Yoko Ono invites you to donate a step ladder for inclusion in a new work for Liverpool Biennial’s MADE UP exhibition. Over the ten weeks of the Biennial, with your help, a forest of ladders will grow inside St. Luke’s Church. Liverpool Skyladders invites us all to find space for dreams and the imagination under the open skies.

(Sky)ladders, big and small, metal and wooden, new and old, can be delivered to:

St. Luke’s Church, Leece Street/Berry Street, Liverpool
Monday 15th September to Wednesday 17th September, between 11am and 5pm
Thursday 18th September to Sunday 21st September, between 10am and 6pm

Following the Biennial, the artwork will be donated to charity.

For further information or to promise a (sky)ladder please contact: skyladders@biennial.com

The Anthony Nolan Trust is calling on the people of Liverpool, aged 18 - 40, to help save lives and join the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register on 3 September at a special clinic hosted by the Liverpool Echo.

The recruitment drive will be filmed for Noel Edmond’s new show ‘Noel’s HQ’, which launches on SKY1 on 14 September. A celebrity face will be drumming up support in Liverpool city centre throughout the day, encouraging people to come to the clinic which will be held between 4pm - 7pm.

Noel Edmonds hopes that the clinic will help children like Ella & Sam Wright, 7 & 4, brother and sister from Southport, who both have a rare genetic condition and desperately need a bone marrow donor to survive.

Their mum, Sally, said:

“Words can’t describe how happy we would be to find a suitable match for Ella and Sam. Our children are so young; they don’t really know what’s going on. All we do is hope that people hearing our story will step forward to help not only Ella and Sam, but also the thousands of other people who are waiting in hope. Every single person who joins the Anthony Nolan Trust’s register has the potential to save a life. It could be you.”

Noel Edmonds was inspired to help raise awareness of the need for more donors, by 26 year old Adrian Sudbury, who recently lost his battle with leukaemia. Adrian, a former University of Liverpool student, bravely campaigned to boost the number of donors on The Anthony Nolan bone marrow register.

For the 16,000 people worldwide desperately in need of a bone marrow transplant, including Ella & Sam, a bone marrow donor whose tissue type matches their own could mean the difference between life and death. This is a real call to action for people in Liverpool - we need as many healthy people aged between 18-40 to come forward and join the register.

The clinic takes place in the Atrium at Liverpool Echo, Old Hall Street, Liverpool, L69 3EB from 4-7pm

Ubiquity creating an email including selected content

For those of you who have made the switch to superior web browser Firefox, and are using its most up to date version, a new super-duper extension has been released full of innovative ideas.

Ubiquity is an add-on that could make using the web much, much easier. Once installed, Ubiquity lets you:

• select copy and images from a web page and pop them in a new email (if using GMail) straight from that web page
• find and insert maps into emails, rather than sending just a link
• translate foreign text directly in the page you are looking at
• edit a web page’s content
• delete HTML elements from a page
• search a plethora of seach engines and Wikipedia for highlighted text from a web page
• tons more stuff we haven’t discovered yet.

It’s still in Alpha release, so expect bugs, but after playing around with it we can report it’s well worth investigating and has great potential.

Learn more and intsall Ubiquity here.

Read the user tutorial to see some of what it can do.

If you give it a whirl, why not let us know what you think in our comments?

*According to our online survey

Following on from the outrage generated by the Policy Exchange think tank’s suggestion that the North was beyond saving and we should all move to Cambridge, we asked for your opinions in our quick poll on our main website.

We asked ‘Has regeneration failed in the North?’ Over two weeks 646 of you voted and an overwhelming 91.95% agreed. So perhaps the policy think tank wasn’t so wrong after all! Now, this was only a simple yes / no question about a much more complex subject. But is this really representative of our visitors’ views?

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment here.

This week we are asking - following the successful Mathew Street Festival, should the local authority fund public entertainment or should the city’s business community do more to financially support the festival? Visit the Chamber’s main home page to cast your vote, or share your ideas on this blog.

Here’s a photographic record of the saddest moment of the summer.

Our very own Lambanana, ‘First Past The Post’ (otherwise known as Lamby) was taken away today and transported to a mystery location lambing shed in preperation for the auction of all the superlambananas on 9 September.

Lamby was painted by artist and Liverpool Chamber staff member Pamela Holstein.

He represented the Grand National Races, a highlight in the sport and one of our most popular corporate entertaining venues.

We’ll all be sad to see the little fellas go. They certainly added a touch of colour and humour to the old place.

The credit crunch. Everybody’s talking about it, but how is it really effecting you?

Liverpool Chamber want to know if and how the economic downturn is affecting your business so that we can assess how we may be able to help you.

