CEO Robert Hokin said “Cambridge Heat Transfer Ltd were the fastest respondents to a Twitter-based marketing campaign, the first time we have used this technique.
We are delighted to welcome our 100th member – this has been a real milestone for us and is validation of the innovation, investment and business support work we do for companies working in the low carbon sector. Our membership is UK wide and is growing in Scotland which doesn’t surprise us given the wealth of talent here. Scotland really gets cleantech and we are delighted to be part of it.”
ecoConnect’s Scottish showcase for commercial low carbon innovations, Cleantech Innovate takes place in Glasgow on 4 June and the call is out now for technology applications (deadline 23 February) – application is free at http://www.cleantechinnovate.com/for-presenters/ so join the story!
A full list of ecoConnect’s members is available at http://www.ecoconnect.org.uk/about-us/our-members/
The Macmillan Mammoth Quiz is back, now in its 7th year with a brand new, brain-teasing quiz for 2015. The Mammoth Quiz organised by the Oundle Macmillan Committee is Macmillan’s nationwide quiz. Simply put, it is the same quiz, being held on the same day, at the same time, throughout the country. The mammoth quiz even holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest simultaneous quiz. We need you to help make the 2015 Macmillan Quiz the biggest and best yet and help us to reach our target of over £200,000.
Macmillan are looking for local groups and businesses across the UK to host a quiz on 27 February 2015 to raise vital funds for people affected by cancer. It’s a really fun and easy way to raise money for Macmillan, and you can hold your quiz anywhere from the local pub or bowling club to the office or school. Previous participants have commented “It was a great Quiz and everyone enjoyed it tremendously” and that “the questions are so interesting and catch the imagination”.
It costs £10 to sign up to host a Mammoth Quiz. You will then be sent a welcome pack with a 2015 quiz and fundraising materials. Brand new this year is the Macmillan Mammoth Quiz website (www.macmillanmammothquiz.co.uk). On here you will find tips for organising your quiz, posters and tickets, a bit of information about Macmillan and even some sneaky sample.
To register for your 2015 quiz pack, find out more about the Mammoth Quiz and start downloading sample questions and fundraising materials, please log on to www.macmillanmammothquiz.co.uk or email mammoth.quiz.uk@gmail.com
For more information click here
Melville Castle is an 18th Century Country House Hotel nestled quietly within 50 acres of beautiful woodland estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Conveniently situated only 6 miles from the City Centre and a short easy drive from Edinburgh Airport.
With 7 elegant public rooms, a striking marquee pavilion and 32 bedrooms, the Castle & Estate offer the perfect venue for all types of company entertaining & meetings. Bespoke event packages can be created for secluded “Retreat” days with team building activities, product launches, intimate private dining or even full scale gala award ceremonies.
Day delegates rates – £29.50 per person
24 Hour Delegates Rates – £169.50 per person
Available on all 2015 new bookings confirmed before 31st March 2015
To check availability Email : Debbie @Melvillecastle.com
Quoting Edinburgh Chamber Winter Offer
Melville Castle Melville Gate Gilmerton Road Edinburgh Midlothian , EH18 1AP
Tel: 0131 654 0088
After the huge success of our Management Today Live: The Inspiring Business Conference in London last year, it’s taking to the road. The first stop is Edinburgh, on Wednesday 4 February.
Please follow the link to our Facebook page to enter, click here.
MT have lined up some amazing business names for their Edinburgh event, including:
Peter Lederer CBE, chairman, Gleneagles Hotels – the man who turned Gleneagles into a world-class luxury golf resort.
Andrew Laing, Aberdeen Asset Management deputy chief executive, and Andrew Murphy, John Lewis’s retail director, will be offering practical lessons from Scotland’s most admired companies.
And three business leaders debate Scotland’s economic future, post-referendum. On the panel are Jamie Coleman, CodeBase’s managing director, Shonaig Macpherson, chairman of The Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, and Ian McNaught – executive director of the Small Business Charter and chair of CMI Scotland.
Book now for an inspirational day packed with practical advice for you and your company, click here to find out more about this event. Plus MT are also offering Chamber members 40% off tickets with promotional code: MTE40.
