Alison Provides Vital Companionship to Local Elderly Community Following Enterprise Hub Support

After working in banking for 25 years, Alison became increasingly uncomfortable with the changes she saw in the industry; finding their disregard of the older generation during the shift to digital banking particularly hard to deal with.

Alison Enhance Life's Qualities

After her mother was taken ill Alison realised first hand just how many older people are in need of support, so she decided to offer up her own solution to the problem; setting up Enhance Life’s Qualities, a companionship service for older people.

Alison explained: “Our services vary from light cleaning around the house, accompanying people to hospital appointments, making their breakfast or just keeping them company and having a chat. We help lots of different people including those with dementia by playing dominoes and helping them to keep their minds active.”

Alison was unsure about how to take that all-important first step into self-employment, so she came to St Helens Chamber’s Start Up team for help.

Alison explained: “I came to the Chamber and met up with Steve Mather from the Business Start Up team, he suggested I enrol onto business start-up workshops which were a great help as they gave me insight into what I needed to do at an early stage; up until that point I didn’t really know where to start.”

Steve Mather, Business Start-Up Adviser at St Helens Chamber added: “We both knew from the outset that this was a great business concept, this is a growing market which is only going to continue to grow. There was a real gap for a quality companionship service like Enhance Life’s Qualities and it’s great to see how the business is going from strength to strength in our meetings.”

After just a year and a half, demand for Alison’s services are growing and Enhance Life’s Qualities are offering more to their clients then ever before - such as a handyman service for smaller jobs around the house, courtesy of Alison’s partner.

Alison added: “We also now have a seven seater minibus to do days out with the older people. It helps the people who are lonely and may not get out much to make new friends and have new experiences.”

Not only are clients benefitting from the business’ growth, but Enhance Life’s Qualities are now recruiting for a new staff member!

Alison explained: “I have two people already working for the company on a self-employed basis, but demand is growing and we now need someone else to help us deliver our services across St Helens and Merseyside.

 “Without the help of the start-up team I might not have started the business and been at the point I am now, they gave me the direction I needed at that crucial early stage.”

You can find out more about Alison’s business at https://www.enhancelifesqualities.co.uk/

St Helens Chamber is part of Enterprise Hub, the enterprise gateway for business start-up support in the Liveprool City Region.  Offering expert advice and support to anyone thinking about starting a business, including help to:

• Understand the process of starting a business
• Research a business idea
• Build a comprehensive business plan
• Develop a marketing plan
• Create financial forecasts to understand the costs of running your business and potential income
• Identify sources of finance to get started

Enterprise Hub is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

For more information about the support available from St Helens Chamber to start a business, call 0845 340 9980 or email startup@sthelenschamber.com

For more information about Enterprise Hub in general contact enterprisehub@thewo.org.uk or 0151 706 8113.

Little Nell thinks big in children’s book market

“I wonder what our pets get up to when we are not around?”

It’s a question many pet owners ask themselves.

It was this question that inspired a local mother and daughter team to develop a children’s book based on their pet springer spaniel. And so, the loveable character Little Nell was born.

Working with support from St Helens Chamber, Pauline and Laura Davies “Little Nell” books are rapidly increasing in popularity, receiving excellent feedback from not only parents and children, but also gaining acclaim from fellow writers.

Little Nell

Pauline commented:  “We developed the idea for the books simply by observing our little dog.  She loves to take her ball to her crate each night, and so we developed the idea that the ball and crate together would enable her to go on a series of magical adventures.” 

It has certainly been an adventure for the real Nell though when Laura revealed that they had nearly lost her to a life-threatening illness, with several last minute, blood transfusions saving Nell’s life.

Laura commented “We thought we would have to abandon the idea of the book because it would be just too upsetting if we had lost Nell. However, she showed amazing resilience and against the odds made a full recovery. As you can imagine, this made us even more determined to complete our first book.”

Following the release of the first book “Little Nell and Pepper” Laura and Pauline engaged with St Helens Chamber to help develop their business further.  The local authors have since had several business sessions with the Chamber of Commerce discussing ideas, finance and marketing and they have also attended a workshop “How to Create a Dynamic 60 Second Pitch” on pitching the business.  The input has helped formulate a forward business plan.

