The Liverpool city centre Pub Watch is going from strength to strength, following a recent meeting at the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce.

Members of the city centre Pub Watch met to discuss issues affecting the night time economy in Liverpool, including issues of knife crime, waste, banning orders and the build up to Christmas.

The city centre Pub Watch initiative is operated by Liverpool Chamber of Commerce’s Business Crime Direct team.

Merseyside Police’s counter terrorism security advisor, Damien Worsley, was welcomed to invite those present to attend a counter terrorism training session.

Members of the Pub Watch resolved to attend the event, which will train publicans, bar managers and staff how to cope with, react to and treat customers in the eventuality of a terrorist attack on Liverpool. The session will include a simulation of a terrorist attack and will enable city centre Pub Watch members to respond as best possible to the unlikely, yet potentially devastating, eventuality of a terrorist attack.
The free event is to be held at the Chamber of Commerce in the coming months and details will be forthcoming in the near future.

The issue of knife and gun crime was raised and how ’search arches’ could be used by police to detect whether potential offenders are carrying dangerous weapons whilst amongst the city centre’s bars and clubs.

The run up to Christmas was also discussed and how city centre pubs and bars could best handle the festive period.

Joe Curran, manager of the city centre Pub Watch said:

“The run up to Christmas is a particularly hard time for city centre pubs, clubs and bars. Those who are members of the Pub Watch scheme are able to come together with Business Crime Direct to discuss the issues facing the night time economy and how best to effectively deal with them.”

He added:

“The Pub Watch scheme is really working and we are having some great responses from our members. In the run up to the Christmas period it is particularly important that we tackle crime together to ensure that Liverpool city centre maintains its reputation as a safe environment to be in.”

The BT Convention Centre hosted a dual event to keep Merseyside businesses up to date on the pressing issues of the environment and cyber crime.

The event, hosted by Liverpool Chamber of Commerce’s Business Crime Direct team, provided an exhibition showcasing environmental and trade waste companies and cyber crime and online fraud protection businesses.

The event saw guest speakers and panellists address the crowd on a wide range of environmental, trade waste and IT issues. Keynote speakers joined in highlighting the importance to businesses of tackling the green agenda before new legislation catches them out.

The day also highlighted how businesses could save money by being green. Frazer Kearney of the NWDA explained how turning off one light bulb would not only save the energy of that bulb, but would save twice the amount of energy again needed to send the power from the power plant to your office.

Companies were also told of how they could save money through reducing their materials usage, re-using and recycling, as it is often more cost effective than simply disposing of spent materials while the exhibition was able to link companies providing these services to potential clients.

The afternoon session focused on measures businesses can take to prevent themselves becoming victims of online fraud. Steve Jackson, Chair of the North West Fraud Forum opened the afternoon’s presentations by outlining the massive cost of online fraud, which is conservatively estimated as costing the country £14 billion a year, although some believe the total cost could be more than £70 billion.

For more information and advice on tackling online fraud and other IT issues, visit www.businesscrimedirect.org.uk, www.getsafeonline.org or www.northwestfraudforum.co.uk.

Picture taken from the BBC website

Are you frothing at the mouth over  Jonathan Ross and Russel Brand’s phone prank debacle? Incandescent with rage? Mildly titillated? Not really that bothered?

Well, if you want to hear what the Director General of the BBC thinks about it, maybe you should come to our Annual Dinner on November 20. Mark Thompson is our keynote speaker and may well spill the beans on the whole sorry tale, straight from the horse’s mouth.

Even if he doesn’t, this is still a great opportunity to hear the leader of our most influential cultural and media institution put forward his ideas on the future of the BBC and its role in the north west.

Jump on the bandwagon and book your place online here.

Seats are £55 each, £500 for a table of ten.

Staff and residents in Liverpool’s commercial district will have the chance to chat to police officers over a morning cup of tea at an advice session to be held next month.

Officers from Merseyside Police are set to take part in the two-hour surgery at Brew tea bar in St Paul’s Square, Liverpool on Wednesday 12 November.

The event, which runs from 10am to 12pm, is a joint initiative between Liverpool Commercial District Partnership and Merseyside Police, designed to encourage members of the public to share their concerns and ask questions about where they live and work.

Sgt. Barry Downes, city centre neighbourhood officer, says: “This will provide an excellent opportunity to meet local Neighbourhood officers and discuss any policing issues.

“Officers will also provide free security marking for portable electronic equipment such as laptops, ipods and mobile phones”.

The surgery is the first of several sessions taking place in the commercial district over the coming months, showcasing a wide range of topics including health, safety, beauty and fitness.

In the penultimate part of our series on how to beat the credit crunch, we look at how you can change the way you work to become a more effective leader. The series is put together by our good friends Freedom Coaching, who are more than happy to hear from you if you’d like more info.

Step 6

Become an effective and productive leader. Here are some suggestions to help you manage your time more effectively and become more productive.

1. Switch off your Outlook visual and audio email alert.

2. Read and deal with emails once or twice a day

3. If you can, set up your out of office assistant with a message that says:

“Thanks for your e-mail, I will read and deal with emails after 5pm, if your message is urgent please call me on

xxx xxx xxxx. Thanks”.
Read the rest of this entry »

The BBC today carries an article on how businesses should embrace social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

The article says:

Companies should not dismiss staff who use social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo at work as merely time-wasters, a Demos study suggests.

Attempts to control employees’ use of such software could damage firms in the long run by limiting the way staff communicate, the think tank said.

