MP shows the Wright way for the FSB

Shropshire Branch

MP shows the Wright way for the FSB

David Wright MP bought himself closer to the Telford business community, recently, by listening to and taking up causes from members of the Federation of Small Businesses at the recent Shropshire branch networking meeting.

On a warm night at Meeting Point house in Telford, David Wright MP answered questions from members on VAT, finance, the local council and future policies to see the country out of recession, there was also discussions on how the Shropshire business community can become more powerful, and approach the council in stronger ways.

David took on board a lot of the comments, offered his view on most and assisted in looking at ways forward.

Ray Hickinbottom, membership manager and event organiser for the branch said “we are a non-political lobbying group for small businesses, and David Wright MP very kindly offered his services to come and listen to how life is on the shop floor so to speak, indeed one of our members had a call from the MP in regards VAT, just as he was about to pose the query in the House of Commons. It is part of our series of events, our main aim is to bring the issues real people are experiencing, into sharp focus to the people that need to know, and our thanks go out to David for making the time to see us.”

The conversation was free flowing and everybody got to make their point at the meeting, it was local business owner of a logistics firm and FSB member, Ben Coates, that posed the VAT question, and he added “I recently spoke to the VAT office with regards setting up a monthly payment scheme, rather than new businesses having to find a huge lump sum every 3 months, however this was not available, when I mentioned it to Mr Wright he seemed to agree that the idea of enabling new businesses to budget this way, made sense, and of course it would help with Cash Flow.”

“I wrote to David as he asked me to, then I received a call three weeks later, with the question that was to be asked. The MP said he was about to table it and was outside the chancellor’s office as we spoke. Without the FSB I would feel isolated, so I have to thank my local branch for offering me the chance to move my idea forward.”

Ray added, “Since we met with David, he has invited us to take a group down to parliament for a tour, and has also booked a committee room so we are able to move discussions forward, we are not committed to any political party, our ties are firmly with the local business community who we represent.”

Up and coming FSB events include:

Monthly Networking meeting at Meeting Point house, 21^st June, 19^th July and the yearly social event, September 20^th, venue to be arranged.

Please feel free to contact FSB Shropshire on the following:

Ray Hickinbottom – Membership Manager – 07733 603052

Ben Coates – Committee member – 07738 715038

Twitter: @fsbshropshire

Facebook Group: FSB Shropshire group

A Few Home Truths.

Simon Cowell does not produce musicians; he produces talentless karaoke singers and turns them into a commercial enterprise.

Great footballers are not people who have one good game or season; they are players who perform at the highest level, Champions League, World Cup, and European Championships.

Big companies have no customer service, just computerised people who have standard answers.

Carlos Tevez is a spoilt brat, on his money he should play and shut up, but what do you expect with his agent?

Cheryl Cole has got what she deserved in 2011.

Sir Alan Sugar is a success and has worked for what he has.

FIFA is run by a dictator who is ridiculed over the world, unless he makes promises.

Twitter and Facebook are fads; they will change, evolve or disappear.

E-bay and PayPal are dear to deal with.

Kauto Star and Phil Taylor are sporting greats, Harry Redknapp and Gareth Bale aren’t.

Alisha Dixon is one of the worst judges on the TV, she scores on who she fancies not on technical ability.

Computerised, Commercialised Music is crap and only brought by the thick public.

Britain is a rip off, you are penalised for working hard, try getting the scroungers off there lazy arses and into work.

James Murdoch is a rat, but not as bad as Piers Morgan.

Don’t forget this is a satirical look at life.

Frank Lampard kissing the Chelsea badge is embarrassing; his family are West Ham through and through.

Jeremy Clarkson didn’t really mean he would shoot people.

Public Sector workers are having a laugh by going on strike, just want the economy needs, selfish!

If you have time to complain about a TV programme, then you spend too much time watching the idiot box, try turning that time into profitability.

I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here should be done under the trade descriptions act, none of them are famous.

People only go on Reality TV shows, go on because their careers have failed.

Jockeys are the best sports people in the world, they work every day and never complain about tiredness, yet only on a pittance per ride, take note over paid footballers.

England Rugby Team were a disgrace to the country, end of, a message to Johnson, professional sports people on the money they are, no longer should have a beer at a world cup, shocker.

England Test Cricket Team are the pride of the nation, there dedication to the country has been immense, the discipline and pride Flower and Strauss have installed is amazing, take note the Rugby and Football Side.

Who really cares about the England Football Side, Club football is far bigger than internationals now, and only idiots like Adrian Durham think otherwise.

Moose from Talk Sport is an embarrassment to West Ham and the radio station.

Mick Quinn, for a biased scouser is actually a funny guy and him and Saggers are a great start to the weekend.

Due to the do gooders how are new companies on a budget meant to promote themselves when idiots complain and report them for sending an e-mail, if there is an unsubscribe button, just click it, or try talking to the person, allow people to trade, you never know, it may be something you want!

When driving on a motorway, just because there is an overhead speed limit, do not slap on the anchors, it causes tail backs, thick drivers, drive to what is in front of not, not ahead.

If you drive a bus, there is a fair chance that you are an arrogant prat.

If you drive a lorry, there is a fair chance that you enjoy flashing your lights, oh and we know you have horns in your cabs.

Oh if you want to complain to me about this, you probably complained about Jeremy Clarkson too and can’t see what this post is about.

Being number one in the singles chart means nothing now a day.

If you are younger than 25, have you ever tried playing outdoors? There are games such as tag, stuck in the mud, building a den?

Have you actually seen proper Snow? Does anyone remember a real winter, like 1981?

England are not a good international football side.

