BNI Sunrise heads to Villa Park

BUSINESS networking group BNI Sunrise has moved its meetings to a new venue – Villa Park in Birmingham.

The group, which has been revealed as the UK and Ireland’s most profitable group in the BNI network for the amount of business passed between its members, has been running for just over five years.

In this time it has passed more than £10m of and has grown in membership to more than 45 members.

Aston Villa, which is a member of BNI Sunrise, is sponsoring and hosting the group at its new location.

Alison Plant, head of sponsorship & hospitality at Villa, said: “We are delighted that we are sponsoring and hosting BNI Sunrise and we have thoroughly enjoyed our four years of membership.

“We can say that it has contributed significantly towards our commercial success off the field.

“We view it as an integral part of our business development activity and look forward to welcoming a fantastic group of ambitious and motivated professional people to Villa Park each week.”

IT specialist welcomes increased SME involvement in cloud projects

A WEST Midlands-based IT company has welcomed the news that more and more of the Government’s cloud computing contracts are being awarded to SMEs – as it secures a place on the latest approved supplier list.

Solihull’s Jumar Solutions has been accepted onto the latest iteration of the multi-million pound G-Cloud framework, which is used by the public sector to procure services using the online “digital marketplace” portal.

Recent figures show that 53% of total spend through the framework is via SMEs.

Jumar’s managing director Wendy Merricks said: “We’re no strangers to providing IT services to government bodies and we welcome the fact that so much of the business being done through G-Cloud is with SMEs. 

“Small to medium sized businesses are excellently placed to respond quickly and flexibly to the demands of public bodies – especially in rapidly developing areas of technology like cloud computing.”    
 

Wealth Design director picks up award

DAVID Philips, a director of Cannock-based financial services group Wealth Design, received an award at the recent Personal Finance Society annual officers meeting

The award recognises feedback from members of the Staffordshire & Shropshire Personal Finance Society Region. 
 
Philips has been chairman of the Staffordshire & Shropshire Region for 13 years.

He said: ‘Whilst I have always enjoyed the role of chairman for the Staffordshire & Shropshire Region it is especially pleasing to have the recognition of my peers and have their feedback. 

“I pride myself on running the meetings professionally and trying to ensure that everyone attending gets value from their membership.”