Message from the Chairman
For those of you who don’t know, Birmingham Future’s Leadership Team is made up of the Chairmen of each of Birmingham Future’s Committees, the Deputy Chair, Immediate Past Chair and myself. To find out more about the current Leadership Team, please click here. As a Leadership team, we get together once a month to feedback on each committee’s activities and discuss various strategic issues which we feel may have an impact on Birmingham Future members. We also get together once a year for our annual away day. This year’s away day started with a difference as we were all taken on a guided tour of Birmingham City Centre focussing on the professional and financial services business district around Colmore Row and Brindleyplace. I have to say, it was a huge amount of fun being a tourist in my own City! Some of the interesting facts learned included the fact that Birmingham has over 6million trees and more parks than any other European City and that Joseph Priestley, a Birmingham Minister (1780-91) discovered Oxygen! In fact, we were so inspired by our Birmingham tour that we are looking at putting on something similar for all Birmingham Future members to help you all renew your civic pride. On that note, on the 3rd October 2007, Birmingham Future is hosting a “Welcome to Birmingham” event for all new starters in the professional, financial and business sector. We want to let all of these new employees embarking on their career in our sector know about the highlights on offer in the city and also provide them with an opportunity to meet their peers. The following week, on 9th October Birmingham Future and the Thrive! Forum will run an event at the Birmingham Rep showcasing examples of volunteering opportunities available in Birmingham, again aimed at new starters. If there are any new graduates or trainees in your organisation, please do let them know about these events. For more details and/or to make a booking please click here. Your help in getting the message out to your new starters is much appreciated. I hope you will also be supporting the Birmingham Suit Amnesty on 12 October (further details below). If you are anything like me, you probably have at least one old suit languishing in your wardrobe which really could make all the difference to someone less fortunate out there looking for a job. Finally, if you have any bright ideas as to how your fellow Birmingham Future members can really make a difference to this city, please do send me an email by clicking here. I would love to hear from you. Alex Bishop, Chairman
News & Events
You’re Hired – Graduate Apprentice Year 2
Jason Norris, 22-year-old BA Hons Business Management graduate from Durham University, has been named Graduate Apprentice 2007and takes over the healm from Darvinder Kang.
Jason who started his Apprentice year on September 17th will enjoy three diverse environments within the city’s business community. The first of the three four month placements kicked off with one of the big four, Deloitte in Birmingham, followed by property management company LMM and the third and final placement will be with creative agency, 3form.
We wish Jason the best of luck as he embarks on his Graduate Apprentice year and will keep you informed of his progress.
Birmingham Future’s a Ball!
Do you have creative flair? Are you looking for an opportunity to show off a hidden talent? Do you have a friend or colleague who is a designer? Birmingham Future is looking for a talented individual or company to design the menus and tickets for the Annual Ball 2007, a highlight in the events calendar.
We are also looking for volunteers to form part of the organising committee for what always proves to be a hugely successful event. To register your interest in any of the opportunities above please e-mail Isabel for further information.
Birmingham Suit Amnesty
Birmingham Future is proud to support Thrive’s Birmingham Suit Amnesty on Friday 12 October 2007 when there will be a collection of suits from people across the business community at the ICC (Hall 6). These suits will then be distributed through our charity partners to people who will benefit from your suit. It may just help someone to make the right impression at a job interview.
Your suit may benefit: A school leaver trying to get their first job; an unemployed individual trying to get back into work or a homeless person trying to get a foot back on the employment ladder.
Are you willing to make the simple gesture of donating an old suit to help someone not as fortunate as you get a step up in life? Suits can either be dropped off on Friday 12th October at the ICC from 07.30 –15.00 - or we will be arranging for the suits to be collected by our dry cleaning partner Mail Wash.
If you wish to volunteer to act as your organisation’s Suit Amnesty Champion or want more information about this initiative simply email: graham.nicoll@barclays.com
Calling all budding David Baileys!
Budding David Baileys in Birmingham are being given the chance to show off their photography skills as part of a new competition to find the UK's Urban Photographer of the Year. Launched by property firm CB Richard Ellis, the competition, which is open to both amateurs and professionals, challenges photographers to capture the country’s towns and cities at work during a typical 24-hour day.
In Birmingham it might be traders setting up their stalls at the wholesale markets in the early hours of the morning, street sweepers cleaning up after a busy weekend on Broad Street or office workers on Colmore Row getting their morning coffee ready for the day ahead.