The way Colonial Gadaffi died is not a tragedy; the way others died under his regime is the tragedies, so all you human rights people, get stuffed.

Darren Bent is not feared on the international stage and is not international class.

Peace on earth will never happen, forget it, it is a shame but religion is the route of all evil.

A football team conceding a goal is not a tragedy, it is not a disaster, Christchurch earthquakes were both a tragedy and a disaster.

Only one team can win the league and three teams get relegated, get over it, if it is not your side or is your side, accept it, remember the manager is on the least money, compared to the players that took you down.

Stuart Downing is not international class.

9/11 actually happened; it was a terrorist attack, all you conspiracy theorists, stop trying to make money from this dreadful event.

The British public hate pressing one, two or three for another menu, get us through to somebody who will talk to us and give us customer service.

The English Premiership has lost the standard it had; there has not been a good side for at least two years.

Darts fans are not all they are cracked up to be, the barracking of some players is disrespectful.

Celtic v Rangers is of a poor standard and lives off the past.

Soaps are not real life, if that much bad luck happened in my street I would move.

Chris Moyles is funny if you get him, if not don’t listen.

Banks, councils and politicians are arrogant; they can pay their bills by taking money from us, the public.

Fear for your kids growing up, they are going to have it a lot tougher than us.

Dog’s poo, as long as the owner cleans it up, there is no need to say that is disgusting.

People need to concentrate on their lives and their homes, if a mate is struggling in their family or marriage relationship, just support them, don’t tell them what to do.

Mother-In-Laws will always back their son/daughter, which is their job; the Father-In-Law will back off as much as possible.

There is always somebody worse off than you, that is life.

Somebody will always be jealous of you and what you have; if this upsets you don’t flaunt what you have.

Some of this will touch you, some will make you laugh; take it as it is meant.

To follow me on Twitter search for @bencoates130776.

Shropshire Star, will it catch up with the future?

So the Shropshire Star employees are going on strike over job cuts, at least this will assist the MNA save costs, but will it stop the cuts, the answer is simple really, NO! Some of these people will have no doubt had a cushy number for the past few years, sitting on their laurels, doing what they have to each day, but as they are in a diminishing industry surely the wise ones would have shown initiative, taken the business forward.

A company is only as good as its employees, but sometimes, older, aging businesses do not change with the times, and do not look at growing the business, we sit in a world of technology, we are a world who are hungry for exclusives, and what does our local paper do? Use national stories that have been in the press in the morning’s media.

There is no doubt that with the recent hacking accusations, that newspapers need to change, they need to find other ways of selling news, and this applies to local media as well, the Shropshire Star has no journalist’s, it has reporters, re-active reporters, people who don’t make contacts, snitches, so everything we read is old news, there is the odd local story that somebody has given them, not really something that makes the masses buy the paper.

The way forward has to be internet, local papers have to employ people who are going to seek stories, seek them before they start, charge a subscription internet charge, it can be something as low as 25p a day, but people won’t subscribe for boring journalism, stuff they have already read in the morning papers.

There also must be more of an element of local stories, can you believe that Shropshire’s only local paper has very few photographers, they ask for readers to send in their own pictures. The Shropshire Star is so far behind the times, it is three generations behind.

The problems of course have to be laid at board level, the people who ran the business successfully a while ago, but fell into the trap of all is well, in business you have to move along with the times, sometimes beat them.

The idea of knowing what the market wants seems lost at local level, they have a pretty poor website, that is under used, they copy the morning papers, and have nobody looking at stories in the Shropshire area, yet the arrogance of people who work for the star think they can keep their jobs and see the demise of the Shropshire Star in total, however, even if the board think laying people off will help, it is only a short term fix, to avoid a similar situation again they need to invest and bring the Star out of the dark ages.

BK Business Solutions Launch

At a recent exhibition, Director Ben Coates was told, the press releases you send through are impressive and ready to go, why don’t you do more?

Well here is the news, Ben Coates has taken up the challenge and is ready to hit it head on, all he needs now is customers, but with this standard of writing, the creativity and designs, and enthusiasm it surely won’t be long.

With a major contract already in the offing, the future looks bright, but Ben doesn’t just want it for himself, he wants to create employment and be a design/PR studio, aspiring to the famous Mr Paparazzi, Darren Lyons, he is off to London in search of experience that will hold him in good stead on his return a few days later.

He proved the contacts that BK have this week when he tweeted about the media’s vehicles outside Ryan Giggs house had been attacked even before it appeared on Sky News as Breaking News, Ben said “I have always been told it is not what you know but who you know, well in PR it is both, you can know the whole world, but if you don’t know how to portray a story then there is not much point, I have my own ways of thinking and for customers my ideas will definitely be unique, I can manage their image, create a new one, or re-launch an old one.”

Ben believes with the increase in social media, old marketing ploys that work have been forgotten, “I have a broad spectrum and experience of all types, different campaigns work for different people, but as long as all is monitored for their impact then all must be explored and discussed. I also believe that press exposure is under used, with so many cost cutting exercises going on in the media circles, papers now rely more and more on PR companies and marketing businesses, if they have one contact that they can get several stories from, or adverts booked it assists them and helps save our local papers.”

“The link back to social media is that the more the press release is posted across the internet, the more Google rankings you earn and this helps your search engine optimisation., campaigns must be consistent and that is what we will assist with, and we will also install monitoring systems so we can evaluate the impact of each part to see where the money that is tight, is better spent.”

BK Business Solutions can be contacted on 07738 715038, or through the website, www.bkbusinesssolutions.co.uk, and you can follow the tweets on @bkbusiness, Ben’s personal tweets are on @bencoates130776.