We have teamed up with Liverpool-based fund manager, Alliance Fund Managers to help us devise a survey around this topic.  AFM manage the MSIF Group of Funds and can provide loans and equity packages from £3k to £4m to new and growing businesses throughout the region.

The funds managed by AFM are not affected by the credit crunch and may be able to help you with a variety of funding requirements including: start up, expansion, MBOs/MBIs, mergers, acquisitions and turnaround.

Our survey will only take a minute to complete and will help us build a better picture of how businesses in the region are feeling the effects of the economic downturn.

Take the credit crunch survey here.

Liverpool Chamber of Commerce is keen to maintain the Capital of Culture momentum and recognise Liverpool’s business community’s long tradition of arts patronage with the launch of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce’s Arts Award.

At the launch of the award at the city centre’s independent Dot Art Gallery, Liz Lacy, a key member of the Chamber’s Arts & Culture Committee said:

“The award is designed to encourage and reward patronage of the arts in Liverpool, recognising Merseyside companies who invest in artistic endeavours.

“We aim to encourage business to commission original artwork and continue Liverpool’s tradition of patronage of outstanding public artwork beyond European Capital of Culture Year.”

The Chamber has secured four of the most respected authorities in the city’s arts scene as judges for the prestigious event, Christopher Grunenberg, the director of the Tate, Lewis Biggs, director of the Liverpool Biennial and Rayahn King, Fine Art Curator, National Museums Liverpool and a representative from Arts & Business will asses the artworks.

The award for the most innovative piece of commissioned artwork will be presented at Liverpool Chamber’s annual dinner on the 20th November at the BT Liverpool Convention Centre.

It will be presented to the Liverpool business judged to have commissioned the most impressive work of public sculpture in Liverpool since 2003 and has been made possible thanks to the kind sponsorship of former Chamber Chairman and Trustee of the Royal Academy, John Entwistle.

To enter or for more information contact Pamela Holstein at Liverpool Chamber of Commerce 0151 227 1234 x2217  or at  pamela.holstein@liverpoolchamber.org.uk.

Or download an application form and enter now.

Say a big hello to the latest companies to join Liverpool Chamber.

As usual the list covers the full spectrum of local businesses, from caterers to demolition, telecoms to therapists. They all joined up in July and are now enjoying the many benefits that membership brings.

Check out the list below. Your perfect business partner could be amongst them!

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With spiralling energy costs, most businesses would be wise to shop around for the best deal ready for autumn contract renewals. But some could find themselves trapped by uncompetitive contracts, warns Chamber UtilitiesT

“Companies who are facing autumn renewals for their gas or electricity need to act immediately, advises Gary Collins of Utility Auditing, which delivers the Chamber UtilitiesT service. “Suppliers require between 30 to 90 days’ customer termination notice to switch contract. Many businesses don’t realise this and are leaving it too late to find a more competitive alternative. Energy prices have increased by more than 100% over the past year alone and are still on the rise. There is a clear financial imperative to test the market in an attempt to mitigate cost increases.”

He added: “Some businesses are panicked by the prospect of terminating their contract in the belief that their supply will be prematurely cut off. We would advise them to serve notice while they consider their options, even if the best deal at the end of the day is to re-contract with their existing supplier. At least this gives them the time to test the market without fear of being locked into an uncompetitive contract”.

Utility Auditing, part of ENER-G Plc, purchases millions of pounds worth of gas and electricity annually on behalf of thousands of businesses. Chamber members are eligible for a free energy assessment to identify the most cost effective solutions for energy and gas, and guide them on the right tariffs and supply capacity to suit their needs.

While contract negotiations are a key element in the fight against spiralling energy costs, carbon reduction activities are crucial in bringing energy spend down further. As a Carbon Trust approved consultancy, Utility Auditing offers funded support to help qualifying businesses maximise energy efficiency.

For further information contact Chamber UtilitiesT on Tel: 0845 120 2423, www.chamberutilities.co.uk

A leading Merseyside business support agency is staging a series of free advice workshops for recently established small businesses covering a range of issues including book-keeping, tax and e-marketing.

The workshops are being staged by Blue Orchid at its Old Hall Street offices in the Cotton Exchange as well as locations across the region and places must be pre-booked in advance.

Blue Orchid director Chris Brown said the events are designed to help smaller businesses which need additional expertise and guidance.

“Small businesses do not have the luxury of large numbers of staff for every discipline,” she said. “These events focus on areas which require specialist knowledge and expertise. The workshops are run by people who understand the pressures of running a business. We offer practical advice which focuses on improving firm’s profitability and efficiency.”

Click ‘more’ for the full events timetable.

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