Pauline commented: “Getting an agent or publisher in the children’s book market is notoriously difficult, so we needed some additional input and help in preparation for this.  The chamber has been fantastic and provided us with lots of ideas going forward. The breakfast networking meetings they run have also been really good, and we have been overwhelmed by the support other local businesses have shown us.”

The mother and daughter team have now completed and self-published two books, with Foyle’s bookstore and Amazon listing the Little Nell titles, but it is with the local primary schools that the books are going down a storm.

“We have completed readings at a number of primary schools locally and have had great feedback.  It’s a real joy to interact with the children and see how much they enjoy the books, and they come out with some great ideas on what they want Nell to do next.”

With growing impetus and support, Pauline and Laura are now attending various literary festivals.

Laura commented: “Festivals provide us with an opportunity to speak directly to publishers and agents. The profile of the books is rising, but we still have a lot of work to do, but the support we receive locally is invaluable.”

St Helens Chamber is part of Enterprise Hub, the enterprise gateway for business start-up support in Merseyside.  Offering expert advice and support to anyone thinking about starting a business, including help to:

• Understand the process of starting a business
• Research a business idea
• Build a comprehensive business plan
• Develop a marketing plan
• Create financial forecasts to understand the costs of running your  business and potential income
• Identify sources of finance to get started

Enterprise Hub is funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

For more information about Little Nell, please visit
www.littlenellonline.co.uk

For more information about the support available from St Helens Chamber to start a business, call 0845 340 9980 or email startup@sthelenschamber.com 

Passion for environment drives innovative Eco-building business

If you spend just a few minutes in the company of Annabel and Alan Cameron-Duff, you quickly realise that creativity and an absolute passion for the environment underpins their business The Roundhouse Company. The innovative eco-building business primarily supplies beautifully constructed roundhouses and other interesting smaller structures using natural and handcrafted finishes.

The Roundhouse Company

With a background in art and interior design, the husband and wife team set up the business in 2016, with some initial support from St Helens Chamber, but the business itself has been over 16 years in the making. Initially inspired by taking a Natural Building Apprenticeship in the USA in 2001, Alan and Annabel had already accumulated years of research and experience in creating buildings from various natural materials such as cob, hemp, straw and timber.

In October 2017, they approached St Helens Chamber and obtained support through the New Enterprise Allowance. They also attended a number of free workshops around financial management and marketing and were also allocated an experienced business mentor who supported them to complete a full business plan.

Annabel commented: “Commercially the Chamber input was invaluable. The completed business plan and advice from the business mentor enabled us to secure initial funding, providing a focus for our future.”

The future certainly looks interesting for The Roundhouse Company, particularly within the Education sector.  The company has not only delivered innovative outdoor classroom spaces but is also working on several modular roundhouse designs suitable for schools.   

Annabel commented: “Roundhouses are wonderful education spaces for schools. The very nature of round buildings are inclusive and create a good space for learning. Some schools also use their Roundhouses for community events or rent them out for parties or private functions, which can be a source of revenue, so as well as being an inspiring place to learn, they provide commercial opportunities.”

Quite uniquely, The Roundhouse Company also include educational workshops to schools which they deliver during any project, teaching staff and children all about natural buildings, and sustainability, with educational content centred around the national curriculum.

Alan commented: “"There is a lot more to eco-friendly roundhouses...We are conscious of where the materials have come from and aim to source them as locally as possible to minimise the environmental footprint whilst also supporting local businesses.”

The company is also working on other exciting developments including a mobile Eco Pod, a self-contained, insulated unit, created from natural materials, with potential uses such as glamping and bird hides.

Geoff Bates, Business Support Manager from St Helens Chamber commented.

“We think The Roundhouse Company has tremendous potential as a business, with a very strong offer, particularly to schools.  St Helens Chamber has been delighted to work with Alan and Annabel and looks forward to supporting their future growth.”

St Helens Chamber is part of Enterprise Hub, the enterprise gateway for business start-up support in Merseyside.  Offering expert advice and support to anyone thinking about starting a business, including help to:

• Understand the process of starting a business
• Research a business idea
• Build a comprehensive business plan
• Develop a marketing plan
• Create financial forecasts to understand the costs of running your  business and potential income
• Identify sources of finance to get started

Enterprise Hub is funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

For more information about The Roundhouse Company, please visit
www.theroundhousecompany.co.uk

For more information about the support available from St Helens Chamber to start a business, call 0845 340 9980 or email startup@sthelenschamber.com 

Businesses asked to Give an Hour to inspire young people

Campaign launched to encourage employers to engage with young people

Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has launched a new campaign to encourage businesses to make a difference to the futures of young people in Liverpool City Region.

