.....and relax.....

yeah right we should be so lucky.....



This the title of this week's London Time Out (we always have a copy floating round the office) and whilst everyone in the world is relaxing we are busy with supporting all our clients' businesses so sometimes, June, July and August can be the busiest time for us. Some people have caught on that to truely relax you just have to leave all your blackberries, dooberies and however you access your work emails at home - apparently a group of city workers were surveyed and 83% of them take their blackberries with them and over a quarter check them at least once a day... bonkers if you ask us but then perhaps they are a bit paranoid of loosing their jobs at the moment.



We were commenting today that somehow it gets so busy in the office that it gets to late afternoon and we havent had lunch or popped out for breath of fresh air... somehow we get so engrossed in our work, we forget... madness.



Just in case, some of you are still in London then this is a list of our favourite things to do... when we escape the office

• hang out by the south bank with a few ciders (classy) watching the world go by


• hire a canal boat and cruise around the byways (cant quite fit that in during a lunch break though)


• Lie under the trees in Holland Park listening to the birds whilst they are practicing opera for a show at the Korn Ferry pavilion


• Sit outside Julies in Notting Hill with a pimms

who are we trying to kid... we never get time to do that but we can dream!

Doing your bit for Charity

We have been pondering about volunteering and doing our bit for charity, mainly prompted by Sarah's strenuous bid to take part in a Dragon Boat race for the Back up Trust in September. We also received some information from Volunteering England last week which has also helped the thought process along.

Did you know that just 14% of small businesses are currently taking advantage of employer supported volunteering (ESV) schemes, and with that in mind Volunteering England has just launched a campaign asking small and medium sized businesses to give more help to charities.

Volunteering England is urging small to medium sized businesses to set up ESV schemes in a campaign, supported by The British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Forum for Private Business and a range of other industry bodies, which is the culmination of a three year project aimed at developing Employer Supported Volunteering.

It aims to encourage smaller companies - which account for 59% of private sector employment, – to join the ranks of bigger firms that enable employees to volunteer their time to good causes through a work context.

Now you may think that it is all just giving and you don’t have time to do it if you are running a small business, it's all about money making not time giving… but apparently an employer supported volunteering programme can bring considerable benefits; often companies with ESV programmes find that employees are proud to work for them and potential employees want to join them. It often makes a difference with customers too, who feel good about buying from them and can lead to added investment which can't be a bad thing...

You may remember that the highly successful ‘Give a few bob’ campaign? The campaign, launched in June last year, brought the late comedian Bob Monkhouse ‘back to life’ and helped raise over £3m worth of free advertising space for prostate cancer through a massive media promotion. It was developed by a marketing company with around 45 staff, The Communications Agency. So there you go!

If you want to find out more about Volunteer England visit this link http://www.volunteering.org.uk/
and if you want to also get together a dragon boat team for The Back Up Trust to rival Sarah's team 'Truely Oarsome' (geddit???) then visit this link http://www.backuptrust.org.uk/dragon.html

Swapping Providers - its not always painful

We are having lots of fun in the office changing over our email provider to Cobweb Solutions hosted exchange package... and actually so far... so good - it is running relatively smoothly and the guys at Cobweb are very helpful with our many questions. We thought that as we recommend them as one of our suppliers it was about time we sample their services rather than feedback from other happy customers... anyway, this wasnt meant to turn into an advert for Cobweb but having sampled other providers who are a nightmare to get on the phone and coach you through a new procedure (v.important if you dont have your own IT person sitting in the office all the time), they have got it going on with their Customer Services.

The reason for our change is expansion which is always an exciting word - as we are hiring more staff who work virtually with our clients it is necessary to have the platform to help the business grow...and Sarah is happier with her blackberry too as it means she doesnt have to remember to sync it with her computer every day...everyone is happy.... watch this space!