In Brief: Abbeycrest appoints; DWF invests; Pupils show way; Yorkshire Radio boost; Gaming coup
ABBEYCREST, the Yorkshire jewellery designer and manufacturer, has appointed Nick Hamley as group sales and marketing director.
The 55-year-old will bring more than 30 years of international operational, creative marketing and retail management experience to the
group.
During his career, he has helped build the brands of a number of well known retail firms, including Signet Group plc, Specsavers, Vision
Express and Home Retail Group.
Prior to joining Abbeycrest last November, Mr Hamley spent 10 years as director of marketing for Signet Trading
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LAW firm DWF is investing £1.25m in new IT systems to help consolidate its business following a period of rapid growth, and to drive
further efficiencies.
DWF, which has offices in Liverpool, Manchester and Preston in the North West and also bases in Leeds and London, has opted for a
“next generation” practice management system called 3E, which has been developed by Thomson Reuters subsidiary Elite.
3E is fairly new to the UK, but has been adopted by firms in Australia, UAE and India.
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STUDENTS from a Yorkshire high school have been sharing their tips for running a successful social enterprise with a government policy manager on enterprise education.
Suzy Alderson, executive director of the Young People’s Enterprise Forum (YPEF) invited Chris Stacey from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, to see how Yorkshire and Humber’s approach to enterprise education is helping young people run real businesses.
The visit included a visit to Cockburn College of Arts in Leeds, where the Yorkshire Forward funded Social Enterprise in Education programme involves young people throughout the school in a number of growth business activities which benefit the local community.
The programme, developed by Education Leeds, led to the setting up of The Glassroom, run by year 10 and 11 students, to recycle free off cuts of unwanted glass from Greenberg Glass, a local window maker, to make quality glassware products.
Turnover is around £4,500 a year, with the award winning social enterprise to date recycling several hundred kilos of glass and saving the costs of removal for their supplier. The glass is sold in school, at craft fairs and at an outlet in the atrium of Pinsent Masons’ offices in Leeds city centre.
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DIGITAL radio station Yorkshire Radio has announced a 60% increase in listening, according to latest figures.
The figures from industry body RAJAR cover the period from September 15 last year to March 29, 2009 and show Yorkshire Radio has a weekly audience of 62,000 listeners across the county.
The average listening is 5.4 hours with an increase in listening hours from 207,000 per week in the fourth quarter 2008 to 333,000 hours a week in the first quarter of 2009.
Yorkshire Radio broadcasts a weekly business show with TheBusinessDesk.com and has exclusive commentary on Leeds United games and full match commentary on Super League XIV.
Station Director Ben Fry said: “We are delighted that all the hard work our team has put in covering sport across Yorkshire has been reflected in the latest audience figures.
“Listeners have responded to our expanded sports coverage and we will look to build on this success and bring more live sport to the airwaves.”
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Thousands of Yorkshire video-gamers will get a chance to play the latest game releases before anyone else in the UK at a major event.
Eurogamer Expo will debut at The Royal Armouries in Leeds on October 27 amd 28 before moving on to London.
Screen Yorkshire and Game Republic have partnered with Eurogamer to ensure 4,000 games enthusiasts will be able to sample games that won’t be released until Christmas 2009 and spring 2010.
Taking place alongside the Expo will be the GamesIndustry.biz Career Fair, the UK’s premier recruitment event for the games industry and a number of Yorkshire’s leading games companies will be exhibiting and giving careers advice.
For further information visit http://expo.eurogamer.net.
