Three Ways To Boost Your Business Friday, November 6, 2015,  12:30 - 2:30pm, Magpas,  Centenary House St Mary's St, Huntingdon PE29 3PE 3 Speakers, 3 Key Strategies : Join Us For A Lunch and Learn Session  Dr, Chris Thomas:   Your Path from Tweet to Blog Post to E Book and Beyond. Danni Smith:           How To Create Your Own Great PR. Luana Mattey:         Transform Your Website Into The Best 24/7 Salesperson You've Ever Had.  The event will be £5 to paid up HBN members.  £10.00 on the door for non-members Meet Your Speakers  Chris  will show us how we can pass on our knowledge and experience by re-purposing articles & PDFs into eBooks and courses that will be valuable marketing tools and a lasting legacy. Anyone who's spent any time with Chris will know that he has a madcap sense of humour which make his talks smart, informative and a lot of fun. What you may not know is that Chris is a published author, an award-winning publisher and a trusted advisor to aspiring authors and course creators.  He passionately believes that you are unique, as an individual and in terms of your business experience. He's shown clients how to nurture their precious first ideas and, together, they have gone on to produce books and courses in both digital and printed format. Danni  With over 20 years’ experience in Newspaper Journalism, TV Production and Screen-writing, Danni’s passion is working with businesses to create either an online or offline campaign, message or presence that sets them apart from the rest of the crowd.     Describing her work as “Journalism-lead PR”, Danni offers a wide range of skills from Copywriting and Video to Social Media and Presenter Training. During her talk, Danni will look at * What the key ingredients are for a successful PR campaign * What impact a good PR campaign has on a business * How businesses can create their own PR Luana... launched  ‘Get Online, Get Found, Get Clients’ after running her own successful business in South Africa for 25 years, where she took her Start Up to Seven Figures by creating multiple streams of recurring and passive income. Always positive and described by friends and colleagues as ‘a real fireball of energy’,  Luana has a wealth of knowledge and experience.   She has developed a unique system, designed specifically for non techies, that blends business, marketing and technology that makes it possible for you to double your results without doubling your workload. Register for this event on our Meetup page http://www.meetup.com/Huntingdonshire-Business-Network/events/218844095/   Other General Networking Meetings 1st Friday of Month - Monthly Seminar/visiting speaker 2nd Friday of Month - Company visit, Interesting Subject or Themed Meeting 3rd Friday of Month - An HBN Members Presentation 4th Friday of Month - Business Brief or Debate on a Business related Subject If we have a 5th Friday in a month then we will have an open meeting

Triangle delivery report

'Bringing it all home' says Triangle The 2015 edition of Triangle Management Services' UK Domestic B2C Express Parcels Distribution Survey has found that although alternative delivery options (such as click and collect) are making an impact on the traditional home delivery method, such solutions still have a lot of catching up to do. Over 80% of all deliveries are destined for a home address, according to the shippers who took part in the survey. The closest rival to home delivery is the work place address, which accounted for 14% of all deliveries. In-store click and collect (just over 1%) and parcel shops and parcel lockers (with less than 1% combined) are still far behind.
	Those carriers that deliver the greatest percentage of their parcels to homes are Yodel, Hermes (both at 90%) and Royal Mail (87%). The carriers that deliver a greater percentage to alternative solutions are DPD (4%) and APC Overnight (3%).
The home is also at the heart of the returns picture. More than half of the shippers interviewed (51%, up 10% on 2014) said that consumers prefer to return items directly from their home being collected by the designated delivery carrier, while 35% (down 8% from 2014) indicated collection via the nearest post office. Although the alternative delivery methods are used more for returns than for deliveries, they are still relatively uncommon. Only 4% of shippers (unchanged from 2014) said that they received in-store returns and 3% (up 1%) indicated that they handle returns via parcel shops. Triangle conducted some 460 in-depth telephone interviews with B2C shippers for the 2015 survey, and collected a total of 545 benchmark service ratings for the twelve main carriers used for home deliveries. Carriers benchmarked in the survey include the major global integrators TNT Express, UPS and FedEx, along with home delivery experts Hermes, Yodel and Royal Mail, plus Parcelforce Worldwide, DPD, Interlink, APC Overnight, UK Mail and freight parcel specialists DX Freight. In total, twelve carriers offering UK domestic home delivery services are rated by their customers, and compared against each other in this study. Triangle’s UK Domestic B2C Express Parcels Distribution Survey was first published in 2008 and is emerging as the industry standard benchmarking study for the home delivery sector. Triangle’s CEO, Neil Jackson, commented: “Having produced the Triangle B2C survey now for seven years, we know and understand the value of the UK Domestic Express Survey programme to our clients and have included new questions and areas to keep it relevant and up-to-date. The home delivery sector is changing rapidly and this latest report continues to highlight areas for improvement that the carriers must address in order to retain customers and remain competitive.” Notes for Editors: Triangle Management Services Ltd, founded in 1984, is today the pre-eminent independent specialist management services company within the global mail and express sectors. Triangle offers the following services to clients: Recruitment, Market Research, Consultancy, Media and Market Intelligence - all of which are focussed primarily on the mail and express industry sectors. For more information, contact Triangle's Research Team on +44(0)1628 642910 or email Helen Daniels, Research Manager.

