Aycliffe Today Business Aycliffe Today Business Issue 41 | Page 23

The magazine for Aycliffe Business Park | 23
Teesside University pro vice chancellor
Jane Turner OBE was the keynote
speaker for the inaugural Tees
Businesswomen Awards last year.
Tech That – Aycliffe
Today editor Martin
Walker (front) and
his Tees Business
co-owner Dave Allan
(second left) are
leading on another
new awards event
to recognise firms
from the digital and
tech sector across
Tees Valley, along
with David Dixon
from Digital City
(right) and Dan
Watson from Digital
Middlesbrough.
Tees Business and Tees Life – two other leading
publications published by Aycliffe Today’s sister
company, Resolution Media and Publishing.
Grey-Thompson, artist Mackenzie Thorpe,
Tees fashion icon Steve Cochrane and
Maximo Park frontman Paul Smith.
At the end of 2018, Resolution took on
former Reach plc (Trinity Mirror) regional
managing director Bob Cuffe as a non-
executive director.
In January this year, sales manager Carole
Sanderson followed and, more recently, the
firm have taken on Julie Burniston as Tees
Life editor and events manager.
And later this year, Resolution will be
launching the very first This Is Tees Valley – a
new national publication, in collaboration with
the Tees Valley Combined Authority, which
will promote the region to the rest of the
UK and beyond (see pages 30-31 for more
details).
“Who’d have thought it was seven years
ago when I was being told by so many so-
called experts ‘publishing is dead’?” says
Walker, who also runs Aycliffe-based Mantis
Media.
“Newspapers continue to dwindle because
they have failed to keep up with the visionary
social media gurus that left them behind
nearly a decade ago.
“Despite their decline, I’d always
passionately believed in print, because I
think many people still like to sit down over
a cuppa and thumb through a publication to
read stuff they haven’t already seen before.
“It took a few years for Aycliffe Today
Business to establish itself properly, before
the doubters finally, eventually mumbled
defeat under their breath.
“But across two quarterly magazines,
Resolution is now publishing 4.7 million
pages of positive Teesside news and features
a year, with more to come!
“I can proudly say all of this eventually
emanated from one idea more than seven
years ago – in ‘little old Aycliffe’ – and I’m
just as proud to say I’m as passionate as
ever about promoting Aycliffe Business
Park through these pages, and the town of
Freelance designer
Sarah Carlton, who
helped Martin Walker
launch Aycliffe Today
Business, Tees Business
and Tees Life.
Newton Aycliffe (and all of its groups, clubs
and sports teams) through aycliffetoday.
co.uk and our social media channels.
“This has all been achieved with the
unflinching, reliable support of top designer
Sarah Carlton – my Guardian Angel who
designed the very first magazine in
November in 2012, and has completed 70+
since.”
Traditional publishing clearly hasn’t had
its day. And as Resolution continues to
grow – and with the birth of Wear Business
– Walker says
to watch out
for some
interesting
plans for
Aycliffe Today
in the very near
future.