There are several top prizes to be won including a photography safari holiday in Marrakech for two! All entries must be submitted by midnight on 14th December 2007. For further information about the competition and to submit an entry please visit www.citiesatwork.co.uk
Forthcoming events...
Monday 1st Oct – Meet & Mix lunch with Blair Kesseler, St Basils. Places are available at £22.00+vat . Book on-line here or by e-mail here.
Wed 3rd Oct - Welcome to Birmingham aimed specifically for new graduate trainees/employees that have started within member firms in 2007. This event will be a unique opportunity for new graduate trainees/employees within the professional services sector to discover more about the city’s thriving and dynamic business community, make connections with fellow new starters and forge valuable friendships and contacts. If any of your new graduates or trainees would like to attend the event places are available at a cost of £17.63 incl and can be reserved via the website or by email here.
As a follow up to the event to our Welcome to Birmingham on 3rd Oct, Birmingham Future has teamed up with the Thrive! Forum to inspire the city’s young professionals to develop their personal social responsibility. On 9 October 2007, new starters are invited to the Birmingham REP to hear from inspirational speaker Eugénie Harvey, Director of We Are What We Do, to learn more about volunteering opportunities available in the city. Tickets are £20 +VAT. Click here to book.
Tuesday 16th Oct - The Business Insights series kicks off with Stuart Dunn of Perkins Slade who will discuss the importance of being insured in today's blame culture. Places are available at £17.50+vat. Click here to book on-line or by e-mail here.
Plus International Festival 17-21 Oct
Plus is a unique design-led festival showcasing all that is innovative, pioneering, and novel in the world of international typo/graphic design. The Festival will feature work from international design agencies, freelancers, recent graduates and students working in the areas of graphic communication, typography, type design, web, animation and multimedia. Exhibitors include London based Zip Design, whose client list boasts Blackberry, Paul Smith and Virgin Records, and two of the UK’s most respected illustrators, Si Scott and Jasper Goodall.
This year’s event includes a debate and reception on 18th Oct hosted by the Design Council and the Chartered Society of Designers, exploring the value of good design and the commercial benefits it can bring to business. This will be an exclusive opportunity for business to tour the show, meet the designers and network with other businesses that have learned how good design can increase business competitiveness.
The Business debate and Reception starts at 5.30pm and is Free of Charge and by invitation only so please RSVP with your name, company details and the names of any guests to: Plus@ typevents.com or call Caroline 01923 800425 quoting Plus Business Debate.
Congratulations...
Thanks to all members who completed the Young Graduate Employees Survey in the summer. Congratulations to Future member Carla Macleod of Needham and James who won the prize draw and will soon be enjoying dinner for two and an overnight stay at the Radisson SAS Birmingham.
Thrive! Little steps... Big Change!
We kicked off last month with some simple actions for you to consider and do your bit towards a better world. Here are two more, in association with Thrive, The Birmingham Post and we Are What We Do (WAWWD), a movement inspiring people to use their everyday actions to change the world.
ACTION 26 - Start a car pool. What we're suggesting is that you help the environment and make life a bit friendlier by figuring out how to share lifts to and from work. www.liftshare.org helps people find drivers and passengers online. Who knows? You might find some new friends while saving the planet. FYI: Every day 10 million seats go empty on the road
ACTION 27 - Find out where your lunch has come from. Kiwi fruit from New Zealand travels 12,000 miles to be part of your lunch, and that kiwi fruit creates five times its own weight in greenhouse gases getting here. Which might lead you to imagine that the little fruit spent the entire trip farting. But it's just the fuel employed in getting it here. Still . . . if the image of a farting kiwi fruit makes you think twice about eating stuff flown in out of season, maybe it's a useful one.
Did you know...?
- There are 29 Birminghams around the world but our Birmingham is the largest and the oldest! There's even one on the moon!
- The NEC, opened in 1976, is the UK's largest and Europe's seventh largest exhibition venue.
New members...
The Membership Committee would like to extend a warm welcome to all our 31 new members who joined us in August!
We are pleased to offer a membership benefits card and membership pack to all our Birmingham Future members. Details of the participating companies in the scheme are available on the website here. The membership cards will be posted out very soon so look out for those when they arrive on your desks!
Birmingham Future, One Victoria Square, Birmingham, B1 1BD
Telephone: +44 (0)121 632 2200 Fax: +44 (0)121 632 2201
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