May 19, 2012

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Lancashire School Meals

March 21, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
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Lancashire County Commercial Group is a vital arm of Lancashire County Council, dealing with catering, cleaning and school crossing services throughout Lancashire. Flying Start’s contact is Assistant Director Roger Eakhurst who takes a leading role in the strategic development of the department.

Statistics throw an initial view on the importance of Lancashire County Commercial Group across the county as they organise the service of 55,000 lunches’ daily, clean 750 buildings and see thousands of children safely across the roads to and from their schools.

We chose to concentrate on the catering side of LCCG as they organise the catering for children in over 550 schools in the region.  School lunches are of vital importance, so knowing children’s tastes as well as delivering a healthy, balanced menu is a highly skilled and tricky job. The different age groups that are catered for adds another dimension. Menus are regularly updated, use local and seasonal produce and are designed to take into account tough nutritional standards while offering healthier food choices.

In the primary arena, LCCG have introduced a group of characters known as Healthy Heroes to grab the attention of the children and promote the choice of healthy foods. LCCG work in conjunction with Lancashire Healthy Schools and the Healthy Heroes are also part of their educational programmes. As well as Healthy Heroes, there are a number of promotional menus at each school’s discretion e.g. Fireworks Lunch, Roast Dinner Day, Royal Wedding Regal Lunch etc which bring an element of fun and education to each mealtime.

At secondary level LCCG offer the Express Café brand. Teenagers are offered an extensive range of foods that they can enjoy while still meeting nutritional standards. With the slogan “Fresher, Fitter and Faster” the Express Café offers a choice of four set meals as well as a number of individually priced items and it’s not limited to lunchtimes as all schools offer a break and breakfast service.

LCCG go even further. They also offer catering for other school functions apart from breakfasts and lunches for the pupils. There are many occasions when the school will host a number of different functions from retirements to inset days, working lunches to governors meetings. LCCG is ideally placed to fulfil all catering requirements for any of these events.

During 2012, Lancashire County Commercial Group has been involved in a number of important events. Firstly, a new interactive web site was unveiled to allow users access to information about menus, pricing, nutrition, vacancies etc. There is an interactive games section for younger users to help teach them about healthy eating. LCCG were also fortunate to gain funding from the Schools Food Trust to improve the overall satisfaction of pupils by allowing a market research campaign among students. As a result a number of new products were introduced.

Contacting Lancashire County Commercial Group can be done via their web site http://www.servinglancashire.org.uk/catering/contactUs.php or by calling 01772 646817 or you can write to them at;

Lancashire County Commercial Services
Block A, Clayton Green Business Park
Library Road, Clayton-Le-Woods
Chorley, PR6 7EN

Filed Under: Education, Featured, Showcase features Tagged With: , , ,

Because kids Lose Stuff!

March 21, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
labels4kids

Flying Start and Labels 4 Kids first worked with each other back in 2008 and so we have witnessed first hand the tremendous growth that managing director Ann-Maree Morrison and her team have experienced and, in fact, are continuing to experience. We talked to Ann-Maree to get an insight into just what makes Labels4Kids one of the most sought after names in labelling children’s possessions.

As a mum of three kids, Ann-Maree experienced first hand the familiar headache of all parents – trying to ensure their children keep hold of clothing and possessions at school and if they don’t, at least being able to prove ownership when items are found. Traditional labelling meant hours of sewing on cotton labels for lots of mums. Felt tip pen marking on non-clothing items resulted in colour running that transferred to clothing and books and the names would of course very quickly fade to oblivion!

Spotting an opening in the market, Ann-Maree created Labels4Kids in 2004/5 to produce a range of vinyl waterproof labels that are microwave, water, steriliser and dishwasher proof and won’t fall off.

“I wanted to fill the gap for high quality, colourful and fun labels, not just for the usual clothing labels but for every other item taken to school,” Ann-Maree told us. She started the company on her own but soon realised that the demand for this type of product meant that she would have to take on more staff to cope and now employs 4 staff in the customer service and administration areas.

Back to school pack

Large splat shaped vinyl labels

Small vinyl labels

Ann-Maree feels that the reason for her, and Labels4Kids, success is their unwavering commitment to quality products and quality service. She said, “People want quality. They want service with a smile, efficient and fast ordering that is simple to follow, an easy to find customer service line on the website, no quibble exchange or refund, honesty, clear delivery timings, clear instructions for use and real working labels that are not going to fall off, fade, chip or pucker and Labels4Kids provides all of these things. No one ever succeeded by doing things by half. We do it properly and we pride ourselves on that service.”

