STANTA Community Update
In this issue all the latest events, dates and details:
Under 'What help would you like?' we have added useful connections that may help your business.
- Legal and financial surgeries
- What help would you like?
- Networking opportunities New St Albans Growing Business & Awards
- Low-cost business training and food hygiene qualifications
- Seminars and Workshops including current HMRC workshops
- The STANTA Community – how do I become a member?
Need Specialist Help with Legal or Financial Issues?
Surgeries are free to Community members. See below to find out how to join. Here are the key dates
- Our next Free Legal Surgery is on Wednesday July 2nd. The surgery is held at STANTA Business Centre provided for us by S A Law. Please contact us if you would like to book a slot of up to 1 hour. Surgeries are usually held on the first Wednesday morning of each month and are booked up quickly
- Our next Free Finance Surgery is on Wednesday 16th July. It will be at STANTA Business Centre, provided for us by Lloyds TSB Bank. You can talk personally to a banker about any area of business finance.
- St Albans Credit Union – the Credit Union can provide small (up to £5,000) personal loans to STANTA clients for their business and are happy to talk to STANTA Community members at STANTA Business Centre about how to go about securing a loan from any source, and all issues around business and personal finance. By appointment.
For any of the above, call Ginny at STANTA on 01727 837760 or e-mail advice@stanta.co.uk
What Business Help would you like?
If you have not already done so, let us know by completing the attached questionnaire (our thanks to those of you who have). It will only take a few minutes and we are using this to look at how we might change our services to better meet your needs.
The government are committed to getting more small businesses supplying the needs of the public sector. If you would like to find out more, click on Supply2.gov.uk.
Want to get better-connected ?
Then STANTA can help with contacts with many local networking groups, and especially the St Albans Chamber of Commerce and St Albans women in business group (which is administered by STANTA’s Ginny Cooper and is not related to the Women in Business Network). Events coming up:
- St Albans & District Chamber Summer Garden Party and Networking: will be held on Friday 11th July at 5.30 pm in The Deanery in Sumpter Yard St Albans . There will be music from members of the St Albans Symphony Orchestra and a chance to learn more about the Abbey as well as network in a relaxed and lovely environment.
- The next Chamber event will offer a chance to link with some Hemel businesses as it is being held at The Marchmont Arms in Piccotts End Hemel Hempstead on Tuesday 15th July. The speaker will be Mike Penning MP for Hemel Hempstead and Shadow Health Minister.
- The next St Albans Women in Business event is on Wed 16th July -there will be a lunch time meeting at the Fox, Harpenden. The speaker will be Willard Wigan MBE, micro-sculptor. To find out more, contact Ginny on 01727 837760 or e-mail ginny@stanta.co.uk if you would like to receive an invitation.
- After a summer break the following Women in Business event will be lunch at the Loch Fyne Resaurant in St Albans, on Tuesday 23rd September, with author and businessman Grant Leboff speaking on strategies for winning business.
- NEW: St Albans Chamber Business Awards - there is still time: Why not nominate a business that has impressed you, or nominate yourself in one of the five open categories: New Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Business, Young Person and Restaurant of the Year - you can all nominate someone for that.
Other Events:
Federation of Small Business meet on the first Thursday of each month at the County Constitutional.
Contact Mike Bourne. E-mail:fsbmike@fsbdial.co.uk
- Don’t forget, seminars can also be networking opportunities - see Seminars section below.
Training and Food Hygiene Qualifications
STANTA on-line training now available in conjunction with Learndirect Business and Certain Change.
- We have launched our wide range of over 140 low-cost business training courses. You or your staff can complete these in your own time on-line, supplied by STANTA (as a LearnDirect business e-courses partner). And members of the STANTA Community get a 10% discount on all on-line courses. Go to the STANTA website: www.stanta.co.uk to find out more, or contact us on 01727 837760 or advice@stanta.co.uk
- Are you a consultant or executive coach looking to extend your range, or for support material to strengthen and broaden your offering? Have a look at the Harvard ManageMentor - Harvard Business School material and support at an affordable price. Look at the mentoring page on the website: www.stanta.co.uk.
- New! Are you in the food business? STANTA has been accredited as a Royal Institute of Public Health Examination Centre. This means that, as part of our Leandirect range of courses, STANTA can offer basic food hygiene training and qualification for which you can study in your own time, and take the examination on-line at STANTA Business Centre, at a time in normal working hours to suit the candidate. To find out more, contact us on 01727 837760 or advice@stanta.co.uk
- And if you are starting up, and need more intensive and individual training, then Stanta has linked with Certain Change to provide their audio-based start-up sales and business development courses at a substantial discount to Stanta clients. These are supported by workbooks and telephone coaching and can be undertaken over a period to enable you to implement what you learn whilst learning. They provide a step by step process for new and developing businesses. Click here to find out more: www.stanta.co.uk or contact us as above.