T’s & C’s
- The winner of this competition must be a Edinburgh Chamber member
- The competition is open till 13th January 11.45pm
Edinburgh Chartered Accountancy firm Chiene + Tait (C+T) announced today the promotion of a new Partner in the firm. Neil Norman, previously Director of Corporate Tax Services became Chiene + Tait’s Entrepreneurial Tax Partner on 1 January 2015.
Neil qualified with a medium sized firm and then spent 5 years with KPMG prior to joining Chiene + Tait in January 2012. Neil specialises in tax planning and tax relief claims for entrepreneurs and angel investors including Enterprise Investment Schemes, Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes and R&D Tax Relief. He works closely with new start ups, university spin outs, business accelerators, high growth companies, life science organisations and entrepreneurs to make sure they are fully up to speed with the latest legislation set down by HMRC. Commenting on his promotion to partner, Neil says, ”I am absolutely delighted to become the newest partner at Chiene + Tait. With support from a fantastic team, we have developed and built on our existing entrepreneur and angel investor expertise and work with many angel syndicates across Scotland and the high growth companies they have invested in. I look forward to working with my fellow partners and growing our entrepreneurial work.”
The rules for work are changing. We’re being judged by a new yardstick; not just by how smart we are, or by our training and expertise, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other. This yardstick is increasingly applied in choosing who will be hired and who will not, who will be let go and who retrained, who passed over and who promoted. Daniel Goleman: Working with Emotional Intelligence
In today’s highly competitive world it is not necessarily the people that have the best academic qualifications that are the most successful. The people who are more resilient, who feel in control of themselves, who demonstrate self- efficacy, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills will allow the company to thrive. Studies show that not only are these types of people more productive, they are also physically and psychologically healthier.
Companies are becoming more proactive at addressing the wellbeing of their staff. Ill health costs UK employers an estimated £26bn a year in sickness absence, reduced productivity and recruitment costs according to the City Mental Health Alliance.
Having an emotionally intelligent (EI) work force, be it a CEO or the apprentice, will help to create a sense of corporate wellbeing. It is also the smart thing to do in business terms.
“For every job the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not IQ.
It’s learning ability,” Laszlo Block, Head of People Operations, told The New York Times. “It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information.”
More employers are finding EI (EQ) to be a good predictor of future job performance and leadership ability. EQ tells employers whether you can work collaboratively, the depth of your communication skills, your leadership potential, and even how well you’ll be able to learn from your mistakes. In fact, researches from Talent Smart shows 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotional reactions.
Another study, this one from Virginia Commonwealth University (USA) and published in the Journal of Organisational Behaviour, found emotionally intelligent people also tended to make the best workers.
Last year the head of Google’s HR department – dubbed its “people operations” division – suggested that traditional interview scores and college grades were worthless when it came to predicting how potential employees would perform in their jobs. In fact Google have binned their brain teaser interview questions.
The great thing to know is that it is never too late to acquire EI. It can be learnt in a relatively short space of time, be it one to one or in small group sessions. It is not only large companies that are now focussing on corporate wellbeing; SMEs also are now reaping the rewards of an emotionally intelligent workforce.
Andrew Farquharson:
Thrive Programme Consultant and Trainer:
Thrive in Scotland
andrew@thriveinscotland.co.uk
Airport credits support of city partners in helping achieve passenger milestone
Edinburgh Airport is predicting tomorrow, Tuesday 23rd December, as the day it will hit the 10 million passenger mark – the first time a Scottish airport has achieved this major milestone.
Airport experts have been analysing the figures closely and expect the 10 millionth passenger to travel through the terminal during the course of tomorrow afternoon.
After seeing record-breaking passenger numbers last year, the airport has continued to see more people than ever before travel through its terminal, thanks to a number of short and long haul destinations launching in 2014, including the city’s first Middle Eastern service to Doha with Qatar Airways.
Like 2013, July and August both recorded over a million passengers with July being the busiest month the airport has ever seen with over 1.1 million people travelling.
Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport, said: “After a record-breaking 2013, we set our sights on hitting the 10 million mark this year. Our passenger numbers have been growing and growing and this year’s successes in securing fantastic new routes to a range of short and long haul destinations has helped drive the increase.
“We’ve been lucky to play our part in delivering a phenomenal year for Scotland, one which we’ve been on the global stage. Events like The Ryder Cup and Edinburgh Festivals attracted huge numbers of visitors to Scotland.