To prove Ann-Maree’s words, you only have to look at the awards that the company have received over the last 5 years. In 2012 Labels4Kids was also a finalist in the UK Trade and Industry Exporting for Growth Awards held in Newcastle:

* Entrepreneur of the Year 2011, Women In Retail UK
* Winner of the Online Retail Awards Independent Retailer Website Overall Achievement

Award 2011

* Winner of Internet Retailer of the Year 2010 in the Online Retail Awards
* Dell Small Business Excellence Awards UK 2009 Finalist and only Scottish finalist
* Dell Small Business Excellence Awards UK 2008 Finalist
* Barclays Business Development Idea Finalist 2008
* HSBC Startup Awards Finalist 2008
* “Product of the Year” Finalist for the Natwest Startups Awards 2007

As well as these, Labels4Kids has been accepted into the UK Trade and Industry High Growth Programme for 2012.

So with such a strong base and rapid growth, we asked Ann-Maree in what areas she envisaged Labels4Kids developing in the near future. True to form, her vision and ideas are on a large scale.

“Labels4Kids is strong worldwide but having started in the UK the UK is still our main market. We have a large and expanding European customer base, particularly Ireland and Germany, France and Sweden. We also sell as far abroad as Australia and New Zealand, and the US. We have had an order from someone in the White House in Washington, and orders for the Beijing Olympics for a PR company sending clients to all the different hotels by colour coding their bag tags by hotel!

Labels4Kids is planning to expand further this year internationally and we are selling master franchises by country. We are also working on another upgrade to our website and introducing more payment methods and even more new products.

The industry has become more competitive over the time since we started but we still pride ourselves on having products that actually work well, are high quality and we offer great customer service as shown by our 100% guarantee policy. This is something that is rare these days and gives that added protection. Also we like to keep ahead of the game and keep our product range up to date and continually improving and changing.

Trends in the industry are towards cheaper labels and smaller pack sizes. Labels4Kids does not follow this trend. Many of the cheaper labels on the market are just not being made the same way and do not work well.

Many of our returning customers come to us because we only provide new products that are tried and tested and we have a group of testers who we continually engage for their feedback which is great for us and we really appreciate any of our customer’ feedback, good and bad but always constructive and thought provoking either way. We would rather people tell us what they are thinking and give us a chance to continually improve and keep them happy!

All in all we are looking towards a bright and bigger future with an office move on the cards at some stage to cater for our expansion and we will be adding staff to our close knit, dedicated and really caring name labels team.”

For more information about Labels4Kids you can visit their website.

The home page can be accessed at www.labels4kids.com and this will allow customers to choose from the many personalised labels, giving options on colour and images as well as the owner’s name.

Schools and groups are being encouraged to register as fundraisers so that when parents of pupils place an order, the school receives a commission.

You can also contact Labels4Kids by email on sales@labels4kids.com or by phone on 0845 6440258, or 0333 1234559 for free minutes on mobiles and an answering service 24 hours a day if there is no one able to pick up.  They will always answer within 24 hours and normally within a couple of hours during office hours.

www.labels4kids.com

https://www.facebook.com/Labels4kids?ref=tn_tnmn

https://twitter.com/#!/search/labels4kids

http://www.labels4kids.com/page/testimonials

Filed Under: Featured, Parenting, Reviews, Showcase features Tagged With: , , , ,

Isossy

January 25, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
isossy

Nearly 20 years ago Amanda Rabor was selling contemporized African influenced clothing, jewellery and cushions on Camden Market with her sister and friend. Flying Start explores how her talent for fashion is still going strong in 2012 with the pioneering Isossy Children’s wear label.

Once you enter the Isossy world, you will be hooked. More to the point, so will your children!
This fantastic range of contemporary designed fashion will inspire your children to develop their own identity and individuality with a magnificent choice of vibrant colours influenced by Africa and Asia.

Items from Isossy are limited editions with anything between 10-100 pieces of any one print, so your children can feel special and stand out from the crowd.

So how did the Isossy label begin?

Amanda Rabor has always been passionate about creating children’s clothing and designing unusual pieces.  Her past experiences working on Camden Market and with a small business Culture Kids were her learning ground and build up to the Isossy concept. Amanda says “The experience of doing Culture Kidz was invaluable to me. I had a lot of support and I learnt the basics”. Amanda’s global perspective comes from her Nigerian father and Trinidadian mother who raised the family internationally in NYC and later London.

Amanda describes the style of her designs in three diverse collections. Isossy play is easy, casual, playful daywear. Isossy Classic is ladylike, formal, classic, ‘little ladies who lunch!’ and Isossy Occasions is for more formal occasions such as weddings, first communions and parties.

Isossy have had plenty of coverage in the press, featuring exclusively in magazines such as Close Up, You, Ankora and New African Woman.

Check out www.isossychildren.com where you can shop securely by garment style and sex,  and browse through a gallery of designs in their lookbook section.

Filed Under: Featured, Showcase features, Uncategorized

Kiss Training Provides Interactive and Informative Training Without all the Unnecessary Stuff

January 25, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
kiss

Advertising Feature:


Kiss Training was established in December 2007 by Pete Haines following the unforeseen closure of the training company he was working for. Haines was able to continue to utilise his skills, qualifications and passion in health and safety, by providing training in first aid, outdoor/wilderness first aid, health and safety, fire and risk assessment.

