The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has announced that outsourcing firm Capita is its preferred bidder in the gas installer registration scheme tender meaning current registrar CORGI, based in Basingstoke, has been appointed reserve bidder.

CORGI expressed its disappointment with the decision but said it would work to ensure a smooth transition process between scheme providers. It stressed the decision would have no disruptive impact on the day-to-day running of CORGI-registered businesses. (more…)

Destination Basingstoke, home to the PERK staff incentive scheme has had a revamp with a new website by Basingstoke Web Agency - The Escape.

The website has been a flagship for the successful PERK scheme, as highlighted in the Basingstoke Gazette recently, and this latest version of looks set to grow the scheme quickly, with the company able to update the PERK scheme offers and directory quickly through a website content administration system. (more…)

Busy business women in Basingstoke were given a dirty talk by cleaning guru Kim - not the Kim of TV’s ‘Kim and Aggie’ - but our very own Kim Austen, the founder of local cleaning business ‘House Proud Services’ based in Basingstoke.

Invited by The Women in Business Group to talk at their April meeting, held at Basingstoke’s Apollo Hotel, members were treated to an enlightening talk by entrepreneur Kim Austen, who, facing redundancy eight years ago, made a clean sweep and started her own business completely from scratch.

Kim kick-started her cleaning business by placing an ad in a local paper and soon found she had more than enough work to cope with herself, so expanded the company’s capabilities by taking on staff to help her handle the successful rise of the business.

Today, House Proud Services employs 20 part-time cleaners and a full-time manager working for 90 customers in the Basingstoke area, equalling 200 cleans per month. Kim explains:

Cleaning is a very emotive subject. 70% of women work today, yet many business women still find it hard to accept help in their home, feeling failure if they can’t cope with life’s everyday demands of running a home, looking after a family and putting in a full day’s work.

Building her highly successful business over the last eight years, Kim has experienced more than she would sometimes care to.

It goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some women will spring clean before the cleaner turns up, but we’ve also been in houses where the bed-sheets look like they have never been washed and seen animal faeces ground into the carpet from where they have been walked into the house from the back garden …! Some people’s private collections are fairly unusual too, like the young man who took a particular interest in collecting ladies thongs!

Kim concluded,

Don’t be afraid to get a professional cleaner into your home. If you are considering this option, the best way of choosing the right person is by recommendation. At House Proud Services we will come and talk to you about your own personal requirements and then match the right cleaning person for the tasks.

Lindsey Page, President of Women In Business, thanked Kim for her refreshing talk and then introduced Jane Carley, a Fundraising Executive from Wessex Cancer Trust, who gave a short presentation to the Members as this year’s chosen charity.

Jane said she was thrilled that their charity had been chosen, which would greatly help awareness of the Trust and face-to-face networking is a great way of achieving this. They have a strong association with Basingstoke and raise approximately £1million a year to help in a multitude of projects to help the fight against cancer.

A group aiming to help reduce crimes against businesses in Tadley is close to being set up after several meetings to discuss the possibility of establishing a Tadley Business Against Crime group, made up of the owners and managers of local firms.

As well as cutting shoplifting, the consortium would seek to stop anti-social behaviour that affects traders and local leisure and service providers in the town, through sharing information about repeat troublemakers.

A similar group in Basingstoke - called Basingstoke Business Against Crime - was established successfully in the town centre in 2006.

More details from This is Hampshire.

The University of Winchester campus at Basingstoke is both host and sponsor of the upcoming networking lunch for North Hampshire Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Chute House, set in picturesque Glebe Gardens close to St Michaels Church, the ancient parish church for Basingstoke, can help widen access to higher education in Hampshire, and is the venue for this opportunity to mix with business people from Basingstoke and North Hampshire.

Further information from Marian Bennett 01256 352275 or visit www.nhcci.co.uk for more details.

Vicki Hansford was October’s North-Hampshire Women In Business Group’s guest speaker, held at The Sherfield School, Sherfield-on-Loddon.

