Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, supported by Stepclever, is to host its final free seminar to help businesses in North Liverpool and South Sefton to brush up on their marketing and presentation techniques.

On 30 March at 9.00 am to 12noon this the final chance for companies to take advantage of this opportunity to take advantage of the free workshop on Marketing & Presentation Techniques.

Offering an invaluable opportunity to give their communications strategy ‘The Marketing MOT’, the course offers a hands-on practical refresher for established businesses and is also useful as a first time session covering a number of topics designed to show small businesess how to raise the game in personal presentations.

Kevin Griffiths Head of Commercial Services at Liverpool Chamber working with Stepclever says ” The half day course offers to give companies the edge when pitching for work or seeking new clients. It can be hard for small businesses to grab attention and increase their market share. It is important that they get their message across in one 2 one meetings, panel or tender situations and this seminar is aimed at showing them how.”

This workshop will not be repeated, places are expected to be in demand, so book early.

The workshop will be held in the ICT Boardroom, no 1 Old Hall Street, Liverpool and includes refreshments and course notes.

Stepclever workshops are free for anyone that lives, or runs a business in the wards of Anfield, Everton, County, Kirkdale, Linacre and Derby

To book, call 0151 224 1891 or email june.davies@stepclever.co.uk

The highly successful programme of Stepclever Training courses are coming to an end.

This support and training has enabled small businesses across North Liverpool to better position themselves to win tenders in both the public and private sectors.

On 30 March 2010 at 1.45pm to 5.00pm there is the final chance for companies to take advantage of this opportunity and to take advantage of the popular Sales and Negotiations course.

The FREE course aims to help both consumer and business-to-business focused companies learn techniques that will analyse and improve their approach in preparation and execution of sales.

Kevin Griffiths, Head of Commercial Services at Liverpool Chamber working with Stepclever says: “We had had a very positive response to this workshop. Previous participants have told us that it has helped them and their staff to create a company work ethic focussed around sales and the customer.”

This workshop will not be repeated and, places are expected to be in demand, so book early.

The workshop will be held in the ICT Boardroom, No 1 Old Hall Street, Liverpool and includes refreshments and course notes

To book your free place call 0151 224 1891 or email june.davies@stepclever.co.uk

Are You Ready To Manage Your Credit Efficiently?

An article in today’s (15 march 2010) Daily Post highlights the dangers faced by small businesses when their customers or partners go bust:

New research by small firms’ online service CreditPal claims that 43% of small companies have been affected over the past two years

Its research estimates that the cost to the small firms sector could be as high as £5.3bn.

CreditPal chief executive Chris Poll said: “The amount left owing to SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) as a result of company liquidations is shocking and threatens the survival of some UK businesses.

“It is imperative that companies take every step to mitigate their exposure to the risk of defaulted payments, especially as the economy climbs out of recession when the need for cash is even greater.”

He urges firms to regularly use credit reports and referencing tools to establish the credit-worthiness of their trading partners.

Read the full article in the Daily Post here.

But how can you go about learning the tricks of effective credit control and management?

Liverpool Chamber members can access an exclusively discounted package of credit management tools and resources from CMG UK, one of the region’s most experienced credit management companies.

The package includes:

• credit risk reports
• credit limits on potential or existing customers
• advice on how to effectively chase up late payments
• step-by-step guides on everything from managing the order-to-cash cycle to successful applications to the Small Claims Court.

Members are also entitled to a free seven day trial of the service. Can you afford not to?

Find out more and sign up for your free seven day trial here.

Here’s the latest roadworks updates for around Liverpool.

Baltic Triangle
The CCMS scheme to improve the pavements and highways in the Baltic Triangle area is due to start on site on Monday, 15th March.

Sections of Jamaica Street will be closed to traffic to allow the works to be completed safely and efficiently. The first phase will be from Parliament Street to Jordan Street with a full closure of this section of Jamaica Street from March 15th to the end of May. The works will then move along Jamaica Street with a further section closure.

From March 15th there will also be a Phase 1b on site outside the bicycle shop Giant on Parliament Street for the installation of parking bays and repaving. This will be weekend working only and will require lane closures on Parliament Street.

Knowledge Quarter/Mount Pleasant
Work is due to begin on the CCMS scheme in the Knowledge Quarter on Monday, 15th March.

The upper part of Mount Pleasant from the junction with Oxford Street to Brownlow Hill will be closed to traffic for at least 42 weeks to allow the works to be completed safely.

