David Parkin on Cartwright Hardware, the Leeds 10K and university challenges

THIS year marks the 50th birthday of Cartwright Hardware, a Leeds business that supplies architectural ironmongery.

It is run by Keith Trotter, who hasn’t been there for all of the last half century, but if you went to an event with him, you’d think he had, given his contacts.

Keith is one of those genial chaps that gives networking a good name.

He is genuinely interested in meeting people and finding out what they do. Rather than shoving a business card into your hand and heading off to meet the next person, he wants to learn about other people and their businesses.

And I’m sure that is what has kept Cartwright going over the last few years, when its traditional market in the construction industry has been in the doldrums.

So Happy Birthday Cartwright and all the best to Keith, one of the genuine nice guys in business. You only have to look at the comments on our story about the anniversary to know how popular he is.

:::

AN invite arrives through LinkedIn to connect.

“Hello David on this amazing glorious sunny day, I noticed we are connected through some lovely folk I know well on LinkedIn.

“David I would love to invite you to connect with me and I wish you an amazing and magical weekend.”

I was exhausted just reading it. And the invite arrived on Wednesday morning. I’m rarely focused on the coming weekend by then.

The photo accompanying the author’s profile showed her with arms out atop a spiral staircase wearing what looks like a white lace poncho.

It turns out the invitee is a “sales training professional”.

I reach for the delete button. Well, not before making a note to mention it here first.

:::

I’VE always been impressed by the way Leeds Metropolitan University engages with the business community.

The gap between academia and entrepreneurship has always been wide and our universities need to bridge it better to not only make themselves more relevant and successful, but to also benefit our businesses too.

This week I paid a visit to one of the graduation ceremonies held by Leeds Met at its Headingley Campus at Becketts Park.

I think the institution could claim to be Britain’s trendiest uni too, given that music stars Rudimental returned to their alma mater to receive honorary degrees.

Piers Aggett and Kesi Dryden, who make up half the group, graduated from Leeds Met in 2008 after completing BSc (Hons) Creative Music and Sound Technology degrees.

Since then their band has topped the charts and won a BRIT award.

And Professor Susan Price, the university’s vice chancellor also pointed out in her speech to graduates that Kaiser Chiefs front man and The Voice judge Ricky Wilson is another graduate.

She mentioned that the Kaiser Chiefs’ latest album is called ‘Education, Education, Education & War’.

“We hope we inspired the first three words of the album,” she told the audience.

:::

I CREATED a rod for my own back writing about running in the Clarion Leeds 10K Corporate Challenge last week.

Having highlighted that David Harrop, finance director of Moorgarth Properties, wanted to finish ahead of me, it prompted him to run a personal best in the race.

I think he had texted me his time before I even finished.

Last year’s hot sunshine had made running hard work, this year’s humidity made it worse. Seeing a couple of collapsed competitors being tended to by medics was a sobering sight as I toiled round the course.

The heat at least made having a bottle of water tipped over my head by Roger Hutton of Clarion on the steps of the Leeds City Museum after finishing quite a refreshing experience.

Next time I hope it will be champagne in Restaurant Bar & Grill.

The run attracted thousands of competitors and the atmosphere is fantastic, another triumph for Yorkshire sporting success during a memorable month of events.

Rather than standing with the VIPs at the start and finish, Run For All organiser Mike Tomlinson was positioned on a quiet street corner cheering on competitors.

I got round in 49.14 but found it hard work. What helped spur me on was race announcer Jon Hammond mentioning my name not only at the start but at the finish too. I think it is commonly known as a “shout out”.

Jon’s mellifluous tones are enough to give anyone a boost.

I was considering using a photo from the race on this column. But having reviewed the images, will spare you the experience. Every photo shows me red faced and in a state of agony – even those at the start.

I bumped into a lady I know at the finish who looked relaxed, well coiffured and fresh as a daisy.

“Who’ve you been cheering on?” I asked.

“No, I ran the race,” she said.

After a brief chat, she turned to leave.

“I won’t kiss you, we’re both too sweaty,” she said politely.

Have a great weekend.