Benham Publishing Businesss Magazines February 2014 | Page 3

Contents Contacts 08 Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce Stable Block, Brewery Drive, Huddersfield HD4 6EN Telephone [phone] Area office for Wakefield New Commerce House, 168 Westgate, Wakefield WF2 9SR Telephone [phone] Area office for Calderdale Suite 8, The Elsie Whiteley Innovation Centre, Hopwood Lane, Halifax, HX1 5ER Telephone [phone] Executive Director Andrew Choi 19 Membership and Events Manager Tracy Smith Marketing Manager Ellie Lyon Production & Design Benham Publishing Limited Email [email protected] Telephone [phone] www.benhampublishing.com 26 Media Number 1334 36 Advertising Telephone [phone] Mobile [phone] [email protected] Disclaimer Benham Publishing Limited or the Chamber cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies that may occur, individual products or services advertised or late entries. No part of this publication may be reproduced or scanned without prior written permission of the publishers and the Chamber. Welcome Welcome to the last issue of our Close Up for Business magazine in 2013, we hope that you have a particularly productive end to the year and equally hope that your start to the new calendar year is a positive one. As both the national and the regional debates continue over our physical connectivity and infrastructure requirements, in particular over high speed rail, I believe it’s important not to lose sight of how important digital connectivity is to Chamber members. With this in mind, we welcome the public and private sector initiatives aimed at providing businesses with access to high speed fibre optic broadband although we believe progress in Yorkshire (and the UK) to be slow and uneven. This is particularly frustrating for us given that the Chamber is looking to implement a hosted VOIP 42 telecommunication solution for our Wakefield office to help us improve our service even more. This edition of Close Up for Business takes a considered look at social media, which, of course, has increased our appetite for bandwidth speed and reliability and has radically changed the way we connect and interact with the world. I look forward to hearing the thoughts and views of all our important contributors and readers alike. In other news, our Enterprise Agency’s work with entrepreneurs and start up businesses has received a further extension of its funding from Jobcentre Plus and we have recruited three experienced advisers to assist in this important area of business support. On international trade, we are working closely with the Leeds City Region and UKTI on the “We Are International” campaign and have also added an additional apprentice to our team to ensure it has the capacity to fully support our exporters. 04 07 08 10 12 13 17 19 20 25 26 28 31 34 36 39 42 43 46 50 50 Chamber News Members News Charity News Membership Benefits MY Export Hub Training International Trade West Yorkshire Enterprise Agency Chamber Chatter Business of the Month Chamber Policy Cover Feature Big Interview Manufacturing & Engineering New Members Patrons View Member Offer of the Month Networking Events Training Events Chamber Connect Last Word Movers & Shakers As always, at this time of the year, we have intensified our efforts to help you find new customers and suppliers through our entire range of networking activities. This includes an exciting new trade conferences venture across the region to widen your routes to market at every opportunity during the year ahead. We have also introduced even more membership benefits including access to high quality and up to date data lists and other valuable ways to improve value for money. Although the economic picture shows promise, we understand how tough it is out there and we wish you every success in 2014 and hope you will use your Chamber even more along the way. Andrew Choi Executive Director Winter 2013 CLOSEUP 3