Simon Goon to leave Business Durham role
6 | Aycliffe Today Business
PUBLISHING GROWTH PROVES A POINT
Someone said to me recently on social media:“ has the paper mag not had its day?”
The guy in question was commenting on a Facebook post about one of our new publications.
“ Everyone uses the internet these days, I can’ t see why people would want it” he added.
He was responding to a post about the launch of a new lifestyle magazine, Tees Life, which is published by my new company, Resolution Media and Publishing.
To a certain extent, he’ s right. Just about everyone is online today, and certain sectors of the print industry are in decline.
However, the growth of magazines, in our experience, isn’ t.
Many will remember the very first Aycliffe Today Business magazine, launched in November 2012. It consisted of 16 pages and, looking back, it represented something of a primitive company brochure.
The magazine quickly took off, however, and has since more than doubled in size.
Off the back of the success of this magazine, we launched a new quarterly business magazine for Teesside, Tees Business, in February 2015, and that has also doubled in size from 36 to 72 pages.
And more recently we launched Tees Life, a brand new quarterly lifestyle publication which is delivered free to homes and businesses across Teesside including Wynyard, Eaglescliffe, Yarm, Ingleby Barwick, Wolviston, Hartburn, Nunthorpe, Marton and Guisborough.
All of these publications are free, funded purely through traditional advertising and sponsored content( advertorials), so by the simple fact we’ re continually adding pages proves there’ s demand for them, certainly from advertisers.
But the trick is making sure they’ re reader-friendly. It’ s all very well having a high-quality magazine, but if it’ s just full of adverts, press releases and generic content sourced from the web, readers will quickly switch off.
We try to keep our readers engaged with original content, as well as news – some of which is already in the public domain – and we’ ll always continue to try to come up with good and informative content people enjoy reading.
You can read more about Resolution Media and Publishing and Tees Life on pages 10 & 11.
Thanks for reading. Martin Walker Editor, Aycliffe Today
Aycliffe firm Roman wins Queens Award
Newton Aycliffe-based shower designer and manufacturer Roman has received The Queens Award for Enterprise for International Trade.
Roman has been awarded the recognition for International Trade as it has shown a substantial and sustained increase in export earnings over three consecutive 12-month periods, to a level which is outstanding.
The Queens Award is made on the advice of the Prime Minister after examination of applications by an Advisory Committee composed of leading individuals from industry, commerce, trade unions and government.
The awards are conferred by her Majesty the Queen on her birthday in April.
As part of The Queens Award, Roman will be invited by The Queen to attend a winners celebratory ceremony held at Buckingham Palace.
There will also be a ceremony held at Roman Headquarters where a presentation will be made by The Queen’ s representative, the Lord Lieutenant of County Durham.
Roman design and manufacture shower enclosures and solid surface products for the bathroom at its headquarters on Aycliffe Business Park.
The firm has three manufacturing plants – one for shower enclosures, bath screens and wetrooms, and another for solid surface fabrication of vanity units, basins and bathroom structures, and the third for moulding solid surface shower trays.
Roman has achieved such a strong position in the market place by consistent and creative product innovation and has produced significant growth across all UK market sectors and in the past five years, while it has established subsidiaries in Ireland and Malaysia.
The Aycliffe manufacturer is currently active in 28 international markets and has supplied products for projects in over 50 markets across the world from County Durham.
Roman is among an impressive list of Europe’ s top 1,000 fastest growing companies. The entire FT1000 ranking featured in a Special Report of the Financial Times.
Simon Goon to leave Business Durham role
A leading figure in the region’ s business community has announced he is to leave his post later this year.
Simon Goon, managing director of Business Durham, is stepping down from his position at the economic development company to take up a job as chief operating office at Synoptica, an early-stage Artificial Intelligence company based in Guilford, Surrey.
Mr Goon, who will leave in August, has held his position at Business Durham for the last four years, overseeing the growth of the NetPark science site at Sedgefield, as well as developing employment sites elsewhere in the county.
He said:“ I have enjoyed a great few years at Business Durham, helping the organisation to achieve its aim of supporting businesses to create wealth and jobs for County Durham and driving enterprise and innovation.
“ I’ ve worked with a brilliant team who care passionately about the economic development of County Durham.
“ I’ d like to thank them for their support and I look forward to an exciting new chapter in my career working in a sector which is at the cutting edge of economic advancement.”