• Haines Watts Young Entrepreneur competition
• University of Buckingham tops course satisfaction table
• Chiltern Brewery enjoys award success
• Donate old iPods to Chiltern Music Therapy
• Calling William's Fund Golfers
• Blaser Mills law firm recruits first non-lawyer Partner
• Green Dragon Eco Farm exhibits at BBC Countryfile Live
• egiftcards.co.uk launches to capitalise on trend toward instant e-gifting

Haines Watts Young Entrepreneur competition

Thames Valley firm Haines Watts, Chartered Accountants, has launched its 2017 region-wide search for young business talent with its free Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition. They are looking for people who have outstanding business talent in the Thames Valley area, who are aged 35 or under.

The competition is running in Thames Valley areas located around their offices and broadly encompasses Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Surrey and Oxfordshire. This means there are several opportunities, with five local winners and one overall regional winner.

The overall Haines Watts Young Entrepreneur of the Year will win a fantastic and useful set of prizes worth up to £5,000, which makes the competition well worth entering. This includes a year-long mentoring and support programme with a partner from Haines Watts, free publicity and a total cash prize of £1,000. Each winning local business attending the finals on 16th November will receive a cash prize of £250, a year-long mentoring programme with a partner from Haines Watts and free publicity.

The deadline for applications in Saturday 30th September.

Find out more about the Haines Watts Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition.

University of Buckingham tops course satisfaction table

The recent National Student Survey (NSS) 2017 ranked the University of Buckingham joint top for ‘Overall course satisfaction’. The University was tied with the Royal Veterinary College, and the University of St Andrews  with a 94 per cent approval rating.

The University has also been in the news lately for its BSc business enterprise (BBE) course, which supports budding entrepreneurs with setting up their own businesses.

One aspect of the course sees students pitch their ideas to the “Buckingham Angels”, a Dragon’s Den-style group that provides funds for start-up ventures deemed to be worth investing in.

Chiltern Brewery enjoys award success

The Chiltern Brewery is glittering with stardom from this year’s Great Taste Awards where star of the show Bodger’s Barley Wine 8.5% vol. has scooped a 3 Gold Star Award.

Organised by the Guild of Fine Food, Great Taste, the world’s most coveted and prestigious food and drink awards have once again showered stars on The Chiltern Brewery. Bodger’s Barley Wine was one of only 5 other beers to be awarded the highest 3 Gold Stars and has now been nominated for The Golden Fork Awards with the potential to become Supreme Champion. This is also the second time that this beer has been awarded 3 stars, the first time was with The Beer Awards. There were 12,366 entries this year and of these only 165 were awarded 3 stars.

Every single one of the brewery’s bottled beers currently hold a Great Taste Award and they have won a total of 31 stars since 2011 – an amazing testament to the quality of their brewing and the dedication of the team.

“This is amazing, we are so honoured to have won awards for our beers every year since entering,” said Tom Jenkinson, Head Brewer and Owner. “This not only demonstrates the consistency and quality of our beers but is a huge testament to the passion and experience of our brewery team – we are absolutely delighted and will keep the Bodger’s on ice for The Golden Forks.”

This immediately follows an amazing week of celebration for the brewery where they were voted ‘Central Chilterns Champion’ in The Chiltern Society Craft Beer Awards with their bottled John Hampden’s Golden Harvest Ale being their highest rated beer. John Hampden’s was also given a 5* verdict in Gluten Free Heaven Magazine, the only one out of 6 gluten free beers, and was voted ‘Editor’s Choice’.

Donate old iPods to Chiltern Music Therapy

The iPod Pharmacy was launched in Canada by a charitable foundation called Music Heals, and Chiltern Music Therapy are thrilled to be bringing it to the UK. The scheme invites people to donate their unused iPods. These are cleaned and uploaded with personalised music for music therapists to loan out to their clients.

Chiltern’s therapists work with a number of patients in hospitals, hospices and homes. Your old iPod could be used to help take their mind off their treatment, pain or environment, allowing them to lose themselves in their favourite music. Someone with cancer, for example, would be able to listen to personalised music whilst having chemotherapy.

There are a number of iPod Pharmacy Depot's across the UK, where you can drop off your iPod. Alternatively, please post it to Chiltern Music Therapy, Office A, Irfon House, High Street, Chesham, Bucks, HP5 1DE.

Visit www.chilternmusictherapy.co.uk/ipodpharmacy for more information.

Chiltern Music Therapy is inviting businesses to launch their own iPod Pharmacy Depots. For more information, please email elizabeth@chilternmusictherapy.co.uk.

Calling William's Fund Golfers

The William’s Fund Golf Day 2017 takes place on October 19th and they are looking for teams to enter and sponsor the event to ensure they raise as much money as possible for their cause. If you would like to sponsor the event, there are several packages available including 4 ball entry. This is a great opportunity to raise your business profile and support the William’s Fund research.

William's Fund was set up in memory of William Dodd who died from a rare cancer at the age of 4yrs 9 months after a 2 year treatment programme involving surgery, radiotherapy and repeated chemotherapy. “William would have been 21 this year,” says Johanna Dodd, “so we are aiming high in order to retain our current William Dodd Research Fellow in Oxford. Dr Townley is a highly respected researcher and as such she is in high demand. We need to secure her position by funding the next 5 years. Our research is leading the way and we still have no paid employees so you know your money goes directly to where it is needed.”

Fill out the booking form if you would like to get involved. Call Johanna on 07775 810888 for more information.

Blaser Mills law firm recruits first non-lawyer Partner

Blaser Mills’ transformation and expansion is showing no signs of slowing after it promoted two key new Partners, making a total of six in 2017. 

Hiren Gandhi, Business Development and Marketing Manager, becomes Blaser Mills’ first ever non-lawyer to be made Partner, a rare move in the legal sector. Since joining the firm in 2013, Hiren has supported the Senior Management in the development and implementation of an ambitious growth strategy for the firm.

The firm also welcomes Robert Cain, formerly Director of Cain Law, in to the Partnership. Robert has been tasked to develop Blaser Mills’ Corporate and Commercial team and he joins with over 20 years’ experience in the industry, with an expertise in technology, motorsport and brand distribution. Prior to establishing his own company in 2009, Robert worked in the Corporate and Commercial teams at a number of heavy-weight regional and global law firms.

Green Dragon Eco Farm exhibits at BBC Countryfile Live

It’s all happening at the Green Dragon Eco Farm at the moment, with an expansion recently completed that extends their Pets’ Corner with new exotic pets. Also new on the farm is a Pygmy goat ‘walk through’ and a Butterfly Trail in the wildflower meadow.

Green Dragon also recently exhibited at BBC Countryfile Live, which ran from August 3rd-6th at Blenheim Palace.

egiftcards.co.uk launches to capitalise on trend toward instant e-gifting

UK consumers and businesses can now send and receive digital e-gift cards from the UK’s top retailers, restaurants, cinemas and more in an instant with the launch of eGiftCards.co.uk.

“Recent UK Gift Card and Voucher Association research showed that 42% of Millennials intended to gift ‘digitally’ this past festive season, and a full 95% of them would consider buying an e-gift card,” said Caroline Watson, Managing Director for eGiftCards.co.uk. “With the trend toward “e-gifting” also now firmly in place in the corporate B2B promotions and incentives sphere as well, we felt the time was right to create a pure-play “e-gift card” portal for UK consumers and businesses.”

eGiftCards.co.uk was developed by the founders of TheGiftCardCentre.co.uk in partnership with Giftcloud in order to satisfy current and future consumer demand for convenient digital gift giving.

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