“This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the exceptional hard work from our city partners. The help and support they have given us this year has been outstanding. A huge thank you is also due to the thousands of people who work at the airport, from terminal operations and Security Officers to cleaners and airline crew. They have truly worked their socks off this year and we’re planning to officially mark this milestone with a party in January.
“We’re now looking forward to a new year and a new challenge to ensure Edinburgh Airport remains where Scotland meets the world. The next twelve months look set to be very exciting as we gear up to welcome even more new airlines to the capital, including Etihad Airways which will launch its new service to Abu Dhabi in June.”
Minister for Transport and Islands Derek Mackay said: “This is a fantastic milestone for Edinburgh Airport and for Scotland. It rounds off an incredible year for Edinburgh which saw the airport play its role in 2014’s exciting programme of events, including the Commonwealth Games, The Ryder Cup and a second Year of Homecoming.
“With new services to long haul destinations like Doha and Chicago now launched and a new service to Abu Dhabi set to take off next year, I’m sure Edinburgh Airport will continue this success in 2015.”
David Birrell Chief Executive Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce added: “Scotland has enjoyed one of our highest global profiles as a country in 2014 and we must try to harness as much of this energy as possible in 2015.
“To achieve 10 million passengers is a fantastic milestone for our capital’s airport and we must all join forces to ensure that Edinburgh, and Scotland, continues to be seen as a leading destination for tourism, recreation and business in an increasingly competitive and complex global market.”
More information from:
Stuart Young, Communications Officer
07730 148022 or stuart_young@edinburghairport.com
About Edinburgh Airport:
Edinburgh Airport is Scotland’s busiest airport. More than 40 airlines serve 100-plus destinations and 9.78 million passengers passed through the airport in 2013 – the busiest year ever for a Scottish airport.
July 2014 was the airport’s busiest month ever with over 1.1 million passengers travelling through its terminal.
It is the 5th largest in the UK, in terms of passenger numbers, and employs over 5000 people, contributing hundreds of millions of pounds to Scotland’s economy.
Edinburgh Airport was named best in Britain, and top three in Europe, for passenger satisfaction, at the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards for 2012 and ‘Best European Airport (5-10m passengers)’ at the ACI EUROPE Best Airport Awards for 2012. It has also won Scottish Airport of the Year at the Scottish Transport Awards in 2013 and 2014.
Innovative IT infrastructure and support services provider, Onyx Group, today announced the acquisition of Knowledge IT, a highly accredited ICT solutions and support firm. After three years of good organic growth, this move significantly enhances Onyx’s consulting and managed service capability.
This is part of a dynamic and highly successful growth strategy for Onyx, reinforcing the company’s reach and reputation as a significant technology player. Since 2000, the group has completed five major acquisitions and will exceed a turnover of £20 million in 2014, a 13 per cent increase on the previous year. However, at £10 million, the purchase of North East based Knowledge IT is the biggest acquisition so far, boosting Onyx’s run rate revenue to over £30 million and increasing headcount to 170.
The acquisition of Knowledge IT is a confident step towards achieving Onyx’s ambitious plans to become a national £100 million revenue IT support and services business in the next five years.
Onyx owns five data centers and six workplace recovery facilities across the UK and has a growing base of more than 200 customers including some of the UK’s best-known brands. The acquisition will add to the facilities at Onyx and increase the breadth of its customer base.
Neil Stephenson, CEO of Onyx Group said “Increasingly over the past two years, customers have been asking us to manage their entire IT infrastructure, as well as providing resilient solutions to complex cloud and hosting requirements. The Knowledge IT team has a great reputation for delivering these services and this deal will make the Onyx propositions and reach stronger for both sets of customers.”
George Sanger, Managing Director of Knowledge IT added: “Onyx Group, like Knowledge IT has an established reputation for providing outstanding customer support. We welcome the opportunity to share our expertise to help Onyx build on their achievements and grow the enlarged business.”
“Neil Burn, Relationship Director in HSBC’s North East Corporate team said: “Neil and his team have successfully grown their business through a commitment to high quality service and long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with clients. Onyx is a successful and growing business and HSBC are pleased to have supported management in their acquisition of Knowledge IT, helping two North East businesses extend their reach further across the UK.”