Access to the University car parks, Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Cathedral House and the Catholic Chaplaincy to the University will be maintained at all times from the Brownlow Hill junction.

Work will also begin to repave Clarence Street, starting at the Brownlow Hill end of the road.

Commercial District
Work will begin on Dale Street on Monday 22nd March and Old Hall Street on Monday 29th March as part of the City Centre Movement Strategy highway improvement scheme.

On Dale Street the work will begin at the Town Hall end of the street, on that side of the road, and will be in the pavement area only. There will be lane closures, temporary bus stops and suspension of some parking and loading to allow the work to be carried out safely. The work area will move in sections towards Hatton Garden before moving back along the opposite side of the road over a 12 month period.

On Old Hall Street the work will begin at the Leeds Street end, on the SAS Radisson Hotel side of the road up to the Passport Office. The improvements will then move to the opposite side of the road moving away from Leeds Street in sections.

The whole scheme will take 12 months to be completed.

Hall Lane Strategic Gateway
Hall Lane Strategic Gateway, now under construction, will provide a much improved traffic route for vehicles entering Liverpool from the east and will take traffic out of the residential areas.

Work is now on site and on programme. All demolition works are now complete and excavation is underway. Preparation of the road formation is being carried out in various locations. The Presbytery rebuild is continuing and this should be completed in early May.

Several utility companies are working in the area to divert services which will affect the roads in the area over the next few months.

Work is continuing to build the new retaining wall along Mount Vernon Street and the new section of the road, which will be called Low Hill. This wall will ultimately be cladded in sandstone.

There are no major works on the highway or traffic diversions at this time however there will be major diversions from mid March as statutory diversion works begin on Low Hill and Irvine Street. 

West Derby Street will close on May 3rd with all necessary diversion signs and signal in place before then.

The Minshull Street outbound bus stop is to be suspended for the duration of the closure and replaced with a temporary stop outside the computer laboratory on Brownlow Hill.

The inbound stop on West Derby Street for the number 79 bus will be suspended and passengers for the hospital will use the existing stop on Brownlow Hill.

A59/Rice Lane
Work to improve road safety began on January 18th and will take 20 weeks to complete. All businesses remain open for the duration of the works.

While the works are on site, Rice Lane between Hornby Road and Cavendish Drive will be one way coming into the city centre only. Traffic travelling outbound follows a diversion route via Breeze Hill, Southport Road, onto Hornby Road and back onto Rice Lane. Traffic will still be able to access Cavendish Drive from the south but for access only.

Kerbing and footpath work is complete on the west side of Rice Lane from Queens Drive all along to Hornby Road.

Kerbing and footpath work is underway on the east side of Rice Lane from Queens Drive working towards Cavendish Drive and also from Hornby Road, citybound, to the Sefton Road junction.

The carriageway resurfacing works has now started between Queens Drive and Cavendish Drive. This will continue over the next few days into the closed off section of Rice Lane after Cavendish Drive.

 The contractor is also working with utility companies to carry out maintenance work as the scheme progresses.

Liverpool Half Marathon
Sunday, 28th March - Waterfront and Sefton Park Areas

The race begins at 9.30am and will finish around 11.30am. The road closures will begin around 8am and will be lifted where possible as the race progresses.
The route is:

Queens Wharf, Wapping (junction with Queens Wharf to junction with Liver Street), Liver Street junction with Wapping to junction with Park Lane), Park Lane, St James Street, Great George Street (junction with St James Street to junction with Upper Parliament Street), Upper Parliament Street (junction with Great George Street to junction with Princes Road), Princes Road, Devonshire Road, Belvidere Road, Ullet Road (junction with Belvidere Road to junction with Sefton Park Road, Windermere Terrace, Princes Park circulatory road, Aigburth Drive (junction with Ullet Road to junction Croxteth Drive), Croxteth Drive, Greenbank Drive (junction with Croxteth Drive to junction with Mossley Hill Drive), into Sefton Park, Mossley Hill Drive (junction with Ibbotsons Lane to junction with Elmswood Road, Sefton Park inner pathways, Aigburth Drive (junction with Croxteth Drive to junction with Aigburth Road slip-road), Aigburth Road slip-road (junction with Aigburth Road to junction with Ashfield Road), Aigburth Road sub-way/underpass, Jericho Lane (junction with Aigburth Road to junction with Jericho Close), Otterspool Park inner pathways, Otterspool Promenade (from Mersey Road to Atlantic Way, Atlantic Way, Kings Parade. 

