitably be dubbed The Sheriff of Nottingham.

Out Of This World

Lifelong Doctor Who fan Elaine Ellison was winner of this month's business draw.

Founder chair of Newark Business Club, Elaine is a EMDA Business Champion and Director and Treasurer of the Newark Carnival Community Interest Company.

Elaine is a Business Development Consultant who trades under the name Renaissance Newark.

She helps small businesses reach their full potential. Elaine can be contacted on 07951 600392.

Club Website Goes Live
Jon Finegold, member of the executive committee, updated members on the club's new website, which has been produced by Epix Media.

The new site provides useful information on meeting dates, events and key initiatives. There is an extensive member directory which has been designed to encourage trading between members of the club.

Jon urges all members to visit the new site and to update details of their business.

If you have not visited the site, please do so now. Your old login and password won’t work; from the login box on the left sidebar, choose the ‘forgot password’ option.

You will be invited to enter your registered email address and hit ‘get new password’. 

You’ll then get an emailed link to reset your password of at least 8 characters.  (These instructions are repeated on the members’ directory page.)    

Have a look at the new site:
www.newarkbusinessclub.co.uk/

Timico Win Business Of The Year Award

The 2011 Newark Business Awards, organised by the Advertiser, was a glittering affair that celebrated the very best of business success in the Newark area.

More than 230 people attended the awards evening at Kelham Hall, where the winners of eight categories were revealed, before the announcement of the overall winner, Business of the Year 2011.

The title was won by independent internet service provider Timico, which employs almost 200 people at its headquarters on Cafferata Way in Newark.

The company's chief technology officer, Mr Trefor Davies, received the award on behalf of the company from guest speaker Saira Khan and the Advertiser's managing director, Joanna Parlby.  

He said: "Newark is a fantastic place to do business. It is an exciting time to be in the internet business and we in Newark are participating in this revolution. Keep watching this space."

Earlier in the evening, Timico had also been named winner of the Excellence in Business category.

Writing in his blog on Timico's website the day after the awards, Mr Davies said: "The recognition that winning this award in our home town brings us is far more important for Timico than winning some national gong.

"Being recognised in this way should also attract more local customers our way because local firms want to deal with local people. We shouldn't underestimate the amount of pride that our community has in our success in business."

Making the most of modern technology was one of the themes of the guest speaker at the awards night, Saira Khan, who rose to fame in the first series of television's The Apprentice
She urged business people at the event to spread their message far and wide using social networking tools.

She said even Lord Sugar, wealthy entrepreneur and star of The Apprentice, made sure he went on Twitter to promote his autobiography in person.
 
She also said that business people had to be confident in their own abilities, as she had been in hers when she took part in The Apprentice. Although she did not win, she used the experience as a launch-pad for her own successful career as a businesswoman and television presenter.

"Confidence is the single biggest thing that has got me from a two-up, two-down on a council estate to where I am now," she said.

Personal touch was key, she said.

"In business, people buy people, but often the last thing we focus on is how we interact with other people. Whether you are accountants, lawyers or retailers, you all have to sell yourselves."

She believed winning awards was important for both the credibility and morale of a business.

"Times are hard and you are all going to have to make some tough decisions. It will not be easy. Give yourself some time out to focus on who you are; take time to give yourself a pat on the shoulder."

Managing Your Property Portfolio

Hodgson Elkington LLP sponsored the Newark Business Club Meeting this Friday and explained that the company’s aim is to provide a professional service that goes beyond the expected providing clients with a personal and comprehensive service throughout the East Midlands. Shelley Bakewell, the Senior Property Manager, explained how the Residential Lettings Department achieve this with some thought provoking facts for landlords and tenants to consider.

Did you know that anyone without experience, knowledge or training can open a letting agency? Frightening, isn’t it? Government have made it very clear that they won’t force regulation upon the industry but are happy for principled agents to self-regulate. This can be done via several regulatory bodies of which Hodgson Elkington LLP are members and are fully authorised and licensed to run their business.

Unregulated agencies may not have Client Money Protection and should they go out of business can take landlord rent monies and tenant deposits with them. Again, another frightening thought and it can and does happen.

Hodgson Elkington fees structures are transparent and all inclusive. Many agents quote a fee but don’t make the ‘add-on’ fees clear leaving a landlord out of pocket. The add-ons are often for carrying out work which it would be reasonable to expect an agent to include within their service such as regular inspections of tenanted properties and ensuring compliance with mandatory safety checks.

A legal help team for the company provides support in the event of a technical legal question arising with this service being included within the fee structure the company quotes a landlord when taking on new business.

The occupancy levels of the managed property portfolio remaining consistently high at over 95% - this is the level of properties tenanted. Let’s face it; a vacant property is no use to anyone as its not bringing in an income whilst empty. The occupancy status should never be underestimated particularly considering that most landlords are looking at a 10 to 15 year investment period. Void periods can turn what should be an excellent investment into a poor one.

So the company offer not only a good service, but sound, practical advice too. If you are considering becoming a landlord or wish to discuss your current investment, Jill Elkington, Head of Residential Lettings, would be pleased to hear from you.

Hodgson Elkington LLP – 01522 698899 or letting@hodelk.co.uk

Students Polish Up Language Skills!

The Grove/Optima Language project has been running for three years with the support of local business people, Newark Beacon and Business Language Champions. This year’s project was bigger and better in that it saw the start of a relationship with Newark Twinning Association. Members of Newark Twining Association gave up their time launch the project and provided engraved plaques for each of the winners.

Each year, teams of pupils from the Grove School are tasked with developing and delivering a presentation convincing their target market (either primary of business) of the importance of learning a language. Teams also develop posters, leaflets and business cards to support their pitch.

This year’s winner was Two Translations. The team, which consisted of Rebecca Beeching, Beth Walls, Jade Leo and Rhoda Roberts, had obviously put a lot of effort into their project, creating a brand, mission statement and a T-Shirt. They focused on the importance of learning Polish due to Newark’s twinning connection of Sandomierz in Poland.

This project is really important as it encourages kids to learn languages. The school has reported an increase in pupils swapping their GCSE choices for languages. In 2009 the German GCSE group increased from 16 to 29, the French numbers increased so that the school was able to run two groups (rather than the previous one group in 2008) and the Spanish group, previously in danger of being closed, turned into a thriving group of 16.

Next year’s project aims to be cross curricular, involving input from other subject areas and helping the kids to further develop their presentation and communication skills. Watch this space!

Carols In The Market Place

As part of the Christmas festivities, Newark Business Club in partnership with Newark Town Council, Newark District Council, Newark Town Partnership and Nottinghamshire County Council organised a day of carols and seasonal music in the market place.

Entertainment was provided by Chuter Ede Primary School Choir, Newark Choral Society and Newark Town Band. Over 500 people joined in the festive singing and visited the market stalls that had been set up as part of the event.

Carols in the market place was supported by the Newark Advertiser, Living Local and Bazzoo with additional help from June Rowlands, Steve Beeching and Malcolm and Elaine Ellison.

The business club plans to run the event next year.

If you're interested in seeing photographs from the day then visit the online gallery.