Today Vicki is a renowned sportswoman who has overcome personal adversity to achieve great sporting triumphs that are truly inspiring. Vicki explained that 5 years ago she was diagnosed with cancer and given just six months to live. However, Vicki remarkably recovered and underwent both lung surgery and a below-the-knee amputation a year later.

Always a keen athlete, she threw herself into sport for rehabilitation, learning to run with a prosthetic leg, and began winning medals in the T44 class – open to athletes with below-the-knee amputations.

She won a Gold medal at 100m at the British Open Championships in 2005, setting a new British record in her first ever competitive outing. Vicki then went on to win Gold in the same event at the ‘Wheelchair and Amputee World Games’ in Rio de Janeiro the same year.

This was a fabulous achievement in itself but, never one to rest, Vicki sought ever greater challenges and transferred to rowing the following season. Last year she astounded crowds at the ‘World Rowing Championships’ by not only winning Gold in the ‘Legs, Trunks and Arms mixed coxed fours’, but also by setting a new World Record for the event!

Her efforts did not go unnoticed. Last December, Vicki was awarded the BBC South Hunt Johnston Stokes Disabled Sportswoman of the Year.

Vicki continued to have a successful season this year by stroking the boat to win the first ever world cup regatta in Amsterdam in June and gained a Silver medal with the same crew at the world rowing championships in Munich this September.

Vicki’s next greatest challenge is to compete at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008. She has recently given up her day job to concentrate on her training. Spineworks are sponsoring Vicki in her bid to qualify for the 2008 Para Olympic squad. For more information on how you can help sponsor Vicki please email debs@spine-works.com

Sue Brown, Women In Business Group President, thanked Vicki for her inspiring speech, commenting,

I am never usually at a loss for something to say, but never has such an event proved to be so humbling for the hushed audience who listened in awe at Vicki’s amazing courage. Against all the odds, she has overcome traumatic experiences to achieve great sporting prowess.

The Women In Business Group is celebrating 15 years of providing a networking forum for business women who work in and around North Hampshire and they want YOU to come and help celebrate with them!

To commemorate their 15th Anniversary, they are organising a Champagne Reception on 27 September 2007 at Audley’s Wood Hotel, Basingstoke, from 6.00pm onwards.

If you are interested, please contact Katie Russell to book your table and reserve a place: Katie Russell, LD Property Management, 1 Wote Street, Basingstoke, RG21 7NE (Telephone 01256 332971).

The champagne reception will be followed by a special guest speaker, befitting the occasion. Barbara Harmer will be talking about her experiences as being one of the minority of women pilots who flew for British Airways and the only woman who qualified for and piloted Concorde.

All guests will take home a goodie-bag of gifts, solely supported and provided by businesses who work in North Hampshire. A raffle will also be held with the proceeds going to “The Women’s Refuge”.

If you are a local business and are interested in including a gift, business discount voucher or you wish to make a donation to the raffle, please contact Maria Booker, Visual Impact, Power House, The Street, Old Basing, RG24 7BY. (Tel. 01252 317137).

So whether you know the Women In Business Group, have heard about them, or just have a passing interest in what they do, now is your chance to go and see what they’re all about.

Sue Brown, current President of WIBG, commented,

The Women In Business Group was founded 15 years ago in September 1992. Affiliated to the North Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, the response to starting a separate business group specifically for women was quite overwhelming, confirming the need for such a body within the Basingstoke and surrounding business community, to provide a regular forum for business women to meet and network.

We look forward to welcoming past members, current members and hopefully introduce some new members to our Group. We are a friendly, business networking group, who firmly believe that ‘women who talk together do business together’.

In rain-soaked June, the weather was relatively kind on the evening that Marylyn Abbott, owner of historical West Green House in Hartley Wintney, opened up her beautiful gardens to the North-Hampshire Women In Business Group.