Whilst the runners proceed from Queens Wharf into Liver Street, traffic will be temporarily held at Chaloner Street (northbound) / Queens Wharf junction and Strand Street (southbound) / Liver Street junction.

St John Ambulance is appealing for Chamber members with real-life stories of how they’ve used their first aid skills to come forward.

The nation’s leading first aid charity, which trains hundreds of thousands of people in basic and life saving first aid skills every year, would like to hear how people have helped save lives and responded to medical emergencies after taking part in St John Ambulance courses in Cheshire and the North West.

St John Ambulance runs a variety of training courses including first aid for businesses and basic first aid and emergency life support courses. It also offers training tailored to first aid for sport, motorcyclists, activity coaches and families.

Alex Swift, Regional Director for St John Ambulance in the North West said: “Every year in the North West thousands of people successfully complete our first aid courses’.

“We do sometimes hear about how our students used their skills, maybe to help a colleague at work or a family member at the scene of a road accident, but we’re keen to build up a fuller picture of how they are benefiting their own communities.

He continues: “We know how important first aid skills are and believe that no-one should suffer from the lack of a trained first aider. Real-life examples of how someone has used their skills will help us bring that message home to people who might be considering whether or not learning first aid would be beneficial.”

To give some examples of first aid stories - recently, two St John Ambulance First aid at work students, David Guthrie from Chester and Becky Day from Carlisle each used their skills to help a passer-by who had a seizure. Other students from Crewe, Jeff King and Rachel Bosson administered first aid which helped save a man’s life when he had a cardiac arrest in Crewe shopping precinct.

If you have used the first aid skills you acquired during a St John Ambulance course please contact Stephanie Littler, Marketing Manager for St John Ambulance in Cheshire on 01244 383407 option 4 or email her on stephanie.littler@cheshire.sja.org.uk  

There will be a reward for each story St John Ambulance is able to use the promote the importance of first aid. The reward will be one free place on a St John Ambulance Emergency life support (all ages) course, which the individual can attend to refresh his/her first aid skills or give as a gift to a friend or family member.

Visit www.sja.org.uk/training for more details about the course.

Do You Know Liverpool? Fun And Discovery Exhibition

Pride In Liverpool is a local charity that aims to improve our knowledge of our city and engage the youth and all interested Liverpudlians in their city, building up repect for their community and the knowledge that we belong to our city.

They will soon be holding an exhibition and need the support of the business community:

The project is open for all - individuals, families, groups within the community, scouts, guides, NHS, universities and any group that is interested. All are invited to form a group to cover their neighbourhood and produce through investigation and exploration an entry to the project about the history within your own neighbourhood. This is about having fun, generating happiness and registering our pride.

• Information gathered goes onto the website with the name of the group
• Produces an encyclopaedia, book of memories and myths.
• Their project is exhibited at St.George’s Hall.

The support we need is for exhibitors at the Exhibition and if you wish to sponsor the event/project, please contact us.

The Exhibition is being held on 5th – 9th July in our most prestigious of buildings - St George’s Hall. All of the projects will be exhibited here covering the knowledge gathered by the groups of our city from L1 to L37.

It will also give businesses an opportunity to showcase themselves, with particular interest to companies who have been associated with Liverpool for many years or in some cases part of the history via the building they occupy - i.e. Marks and Spencer was a hotel.  Check out the website for more information.

If you would like to get involved, please email val@prideinliverpool.org.uk or call 07590 928 951.

Deposit for the exhibition stand is £50 per day – Total cost per day £200.

Venue: St Helens Chamber

The Shanghai World Expo will be the biggest business event of the year. Merseyside is the only region to be represented for the UK.

This Expo, dubbed ‘The Business Olympics’, will provide a golden opportunity for your business to develop international trade and build relationships in established and emerging markets, not just with China but with the 200+ countries represented at the event.

Running from May to October 2010, it is expected to attract 70 million visitors to a city at the hub of the world’s fastest growing and most dynamic economy. Relevant Merseyside based companies will have the opportunity to be showcased in one of the events six themes:

May: Virtual gateway to the NW and UK; Ports and Airports
June: Science and Innovation
July: Culture, Health and Sports
Aug: The Knowledge Sector
Sept: Financial and Professional services
Oct: Urban Regeneration

Come along to a FREE business briefing on the 26th March that will include presentations from Liverpool Vision, China-Britian Business Council and UK Trade & Investment North West.