Contact Ginny on 01727 837760 or e-mail ginny@stanta.co.uk.
1. Do you know anyone thinking about starting in business? Then tell them about the FREE
business start-up and planning workshops run by STANTA in conjunction with Barclays and the
National Federation of Enterprise Agencies. Barclays Let's Talk Starting in Business Seminars
run from 9.15 am to 3.30 pm and focus on thinking through and planning your new venture. If you
are a pre-start or less than one year old business you also qualify to receive a voucher from
Business Link for free business advice from STANTA or other providers.
Dates are: Wednesday July 9th 2008
Thursday September 11th 2008
Wednesday December 10th 2008
All of the above will take place at Barclays offices in Upper Marlborough Road St Albans
Contact Ginny at STANTA on 01727 837760 or e-mail advice@stanta.co.uk if you would like
to book a place.
2. Do you want to get more business stimulated by the web, but not sure how you can go about it?
The next in our series on current ways to get the most out of the internet is Search Engine Marketing. The session will be delivered by Cerco Communications and FL1 Solutions.
The market rate is more than £200 for a half-day specialist seminar but we are charging £40. Price includes morning tea/coffee/biscuits and buffet lunch plus presentation copy and notes. We are also keeping the groups small to enable the maximum individual input.The session will again be held at the County Constitutional Club in Ridgmont Road, 9.15am for 9.30am start. Details are:
Friday 20th June: Search Engine Marketing - Learn how to improve your ranking .
Numbers are limited but as of now there are still a few places, so if you would like to come along, so act as soon as possible!
Contact Ginny at STANTA on 01727 837760 or e-mail advice@stanta.co.ukThe Blogging workshop was very practical, and if you could not get to it, but would like to know when we next run it, please contact us.
3. Worried about the year end return, or handling payroll, or self-assessment? Tax doesn’t need to be taxing! And to prove it HMRC run a number of free workshops to help you get it right.
Being Self-employed: Monday 7th July St Albans
Monday 28th July St Albans
Thursday 28th August St Albans
Wednesday 17th September St Albans
Monday 21st July Hemel Hempstead
Wednesday 6th August Hemel Hempstead
Wednesday 19th August Hemel Hempstead
Tuesday 9th September Hemel Hempstead
Friday 26th September Hemel Hempstead
Paying Employees: Wednesday 16th July St Albans
Monday 22nd September St Albans
Monday 28th July Hemel Hempstead
Wednesday 3rd September Hemel Hempstead
Self Assessment Tax: Friday 11th July St Albans
Tuesday 22nd July St Albans
Monday 18th August St Albans
Thursday 11th September St Albans
Friday 4th July Hemel Hempstead
Monday 14th July Hemel Hempstead
Monday 11th August Hemel Hempstead
Monday 15th September Hemel Hempstead
To find out more, contact HMRC on 01442 437401
How you can join the STANTA Community
Clients who bring STANTA a Business Link voucher automatically become a member of the Community for 12 months which entitles you to use the free advice service as you need it and to the other benefits of community membership.
These vouchers help fund our free service and are currently only available for businesses in their first year of trading. As STANTA no longer receives income from any external source for any other support given, there does need to be a basic charge for others wishing to start or continue to use our advice and other services.
In order to ensure that in particular our one-to-one advice service can be available as required and not rationed, we intend to keep this to a single payment of £70 per annum for membership of the STANTA Community. And we are adding as many new benefits as we can for our members as you can see in this newsletter - free legal and financial surgeries, discounted training opportunities and low cost seminars. We will try to add other services: your feedback from our research (see “What Business Help would you like?” above) will help us decide what we offer in the future.
Stanta is an acronym for St Albans Enterprise Agency Ltd (Reg No 1789726), Stanta Services Ltd (Reg No 2202645) and St Albans Property Services Ltd (Reg No 4952442 - VAT No 842690024). All three companies are registered at Companies House Cardiff. Stanta, Suite 19 Stanta Business Centre, 3 Soothouse Spring, St Albans, Herts, AL3 6PF. Tel: 01727 837760. Registered Office: Gloucester House, 72 London Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL1 1NS.
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