The rain held off long enough for Ms Abbott to provide an insightful talk and walkabout on the latest development to her gardens. Marylyn is a keen supporter of sustainable agriculture and works with the Slow Food movement to help keep traditional ways of making food, like cheese and oils, alive. In keeping with her beliefs, Marylyn experiments every year with different ideas and a theme dedicated to growing a variety of plants, flowers, fruit and vegetables in a portion of her garden.

This year’s project is ‘Gardening with Dracula’! and Marylyn devoted her talk to the inspiration she gained whilst visiting Transylvania last year which gave her the ideas for her current theme.

Sue Brown, President of the WIBG, pictured left with Marylyn Abbott in her gardens at West Green House, Hartley Wintney.

Sue Brown, President of The North-Hampshire Women In Business Group, said,

“Thank you so much to Marylyn for, yet again, providing a truly wonderful evening that has certainly brightened up these wet June days we’re presently having! This is the 4th year that Marylyn has opened up her Gardens for us and this event always proves extremely popular with our members, all of whom gain inspiration for their own gardens!”

West Green Gardens opens annually: Easter to 30 September. Wednesday through to Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays from 11.00am until 4.30pm (last entry).

A newly formed Design and Project Management company Visual I’s, located in Hook, have become the main sponsors of Hartley Wintney Cricket Club and as part of their sponsorship have provided and installed a new electronic score board.

The scoreboard was ‘unveiled’ at the Hampshire County Cricket Club benefit match for Tony Middleton late last year.

The cricket club are looking to further extend their links with local businesses who promote their services whilst supporting this prestigious cricket club in it’s drive to improve it’s contribution to the local community.

Hartley Wintney Cricket Club publishes an Annual Fixture Card which is distributed to more than 500 people in the area and carries advertisements for more than 40 local businesses, although there is always scope to add more in this full-colour pocket publication and they are keen to attract more sponsorship from businesses in North Hampshire.

They also have an annual benefit match with Hampshire CCC, which this year is for Dimitri Mascarenhas and will be on August 3rd. This event provides numerous opportunities for sponsorship and the opportunity to buy a table, to use for company guests or friends, at the excellent pre-match lunch and auction. In 2006 the event attracted more than 2,000 spectators and guests.

For more information on this event contact Bob Fellows.

The Women In Business Group invited Dr Patricia Ridsdale to speak at its April meeting, held at Centre Court Hotel in Basingstoke.

The subject matter, ‘conventional medicine versus homeopathy (or can they live and work in harmony?)’, proved to be an extremely popular topic judging by the packed audience at this event.

Tricia Ridsdale has worked as a GP in Hampshire for 14 years and has always been interested in the whole person and the dynamics of health. Tricia originally trained in Birmingham as a medical practitioner and she settled and worked for many years in Basingstoke. An opportunity arose a few years ago for her to expand her passion in exploring Homeopathy and to find more natural remedies to treat each individual person and their specific needs.

Tricia’s aim was to approach each person ‘holistically’ (i.e. the whole person) and sit their requirements alongside conventional medicine too.

The principle of Homeopathy is ‘like cures like’, using diluted plant substances to stimulate the body’s own method of healing. If you know what you are looking for, there are health stores on most high streets these days that sell homeopathic remedies. However, Tricia says there is no substitute for getting good, professional healthcare advice initially.

Between 14-16% of us today are taking a real interest in complimentary medicine and how it can help to treat our health and lifestyle issues and the number is growing all the time.

Tricia concluded,

It’s all about getting the balance right at the end of the day and having spent years training in both conventional and complimentary medicine, I firmly believe that the two can work very well in harmony together.

The rather patronising statement, “she can’t do much harm with water!”, commented by colleagues when Tricia embarked on her alternative quest, has proven to be wholly unfounded as her highly successful practice has shown.

(Dr Patricia Ridsdale (left) pictured with President of the Women In Business Group, Sue Brown.)

If you are interested in finding out more about Homeopathy, please visit www.trusthomeopathy.org.

For more information about the North Hampshire Women In Business Group, you can visit their website.