The Give an Hour campaign calls for employers and employees to offer an hour of their time to help young people prepare for the fast-changing world of work.

The initiative- run jointly by Liverpool City Region LEP and The Careers & Enterprise Company - highlights that in as little as one hour, organisations can help to transform a young person’s future by bringing to life different career opportunities and providing insight about the skills young people need to be work-ready and successful in the workplace.

Sally Beevers, Careers Hub Lead at the Liverpool City Region LEP said: “This is a great opportunity for local business to help support our young people to establish their career path, prepare them for the world of work and raise their aspirations. Having local businesses directly involved in careers education lessons brings local job opportunities to life and exposes career options they may have not otherwise considered.”

Sally added: “I would encourage all employers and employees in the City Region to support this campaign - you could be the person who changes the life of a young person, just by showing them what is possible.”

The Give an Hour campaign emphasises the importance of tapping into the career opportunities, skills and knowledge of businesses. Activities can include interview practice, mentoring or working with a teacher to bring a lesson to life.

Evidence shows that regular and meaningful engagement with employers while at school can significantly increase young people’s employment prospects and future earnings.*

Claudia Harris, Chief Executive of The Careers & Enterprise Company, said: “We know that hardworking small business really want to support young people in their local community but finding the time can be difficult.

There are many ways to make a difference to a young person’s future – and with as little as one hour these dynamic small firms can help a young person discover more about the world of work and open up career paths they didn’t even know existed.”

Employers of all shapes and sizes are encouraged to visit www.giveanhour.co.uk to find out more and register to support a school or college in their area.

Wirral Chamber help AJ & Friends get their business off the ground

Our Enterprise Hub partners at Wirral Chamber have been working with Beverley Williams to launch AJ & Friends - a domiciliary care provider for children with additional needs. Following her experiences with her own son, AJ, Beverley founded AJ & Friends out of the need for high quality support for families like her own. Working with business advisor Paul Rittenberg, Beverley got to grips with the practicalities of accountancy, bookkeeping and business planning, as well as core skills around marketing and social media.

Watch what happened when Paul caught up with Beverley about her business start-up journey...

Or you can watch the video on YouTube, here.

For more information about the support available from Enterprise Hub please contact 0151 706 8113 or enterprisehub@thewo.org.uk

Natasha Whips Up Gluten-Free Goodness for Liverpool with The Gildergreen

Having lived a gluten-free lifestyle for five years, Natasha wanted to use her passion for baking to show people that eating gluten-free doesn’t have to compromise on taste and quality. 

Natasha inherited a love for baking cakes through her mum and grandparents, but a change in diet meant that she had to rethink how she prepared food and the ingredients she so often used: “I started to research the science behind gluten and what steps you had to take to recreate the properties. I experimented with my own flour mixes and eventually started to make delicious cakes again.”

Feeling unhappy in her office job and with the support of her family, Natasha decided that setting up a business was now or never.

The business-planning process made Natasha feel slightly overwhelmed, but after contacting The Women’s Organisation, Business Adviser Jo Mountfort helped to simplify the process and break it down into small tasks: “I started to feel really excited, motivated and believed that I really could do this.”

Jo helped Natasha to streamline her idea through regular meetings and access to training and courses: “Enterprise Hub has provided me with countless resources, spreadsheets and tools. Jo has been incredibly helpful, I come out of every meeting feeling empowered”.

To read the full case study, head to The Women's Organisation's blog page here: https://thewomensorganisation.blogspot.com/

From corporate to conscious: how Enterprise Hub helped Laurie Stewart leave behind her corporate roots and develop a conscious fashion platform

Leaving behind a ten-year career working with some of the fashion industry’s biggest brands, Laurie Stewart hasn’t looked back. Now focusing on her new online platform for conscious fashion with business partner Eva Makin, this conscious pair needed help to grow their new venture.