St Helens Chamber is working in partnership with the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, Liverpool Vision and UKTI to create a subsidised package for St Helens based companies who would like to travel to Shanghai. Opportunities will start from £1,500.

To attend the business briefing you can contact mark.hancock@sthelenschamber.com for more information.

Chamber member Ice Cube Fashion Accessories suggest you might like to treat your mum to jewellery this Mother’s Day.

They have a new range of great pieces available on their website www.icecubefa.co.uk.

You can also pop into their city centre store at Suite 109, Imperial Court, Exchange Street East, Liverpool L2 3AB.

Artinliverpool.com, the top British art blog and founder and organiser of the annual Liverpool Art Prize, are delighted to make some exciting announcements concerning this year’s events.

The Shortlisted Artists
• Gina Czarnecki
• David Jacques
• James Quin
• Paul Rooney
• Emily Speed

The Judging Panel
In this, the 3rd year of the prize, we have another knowledgeable, experienced group of judges:
• Juan Cruz (Head of Arts Dept. JMU Art & Design Academy)
• Laura Davis (Arts Editor, Liverpool Daily Post)
• Reyahn King (Director of Art Galleries, National Museums Liverpool)
• Nicki McCubbing (Artist, shortlisted for 2009 Liverpool Art Prize)
• Jay Mitton (Business Manager, Arthur Diamond Design)
• Sara-Jayne Parsons (Exhibitions Curator, the Bluecoat)

New Venue
This year Artinliverpool are working in partnership with Metal. The exhibition will be taking place at the exciting new space for art, Metal at Edge Hill Station (the World’s oldest passenger railway station still in use).

The Exhibition
The 2010 exhibition opens on Friday 4 June (Viewing on 3 June) and ends on Saturday 10 July with the Awards Ceremony taking place on Wednesday 30 June.

The exhibition will be curated by Jenny Porter, the Project Manager at Metal.

The Prizes
The overall winner will be awarded £2000 plus (new from this year) the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Walker Art Gallery at a later date.
There will also be the £1000 People’s Choice Award (Sponsored by Arthur Diamond Design) chosen by the public voting at the gallery.

Ian Jackson, Director of Artinliverpool said “It’s another great shortlist of 5 Liverpool artists. We are really delighted with the year-on-year progress and excited about the move to Metal at Edge Hill. We had 2 excellent years at Novas Contemporary Urban Centre and are grateful for all the support they gave us. We know we will also have great support from Ian Brownbill, Jenny Porter and the rest of the team at Metal.

“It is also fantastic news that the Walker Art Gallery are offering a space for the Art Prize winner to show their work at some point later in the year. We are also working closely with the Bluecoat as their ‘Global Studios’ exhibition features many locally-based artists and the other major venues and artist studios are all keen to be involved in some way.”

About the Shortlisted Artists

Gina Czarnecki
Gina Czarnecki is a British artist whose work crosses multiple genres and platforms. Developed in collaboration with biotechnologists, computer programmers, dancers and sound artists, Czarnecki’s films and installations are informed by human relationships to image, disease, evolution, medical research, and by advanced technologies of image production. Through editing sound and image at a micro–level, using bespoke effects and processes, the artist constructs vivid, highly aesthetic spaces. Her work engages the viewer through its scale, beauty and occasionally through interactive technologies.

“Czarnecki’s craft is as intense as tapestry. Each phase and frame is carefully polished, reframed, filtered, flared, and each element of installation worked on in hands and mind… Few artists have made projection truly their medium, interrogated its possibilities, tuned image to canvas as Czarnecki has. The space of projection is a zone of sculptural, architectural, public space in which we confront images of power, grace and terror – images that speak of the necessity of being bodies, of the loneliness of existing inside an epidermis, of the ecstasy of pores and exhalations, the agonies of escape.” – Sean Cubitt (catalogue essay)

She won the prestigious Creative Scotland Award in 2002 for work on her interactive installation Silvers Alter, a Fleck Fellowship with the Banff Centre, Canada in 2004, and a Wellcome Trust Sci–Art Award in 2005 for production of Contagion. Her film, Nascent, has been screened extensively across the world, winning several awards and prizes. Czarnecki was recently awarded two research and development  grants by the Wellcome Trust , one for a three-year research residency at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the other for developing a body of works entitled ‘wasted’ with DR Sara Rankin, a stem cell researcher, from the Imperial College London

She is represented by Forma Arts and media www.forma.org.uk
http://www.ginaczarnecki.com/

David Jacques
Studied at Chelsea School of Art and Duncan of Jordanstone.
David Jacques works in a variety of media including painting, film and text.
He has produced studio based work as well as collaborative projects in the Public Realm.