Social networking can encourage employees to build relationships with colleagues across a firm.

Using technology to build closer links with ex-employees and potential customers could also boost productivity, innovation and create a more democratic working environment.

“In today’s difficult business environment, the instinctive reaction can be to batten down the hatches and return to the traditional command-and-control techniques that enable managers to closely monitor and measure productivity.

“Allowing workers to have more freedom and flexibility might seem counter-intuitive, but it appears to create businesses more capable of maintaining stability.”

Liverpool Chamber has supported this view for a long time - see our previous posts here and here. We have ourselves embraced social networking as a way to communicate with the local, and global, business community. We’re no experts, but we see its value. If treated sensibly, it’s a great tool for business.

We’re on Facebook (you can be our friend if you like!). We use it to both be a part of Liverpool’s business and wider community, as well as to let people know what we’re up to and what events we’re running.

We’ve also signed up to Twitter although we do keep forgetting to ‘twit’, if we’re honest! Plus we use this blog and Upcoming to stay in touch with interested parties. We also post pics from our events of Flickr, a good way to get a real feel of what we do across to our members. And that’s all above and beyond our normal old website.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Need to learn some new skills? Want to get advice from the experts? Want it for free?

Of course you do. That’s where the video tutorial website Monkeysee comes in. On it you can watch videos from experts in a range of disciplines. They give you the low-down on topics like public speaking, negotiating salaries, managing budgets and writing that killer CV.

But there’s also a whole lot more. How to care for a pet snake, for instance. Or how to survive a zombie attack (shoot them in the head, basically). Or how to make macaroni cheese. You name it, it’s probably on there.

All the vids are short and easy to follow and can be watched in your browser.

Become a right know-it-all here.

If you have an interesting success story to share with the world, why not get in touch with Liverpool Chamber to spread the word. After all, as your ultimate business network, we are here to promote our members and to help you grow your business.

At Liverpool Chamber we publish a bi-monthly magazine with a circulation of over 3,000. It goes out to our unrivalled network of contacts across the Merseyside business community.

If you would like the opportunity for your company’s name to be on the desks of some of the most influential names in Liverpool business, simply get in touch.

All we ask is that you have an interesting story to share. Whether it be an interesting or high profile contract you have secured, or simply that you have had a lot of success in your business of late, we want to hear from you.

One such company was Mando Group, who launched this year’s Liverpool Biennial website. All the company needed to do was to get in touch and reap the benefits of some positive publicity in the Chamber Magazine.

You need to be a Liverpool Chamber member to see your story in print. Simply email the Marketing Team on: marketing@liverpoolchamber.org.uk

Alternatively, you can pay for advertising in the magazine. With the capacity for full colour adverts of any shape, size or design; advertising in the Chamber Magazine can be a really eye catching way of grabbing our readers’ attention.

Advertising prices start from as little as £686 for members and £754 for non-members for a quarter of a page. For the full advertising rates contact Scott Rogers for a quote on 0161 443 5053.

Deadlines for copy are as follows:

Publication                    Deadline
Jan 2009                       30 Nov 2008
March                            31 Jan
May                               31 March
July                                30 May
Oct                                31 July
Nov                               30 Sept

Illustration by Pamela Holstein

Doing Business with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) - Local Expertise, Global Reach

15th/16th December 2008

To help illustrate the work of the LSTM it will be holding a series of open days focused on doing business with the School in the following three areas:

• Drug discovery, product development and biotechnology and how LSTM can partner or collaborate on programmes.
  9.30 till 12.00 - Tuesday 15 December 2008
• Pest Control and how we can help you in the workplace
  2  till 4.30 pm - Tuesday 15 December 2008
• Corporate Travel Health - providing a Company service through its subsidiary, Well Travelled Clinics Ltd
  9.30 till 12.00 - Wednesday 16 December 2008

The three half-day workshops will show people the LSTM facilities, including the brand new R&D building, let them know of the type of work LSTM does and allow companies in the north west to benefit from our expertise via future collaboration.

The format will be coffee & registration on arrival, a welcome talk by a senior member of staff, introduction from the event leader, round table discussion and a tour of the CTID building, followed by a buffet lunch.

If you would like to attend a workshop please contact:

June Pinto
LSTM
Pembroke Place
Liverpool L3 5QA

Tel:   0151 705 3167
Fax:  0151 705 3363
Email: jpinto@liv.ac.uk

Any enquiries should reach the school either by phone, letter fax or email before 14th November please

On 2 December, at Liverpool Chamber, local businesses are invited to come and meet the taxman.

Representatives from Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs will be on hand to hear your views on tax issues and what they can do to address the needs of small business. There will be no set agenda, other than HMRC briefly giving the background to why it is important to them to understand the needs of business.

The main focus will be on hearing from businesses what challenges they are facing, what their views on HMRC are, what HMRC is doing well, where HMRC could improve etc. What they want to do is to supplement information they have from research with first hand information from businesses to help design products / processes etc that are less burdensome for business and more tailored to business needs.

But don’t worry! Attendees can be anonymous if you like, and HMRC have given assurance that they will not get involved in your tax affairs unless you want them too. Any lessons we learn will be anonymised, and the event should be seen as an opportunity to influence thinking and policy at the highest levels of HMRC.

So no-one’s going to be rummaging through your bins looking for bank statements.

The event is FREE, and will include a buffet lunch.

If you are interested in attending, please email Liverpool Chamber’s Head of Policy Maresa Molloy.