With more than 15 years experience in providing such courses, Kiss Training specialises in providing a high standard of training throughout the UK, which is taught in a productive and enjoyable way. “Our goal is to provide a superior level of health and safety training to all our customers while avoiding unnecessary complexity and jargon within the course content,” said Haines.

Kiss Training is fully qualified to deliver HSE approved courses and its first aid courses provide clients with the skills and knowledge to safely assess situations and when necessary provide immediate first aid. Haines has also received requests to teach wilderness first aid to expedition companies in overseas in Europe, something that he cites as a “significant moment” for the company.

Although business has grown since the company’s inception, Haines still remains a sole trader with freelance trainers as and when required, who can either visit a client’s place of work or arrange off-site venues. And because not all companies work from 9am-5pm, Kiss can deliver courses to fit around various shift patterns.

The health and safety sector is constantly experiencing change, but with new updates and recommendations Haines ensures that his company is kept fully up-to-date with the recommendations and incorporates them into the training.

Haines has also witnessed a change due to economic downturn. “Training is not always the main priority and companies are only requesting training for the essential requirements,” he stated.

However plans for the future include expansion and continued growth for the business, particularly within the wilderness sector and the schools/nurseries sector, which currently accounts for approximately 20 per cent of Kiss Training’s business.

Filed Under: Showcase features

Not Just Headphones… A Perfect Learning System

December 20, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment
storyphones mp3 audio learning system

Flying Start chats to Simon Johnson, Managing Director of Ameeca, to find out more about StoryPhones, the multi-award winning MP3 digital audio learning system for children.

If you are looking for a  powerful and practical learning tool to make listening easy and help your children develop their language, communication, listening and literacy skills, then look no further than StoryPhones.

StoryPhones was developed from an original idea created by Early Years teacher Eleanor Johnson.  The whole concept of an MP3 digital audio player grew out of her experience of using audio equipment in the classroom. This idea of creating an audio system which did not depend on a power supply, was difficult to break and which offered flexible and adaptable access to listening struck a note with her husband Simon, a lecturer at Durham University, who decided to help develop this fantastic idea into a useable product.
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Baby Shower Host Celebrating New Arrivals and More

December 19, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment
baby shower host

In the space of six years, Baby Shower Host have made serious inroads into the baby shower market. Flying Start delves further into their success and charts their progress from loft and garage to mainstream premises.

Baby Shower Host is owned and run by Leena Jacobs. Like so many other companies, it sprang from a moment of inspiration and has blossomed into a thriving business that now numbers several celebrities on its customer list.
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A+ for Aplay’s Outdoor Equipment Installations

December 19, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment
aplay playground structures equipment

Although only established in 2010, Aplay have built a reputation for exceptional standards of groundwork and safety surfacing projects as well as the installation of outdoor play equipment. We talked with co-founder, Diane Robertshaw about the business.

Aplay are based in Otley near Leeds and began life with just two members of staff, one van and one order. In less than two years, the business had progressed so well, even in the current economic situation, that Diane and co-founder James Thompson now employ seven members of staff with three vehicles and have a growing customer base not just in the Leeds area but nationwide.
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MUM! I’m Famous

December 15, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment
personalised stories name in a book

Name In A Book has been specialising in creating personalised story books for children and adults since the year 2000. Here, Flying Start takes a closer look at this unique and individual gift idea and the story behind its evolution.

After searching franchise businesses on the internet, Graham Warren found an ideal solution for his business needs and what followed was the creation of personalised Stories, right from his home in Epsom.  Can you imagine starring in a real life book as a child? “MUM! I’m Famous!” is the kind of excitement that Graham’s books bring into families nationwide.
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Baby Sensory

December 15, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment
babysensory

Flying Start discovers how and why Baby Sensory grew to become a global, award-winning business in such a short space of time

The Baby Sensory concept was conceived in 2002 by Dr. Lin Day who observed how babies responded to activities designed for their older siblings. As a result of this observation, she decided to design a programme specifically for babies.

In 2006, Day decided to take the Baby Sensory concept, which had evolved over four years, and make it more widely available. Along with her husband, she entered into a partnership with Keeley and Ian Sharland and Baby Sensory was formed.
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Saving Lives

December 15, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment
life savers first aid

Commitment and experience have earned Life Savers First Aid With a reputation as the most recognised trainers in the field

It is a legal stipulation that work places have first aiders in place who can provide potentially lifesaving care in the instance of an accident or emergency. However, sending employees on a course can prove expensive; a cost that small and medium-sized businesses could do without.

Based in Cardiff, Life Savers First Aid provides expert first aid training throughout the UK. The team consists of 20 qualified instructors with a combined experience of over 200 years.
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