Vine Hotels have renovated Ashgate Hospicecare’s Family Bedroom free of charge to ensure that families can stay together.

The Family Bedroom is now open for families and friends visiting patients on the ward. The newly renovated bedroom and en-suite provide a beautiful, homely, and comfortable space for families. It allows them to remain close to their loved ones at the hospice.

Julie Foster, Matron at Ashgate Hospicecare, said: “This fantastic project has only been possible thanks to Vine Hotels, who have gone the extra mile to help transform their local hospice.”

Vine Hotels have created a comfortable, restful and beautifully furnished space for families and friends visiting their loved ones here at Ashgate Hospicecare.

The Family Bedroom is incredibly important for our patients. It provides the calming reassurance that their families and friends are able to stay overnight at the hospice and are near to them. For families and friends, the Family Bedroom provides all the facilities required to ensure a very comfortable stay without having to leave the hospice, especially when time is most precious.

On behalf of everyone at Ashgate Hospicecare, thank you so much Vine Hotels for enabling us to provide the excellence in care that we strive for.”

Dawn Langan, from Hastings, knows how vital the Family Bedroom is to people. She said, “When my mum came into the hospice, I was really scared. However, as soon as I saw how well my mum was treated here, it completely changed my mind about hospice care. The fact that mum could have her own room meant that she was able to maintain her dignity right up to the end. We could go to the other family areas at the hospice to relax and make a drink and to give mum the privacy she needed.

Being able to use the Family Bedroom made a huge difference to us in my mum’s final days. My children and I were able to spend much more time with her, rather than worrying about finding somewhere to stay or having to come back and forth to the hospice when we didn’t know how long we had left with her.

The staff would always check on us and they even kept sandwiches aside for us so that we didn’t have to worry about getting food in the middle of the night. We were able to spend those last days making more precious memories with mum and those memories will always stay with us. I know that having a beautifully renovated Family Bedroom will make a world of difference to so many families going through the worst time of their life.”

Garin Davies, Chief Executive of Vine Hotels, which has five hotels and venues across Sheffield said: “Ashgate Hospicecare provides a vital service to lots of families and we wanted to be able to help in some way. We were pleased to be given the opportunity to lend a hand and refurbish the room. We know how important the facility is and wanted to ensure that Ashgate could enable families to stay together.”

To find out more about how you could support this project, call Ali, Capital Appeal and Partnerships Manager on 01246 567250 or email alison.ward-foster@ashgatehospicecare.org.uk.

Yorkshire and North Derbyshire’s largest independent firm of Chartered Accountants, BHP, has received national recognition for its work championing cutting-edge technology to improve financial reporting.

The leading regional firm, which has offices in Chesterfield, York, Sheffield, Cleckheaton and Leeds, scooped Audit Team of the Year at the British Accountancy Awards – run in partnership with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

The award recognises BHP’s market-leading use of data analytics in audit. BHP is one of the pioneers of AI software, Inflo, which offers clients previously unobtainable insight into their business.

Inflo mines 100% of data meaning improved fraud detection, enhanced insight into anomaly transactions, and better assurance over business processes for clients.

Lisa Leighton, Joint Managing Partner at BHP, said: “We couldn’t be prouder of this achievement.”

“While quality, added-value and proactive advice have always been central in our audit work, we’re now standing out in our market for how we’re transforming our audit process with AI technology.”

“Not only are we pioneering the use of data analytics with our clients and fundamentally changing BHP as a business in doing so, but the firm is going further to actively champion this technology in the mid-size sector to help improve industry standards across the board.”

BHP is quickly becoming a thought leader in this area, speaking at industry events, conducting webinars and writing articles, and BHP’s Data Analytics Manager has been approached to support with a research project commissioned by the ICEAW.

The team at BHP also share their knowledge and learning internationally and have presented at the Kreston European Conference.

The British Accountancy Awards 2019 took place at The Grosvenor House Hotel on 25 September. Hosted by Sean Lock, over 800 guests were welcomed to celebrate excellence, professionalism, and innovation in accountancy.

Not only do these awards recognise key achievements in the market from an accountants in practice perspective but they also recognise excellence with practitioners working across the industry. Smaller regional practices and individual excellence are also celebrated with multiple awards for each.

