Written by: Miriam Nicholls
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Quarterly Meetings
These all start at 5.00 p.m. and are finished by 7.00 p.m. Bring along your business cards and be prepared to meet lots of new faces who, just like you, run businesses locally. There’s no charge, all we ask is that you let us know you will be coming so that we can make sure we have enough chairs.
9th March - Royal Norfolk Hotel, Bognor Regis
15th June – The Best Western Beachcroft, Felpham
14th September – Middleton Sports Club
7th December – Arundel Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre
Getting To Know You
Our hugely popular, free B2B Event is on Thursday 25th June at Butlins Conference Centre, Bognor Regis. Look out for further details in your April newsletter.
Charity Golf Day 20th August at Bognor Regis Golf Club
Our resident golf “expert” (oh yes he is!) Michael Pisko will once again organise a great day out for all you golfing fanatics while raising thousands for local good causes. If you want to get involved email - michaelpisko@camcentral.co.uk
Arun Business Partnership Annual Awards
Come along and celebrate all that’s great about Arun’s businesses – and believe me there is plenty to celebrate.
Thursday 22nd October at Hilton AvisfordPark, Walberton.
The Awards will be launched in the next few months so look out for details of how to enter.
Where’s Miriam?
Regular newsletter readers (yes there are some!) will know that each month I report on at least one of the great businesses I’ve visited. This month my colleague Chris Shephard and I visited Hendesigns at their unit in Littlehampton.
We met with Matt, Bob and Gill who told us about the company and exactly what they do as well as providing us both with a top rated cup of tea! . Hendeisgns are energy efficient lighting specialists who aim to save companies money and reduce their Co2 emissions and their carbon footprint. Their full supply and installation service ensures that they can maximise energy savings together with a maximum return on investment in a relatively short paybackperiod.
We were shown a demonstration of all their various lighting products as well as just how much money can be saved by simply changing a few installations. Chris particularly enjoyed the “techy” side whilst I am still reeling at the amount of money I’m giving to my electricity supplier just by running “traditional” light bulbs! And that’s just in my house not on a larger scale like some businesses.
Gill tells us she is looking forward to coming to the next Business Partnership meeting but if you are interested in saving your company money and can’t wait until then have a look at their web site www.hendesigns.co.uk or give them a call to talk about a free audit of your premises.
What’s more the team at Hendesigns can tell you about the £500 Energy Efficiency Grants that are now available from Business Link. £500 being given away – I don’t belive it!
And Now …. Let’s Hear It For …..
The Beachcroft Hotel, or should I say the Best Western Beachcroft Hotel. Many of you will be aware of or even have visited the Beachcroft Hotel beautifully placed on the seafront at Felpham. Robert and his team go to great lengths to make their guests welcome and the Arun Business Partnership have enjoyed many a pleasant evening there. On 2nd March the Hotel became part of the Best Western Group which means for the first time in its history Bognor Regis now has its very own, but still independently owned, Best Western Hotel.
To celebrate Robert and his team are holding two cocktail and canapé events to which you are all invited
Littlehampton CommunitySchool Students
Who are currently in Sri Lanka doing fabulous work in the community. What a great credit to Littlehampton these youngsters are. To have a look at what they are doing click here.
Opportunities
We are often asked to pass on bits and pieces of information that might just be useful to you so here are a few of those.
A Letter from the Man at the Ministry
Lord Hunt has asked us to pass on some information about a Resource Efficiency Campaign. Click to have a look at what it’s all about.
A Note from the Lady at Lauren Lloyd
Tracey from Lauren Lloyd in Rustington contacted me to tell me about their newly developed training room that is available for use by other businesses. She told me ……
“We have recently developed an unused area of our building to create a training room. We use this for in house training of our workforce as required rather than out source training or hire rooms in hotels/schools etc.. It can comfortably seat 12 at individual workstations each one equipped with pc and an additional workstation for a tutor/speaker. It has an interactive whiteboard and all the relevant data connections. It may be something that your members could utilize since we hire it out when not in use by us.”
If you want more details call Tracey on 01903 778800 or email theadleysmith@lauren-lloyd.com
Get Out and About in England
Whether there’s a credit crunch or not, few of us can resist a bargain and our colleagues at Enjoy England have come up with a list of offers for you to take advantage of. Click to have a look at what’s going.
Business Link Clinics
Our friends from Business Link are running a series of business clinic in Arun during March. For details click here.
Improve Your Skills Over Breakfast
No, we don’t mean juggling your Cheerios! A number of local businesses took the opportunity to learn how they can beat the economic downturn by attending a free breakfast meeting recently.
Organised by Sussex Enterprise, Train to Gain and the Arun Business Partnership, the joint event took place at The Norfolk Arms Hotel in Arundel on18 February with the aim of helping employers through these tough times.
The ‘Train to Survive’ breakfast skills surgery provided attendees with expert support and advice about improving the skills of their staff in order to put their business in the strongest position possible.
The businesses that attended benefited from a £1,000 leadership training voucher, which can be put toward a combination of training solutions including up to £500 funding for directors and managers, and up to £500 match-funding for senior managers and management teams.
Attendees also received information on the quick and easy bite-sized training available in critical business areas such as business improvement, team leadership and customer service.
Expert support was on hand throughout the morning to establish what practical steps could be taken to ensure businesses are moving in the right direction as well as offering a networking opportunity.
Chris Shephard, Business Parks Co-ordinator said: “We understand that times are tough for businesses currently due to the credit crunch and as part of our overall offer to local businesses, this session offered specific advice and tips on training, and funding to support it.
“In these troubling economic times it is of paramount importance that staff are highly trained in order to put businesses in the strongest position possible. Hopefully everyone who attended has gone away with a better idea of how to strengthen the teams they already have as well as taking advantage of the funding available.”
If you are a local business and you missed this event, or would like to find out more about the £1000 grant, please call Train to Gain to book a free meeting with a Skills Broker on
0845 7512288 or email info@traintogainse.co.uk.