HMA Resourcing and Skills

TACKLING THE SKILLS SHORTAGE

"Resourcing and Skills in Cambridgeshire"

Join the HMA team and our very special guest, Simon Weston OBE, at the WATA training facility on Wednesday 15th July 2015. Simon is a strong believer in seeing the skills and expertise of ex-military personnel making the transition to the world of civilian Employment.  We are also very lucky to have Julia Chippendale, the Managing Director of EAL Awards joining us to discuss improvements in skills qualifications

Huntingdonshire Manufacturers Association (HMA) events are different in that they are devised and promoted by a committee of passionate and committed local manufacturing based business people. AND they are entirely FREE.

Click to Download Event Flyer

Click to reserve a place at the event

Click to complete the skills and resourcing questionnaire 

We have always designed events to have a quality of subject matter that you wont find elsewhere. Like you, we value time and know that there are only so many events we can attend each month!

A consistent conversation topic being discussed by Huntingdonshire businesses like yours is the lack of skills and resources in our region. So where do you find staff with the the skills needed to reinforce and grow a business? Its becoming harder and harder ! How do our neighbouring counties acheive this and how can we improve ....

THE AGENDA

1400  The skills and resourcing needs of local manufacturers panel discussion

1430  Breakout session to introduce the Skills and Resourcing questionnaire and capturing our local needs

1500  Recruitment of Ex-Forces Personnel

Simon Weston OBE

Managing |Director at Weston Security Ltd

Non-Executive Director Anatech

1530 EDGE Sharper Skills for Enterprise

Julie Drummond

Economic Development Officer

Huntingdonshire District Council

1600  The LEP approach to Skills and Resourcing

Mark Cooper

Skills and Business Growth Lead

Greater Cambridgeshire/ Greater Peterborough LEP

1630  Improvements in Skills Qualifications

Julia Chippendale

Managing Director

EAL Awards

1700  Panel discussion followed by a tour of WATA

Chaired by

Nigel Donohue

Managing Director

West Anglia Training Association

HBN People event

As a CEO the most important assets in your business are your people.  In this important seminar three leading local HR specialists will cover 4 of the top HR issues facing any business owner.

• How to find and recruit the top talent that you will need to grow your business
• Obtain a far better understanding of Pension Auto-Enrolment and how it will affect your business
• Understand how current and upcoming employment law changes will affect you business
• Learn some simple tools to enable your people to be more productive in the workplace

 

Our three top HR specialists are: 

Dawn Cross                    HR Consultant, Face2FaceHR 

Lorraine Dyer                  Freelance HR Director in the Hospitality Industry

Karen Williams               KJ HR Consulting

The event will run from 1230-1500  and HBN will provide a sandwich buffet.  Tickets are £5.00 if booked on-line prior to the event or £10.00 on the door

TO BOOK

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/people-your-companies-most-important-resource-tickets-16545453898

New HBN Banner is ready

HUNTINGDONSHIRE BUSINESS NETWORK BANNER

A brand new HBN banner has been designed and produced and will be on public display for the first time at the Huntingdonshire Business Fair #HBF2015 on Thursday 23rd April. The banner was designed by +Jane Thomas of Milton Contact and printed and fitted by Carli and her team at Borney. 

+Richard Wishart +Annette Williams and +Luana Mattey will be representing HBN at a pre-event marketing seminar for stand holders this afternoon.  We are looking forward to a good "Open Networking" event

If you are at the event - please drop by at the HBN Stand and say hello - It will be good to meet local businesses and friends of HBN next Thursday

#HBNevent

HBN makeover

Makeover for the Huntingdonshire Business Network Brand

HBN has just re-branded with a new Banner and Business Card design.  Jane Thomas from Milton Contact Ltd worked on the branding which I think is fantastic.

The brand is designed to emphasise the groups Social Media interests which are being refreshed and reinvigorated as well

The new branding will go on show for the first time at the Huntingdonshire Business fair #HBF15 on the 23rd April 

Written by Richard Wishart

Chairman of Huntingdonshire Business Network

30th March 2015

#HBNCambs 

HBF2015

HUNTINGDONSHIRE BUSINESS NETWORK WILL BE AT HBF 2015

Huntingdonshire Business Network HBN will be at the Huntingdonshire Business Fair at Woodgreen on 23rd April 2015

Our stand is booked and our new banners are designed - it should be a really good event.  HBN has been a regular attendee at the HBF events and will be tweeting on #HBF2015 and #HBNCambs

We look forward to seeing you at the event

http://www.meetup.com/Huntingdonshire-Business-Network/events/218841699/