Recent exhibitions include:
Contemporary Art Norwich EAST International 09
Northern Print Biennale, Newcastle
Trafo Gallery, Budapest, Hungary ‘EASTgoesEAST’
Royal College of Art, London ‘Por Convencion Ferrer’

http://davidjacques.co.uk/

James Quin
James Quin is based in the studios at Liverpool’s Bluecoat.
‘Looking at these paintings I feel I have the same relationship to them as I might to the first-person narration of a novel or short story. I feel as though I am seeing these images through another’s eyes and understand something of the “narrator” by the way he describes his world. In this sense part of the subject of the painting curiously exists out of the picture frame.

A further analogy is that of film - these paintings have characters, artificial stage sets, locations, vantage points, camera angles, close-ups and dissolves, long shots, implied narratives, and they play with the viewers gaze’. (From essay by Christopher Jones)

In James Quin’s most recent work for the Bluecoat’s Global Studio exhibition he takes some of the interests described here into new territory but his intentions remain resolutely consistent.  Quin is showing a group of 500 drawings on the inside covers of first edition readers digest condensed novels found in charity shops across Merseyside. Quin has attempted to make each drawing identical to the first of the series. The image is a disarmingly understated one, the back of a woman’s head. However, the nature of Quin’s examination of it, lend the images he creates a psychological distance that is familiar from the earlier paintings.

Paul Rooney
Artist Paul Rooney was born in Liverpool in 1967, and trained at Edinburgh College of Art. Paul’s practice focused from 1997 to 2000 on the music of the ‘Rooney’ CD’s and performances, with ‘Rooney’ achieving an appearance in John Peel’s Festive Fifty in 1998, and a ‘Peel session’ in 1999. Paul now primarily works with text, sound and video, often focusing on the presence of the historical past within the ‘voices’ of real and fictional individuals. He uses or references narrative forms such as short stories, songs, audio guides and lectures.

Paul has had residencies at Dundee Contemporary Arts/University of Dundee VRC; Proyecto Batiscafo, Cuba; Tate Liverpool (MOMART Fellowship) and was the ACE Oxford-Melbourne Artist Fellow for 2004. He has shown recently in group projects at Tate Britain, London; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Kunst-Werke, Berlin; the Shanghai Biennial; and Tate Liverpool. Paul was included in British Art Show 6 which toured around the UK in 2005-2006, and had solo shows at Matt’s Gallery, London, and Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, in 2008. Text artworks by Paul were published recently by Serpent’s Tail and Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press.

Paul was the winner of the second Northern Art Prize in 2009.

Emily Speed
Emily Speed is based at The Royal Standard studios in Liverpool. Her work is an ongoing exploration into the relationships between architecture and human anatomy: the body as a building that houses the mind. Particularly drawn to the more uninhabited spaces of buildings; corners, recesses, passageways, stairways, entrances and exits, Speed constructs models of sorts; a kind of immaterial architecture that plots out her personal space. Her work is also concerned with the enduring sense of memory and/or personal identity that is often embedded into built space.

Emily is currently the Feiweles Trust bursary holder at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where she will exhibit her work in 2011 for her first solo exhibition, she will also exhibit this autumn at Showreel Project in Milan. Emily will be taking part in the A Curriculum residency at A Foundation in Liverpool this spring and has previously completed residencies at Salzamt Atelierhaus, Linz with Liverpool Biennial, Women’s Studio Workshop, New York State and Hospitalfield Trust, Arbroath.
www.emilyspeed.co.uk

Confirmed Sponsors (as at 8 March)

Arthur Diamond Design, signs, designs and printing based in Liverpool, sponsors of the £1000 people’s choice prize and printing of leaflets and banners.

Alexander McGregor, design and marketing based in Liverpool, in-kind sponsorship design and production of the exhibition catalogue and branding.

We are delighted that Liverpool-based ABW architects have now pledged sponsorship for 2010.

Another new sponsor for 2010 is The Gallery Liverpool

Photography for the Catalogue and other Media by McCoy Wynne

Contact
www.liverpoolartprize.com has full details about the artists and exhibition.
See also http://www.metalculture.com