Having recently completed Enterprise Hub’s business growth programme, we caught up with co-founder Laurie to find out where Mindless Mag’s journey began and how things are going so far…

Laurie Stewart, Co-Founder of Mindless Mag

Sitting down with Laurie, one thing is immediately clear: her passion for conscious fashion and conscious living. And it’s this passion which we think has supercharged growth for Mindless Mag - already gaining international interest just six months into the venture.

If you haven’t come across it already, Mindless Mag is an online storytelling platform for conscious fashion. Laurie explains that the aim was to create a platform for people to voice their opinions and exercise their thoughts on the world of conscious fashion - no matter what their writing ability. More than that, Mindless Mag offers the opportunity for its community to use writing as a powerful tool with the potential to act as a therapy and creative outlet.

Each month, the creative minds behind the platform – Laurie and Eva - put forward a theme or topic for discussion that month. From the perils of fast fashion to the effects of the industry on our mental health. Writers can then pen their responses and send their contributions in to be published online.

Just six months in, Mindless Mag is already receiving worldwide attention. With contributions arriving from as far as Australia and the US each month.

Not just confined to the online world, regular writing workshops and weekly meet-ups are creating a community of conscious thinkers and writers right here in Liverpool.

So, where did it all begin?

Laurie tells us that 10 years working in the fashion industry took her around the world, visiting factories and developing the supply chains for some of the UK’s biggest companies – Shop Direct, New Balance and L’Oréal to name but a few.

This time last year a big promotion landed on Laurie’s desk with the opportunity to up sticks and move to Hong Kong. Leaping at the opportunity, Laurie gave notice on her apartment and put plans in place to make the move. After weeks of delays and uncertainty, the funding for the project unfortunately fell through and the move was off the table for Laurie.

Faced with the prospect of returning to her normal 9-5 and with a new fire in her belly, Laurie handed in her notice and packed up to go travelling where she found a new pace of life and explored conscious living while spending time with monks in Menorca.

And so, her journey from corporate to conscious began…

Laurie spent some of her time penning a new blog - All my Heroes are Weirdos – and an old friend, Eva Makin, soon got in touch. Laurie explains that Eva was a champion of her work from day one and it wasn’t long before a collaboration was underway.

With Eva’s background as a writer, mixed with Laurie’s strategy and industry experience, Mindless Mag was the natural progression for the pair and the platform officially launched in January 2019.

Laurie explains that the first three months in business were dedicated to streamlining the platform and finding their niche in the conscious fashion industry (having originally intended to be all things conscious).

It wasn’t long before their online following was ballooning.

Coming to the Enterprise Hub for practical support in putting their plans for growth into action, Laurie and Eva were set up with business advisor Claire Pedersen. Meeting with Claire on a regular basis and attending various training and courses, the pair soon had a stellar strategy in place for developing the concept and looking at ways of monetising the platform.

Laurie says: “My business advisor Claire was very knowledgeable and really honed in on the issues which were relevant to our business. She really listened to what we were saying and helped us come up with solutions to help develop and grow our business. We attended some of the business growth courses too and the balance of interaction and information throughout these was really helpful”.

With exciting plans and collaborations in the pipeline, attention is now focused on building the Mindless Mag brand and working on the ever-growing following. While there is still plenty more work to do here, Laurie tells us that its been a heart-warming experience in these early stages to see people taking the time to contribute and get involved with their vision.

And the best thing about being self-employed for Laurie? She tells us it’s the freedom, the quick reaction times and the opportunity to try and fail fast which give her the ability to keep business fresh. Not to mention, no more hierarchies and plenty of opportunities to meet likeminded people.

July 2019: Finders Keepers

If you’d like to find out more about the world of conscious fashion then next month is the perfect time to get involved as Mindless Mag launches its ‘Finders Keepers’ campaign.

‘Finders Keepers’ is a second-hand clothing drive to promote conscious fashion and challenge fast-fashion culture. In conjunction with Liverpool’s best loved second-hand stores and charity shops, the campaign will send its followers on a month-long treasure hunt across the city to find a second-hand treasure each day which will be theirs to keep for free.

To find out how to get involved with the campaign you can visit the Mindless Mag website and watch this space for more details... 

You can find Mindless Mag on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or get in touch via info@mindlessmag.com to find out more. 

To find out more about Laurie's personal journey, head over to her blog 'All My Heroes are Weirdos' by clicking here. 

For more information about the support available from Enterprise Hub please contact 0151 706 8113 or enterprisehub@thewo.org.uk