Adam Holloway, Partner at Living Bridge, Onyx’s private equity partner added: “Having invested in Onyx in 2011, we’re delighted to see them make this strategic acquisition and are excited by the growth opportunities for the combined group.”
Deloitte provided Corporate Finance advice and financial and tax due diligence services to Onyx on the acquisition. Paul Roberts, a Director in Deloitte’s Corporate Finance team in Leeds said: “Onyx has an excellent brand and a dominant position in the IT services market in the North East and Yorkshire. Knowledge IT is a strategic acquisition and the Deloitte team is delighted to have been involved in realising this important deal. I look forward to watching the enlarged Onyx group continue to go from strength to strength”
L-R Neil Stephenson, CEO of Onyx Group & George Sanger, Managing Director of Knowledge IT
This week the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce welcomed a newcomer into their building at 40 George Street, Edinburgh.
Peaches n Cream Boutique is situated in the lower ground floor.
It is a sleek, contemporary unisex beauty salon, which has a relaxing and welcoming feel upon entering.
With a fantastic opening offer of 15% off all treatments for members of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce which can be utilised multiple times before the end of Jan 2015, it is worth booking your pre-xmas appointments now before its too late.
The owner and director of the company Ms. Naveed Babariya will be there to welcome you in with a lovely glass of bubbly or just a comforting hot chocolate!
If you are stuck on Xmas ideas for your loved ones, they also have beautifully presented Gift Cards to which you can add any value. They also stock fantastic ladies and men’s Gift Sets, which contain moisturisers and serums to perk anyone up.
The price list is available on their new website at: www.peachesncream.uk
You can also follow them on twitter on: @PeachnCreamEdin
Alternatively you can just give them a quick buzz on:
0131 629 4545 and they will be more than happy to offer you an appointment at a time that suits you.
Over 130,000 people are expected to travel through Scotland’s busiest airport next week.
A total of 130,409 passengers are expected to arrive and depart the airport between the 22nd and 28th December. Almost 60,000 people will arrive into Edinburgh during this time, with just under 73,000 departing.
Traditional sunshine destinations remain popular this year with Tenerife, Alicante, Barcelona, Lanzarote and Malaga being the top five and the airport is also offering more long haul destinations than ever before. London and Bristol are two of the most popular domestic destinations with many passengers travelling to see family and friends.
Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport, said: “The festive season is always an exciting time for us with hundreds of thousands of people expected to travel through the airport over the coming weeks.
“Many of our passengers will be flying off to escape the Scottish weather and spend the festive season in sunnier climes but the majority will be staying in the UK and travelling to visit friends and family.
“We’ve had a very successful year at Edinburgh Airport with more passengers travelling through our terminal than ever before, we’re confident we’ll exceed the 10 million mark during the festive season.
“We want to thank all our passengers who have travelled with us in 2014 and wish everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year.”
With Christmas being one of the busier times to travel, the airport is encouraging passengers to be prepared, particularly before going through security. It’s important to make sure all liquids are under 100ml, especially at this time of year when many passengers are carrying gifts.
So, if you can, pack it in your hold luggage to save disappointment. Many weird and wonderful
things are confiscated at security, including toy guns, jars of jam and marmalade and even snow globes.
| Edinburgh | |
| 22-28 Dec 2014 | |
| Arriving | 57,492 |
| Departing | 72,917 |
| Total | 130,409 |
More information from:
Gordon Robertson, Director of Communications
07785 372961 or gordon_robertson@edinburghairport.com
About Edinburgh Airport:
Edinburgh Airport is Scotland’s busiest airport. More than 40 airlines serve 100-plus destinations and 9.78 million passengers passed through the airport in 2013 – the busiest year ever for a Scottish airport.
July 2014 was the airport’s busiest month ever with over 1.1 million passengers travelling through its terminal.
It is the 5th largest in the UK, in terms of passenger numbers, and employs over 5000 people, contributing hundreds of millions of pounds to Scotland’s economy.
Edinburgh Airport was named best in Britain, and top three in Europe, for passenger satisfaction, at the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards for 2012 and ‘Best European Airport (5-10m passengers)’ at the ACI EUROPE Best Airport Awards for 2012. It has also won Scottish Airport of the Year at the Scottish Transport Awards in 2013 and 2014.