Earlier this year, BHP was recognised by the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For list – now in its 19th year, the hard-fought and nationally-celebrated list recognises the very best in employee engagement around the country.

BHP was also recently awarded Mid-Tier Firm of the Year and Best Employer of the Year at the Yorkshire Accountancy Awards and recognised with the Community Award at the Yorkshire Dealmakers Awards.

With more than 300 staff, including 33 partners, over the last 10 years BHP has increased turnover from £8m to over £22m.

Fame Tate, Owner and Director of Stanedge Golf Club in Chesterfield, has been shortlisted into the final two for the “Newcomer Manager of the Year” title at the 2019 GCMA Golf Club Management Awards.

The 2019 Awards will recognise the outstanding work going on at golf clubs, and acknowledge all key personnel who are working together to ensure the successful operation of the club.

Fame has lived in Chesterfield all of her life, despite travelling whilst she was playing golf on the Ladies European and Asian Tours. Earlier this year, Fame was was named the PGA Female Assistant of the Year and the Top PGA student for the Midlands 2019, plus being crowned the winner of the “Outstanding Achievement” award for the English Women’s-North Business Awards category (below).

In February this year, she purchased Stanedge Golf Club, which closed in December 2018 and had lost all of it’s members. Fame and her team are now in their eighth month of business and what an incredible eight months it has been, in more ways than one.

How do you feel about being shortlisted for this award?

I am absolutely delighted to be shortlisted for the award and I feel incredibly proud of what we accomplished in a matter of months at the club and it is fantastic for this to be recognised.

What was your thought process when you had purchased Stanedge Golf Club?

When I purchased the club, I had a strong vision, ambitions and aspirations of what I wanted to achieve in terms of the club as a whole. But in simple terms, I had to ask myself what was our future? What did we need to do to get there? and how did we need to work together? I wanted the club to thrive again in every aspect and I strongly believed that it had fantastic potential and could be achieved. Of course there is a lot more to it than that. I had done an enormous amount of market research and demographic segmentation, plus having a strategic business plan in place.

My passion since retiring from professional golf has always been getting more people into golf by giving them the opportunity to learn and play but not only to recruit them but to retain them. I am guided by what I want to achieve at the club and its future. Its not just a vision, its what the vision does. This is what drives my ambition everyday. I care and it matters and that it is what has made me put all of my energies into the transformation of Stanedge. As a business we have grown and developed massively over the last few months and we have had to move and change with it. All along I have been mindful that where ever possible I have had to re-invest back into the business to make it grow, develop and thrive.

You have been so successful in turning the club around from zero to over a 100 members in a matter of months, what has been to key to that?

The biggest thing for me from the start was for people to see change. The clubhouse was incredibly run down, which is putting it mildly and the golf course wasn’t in great shape. Everything just needed an awful lot of TLC. The previous members had lost faith in the club and visitors were not coming to club due to the poor condition of everything. I wanted everyone to see that we were there for the long haul, that we meant business and wanted to put Stanedge Golf Club back on the map. As a consequence of this, the clubhouse has been completely refurbished and the golf course has undergone an extensive improvement plan, which is obviously an on going process.

We have put so many initiatives in place since February to raise awareness and the profile of the club. We held an Easter fun open day in April which attracted over 100 people and was a huge success. We run various coaching initiatives for existing golfers and those who are new to the game, for ladies, men, juniors and mixed coaching. We have held a 6@6 league for Congu and non-Congu golfers, social nights, various offers to incentivise people to come to the club for golf or food….the list goes on and on.

You can not underestimate the power of word of mouth and over the last eight months we have re-gained people’s faith and trust back in the club. We have created an environment that is accessible, affordable, friendly, social and welcoming for everyone, whether you are a golfer or not. We don’t have a dress code but people are still respectful of that. We are constantly developing what we are doing at the club, to make Stanedge a better place for members and visitors. For me it is more than just golf, we are providing people with an experience and building a new community and culture.

You obviously have to wear many different hats being the owner, the golf club manager and PGA professional at the club…how have you managed to juggle all of these very different roles and your staff?

Time management has been key however, sometimes there haven’t been enough hours in the day, plus hard work and the ability to delegate. As a manager of the club, I won’t ask any member of team to do something that I am not willing to do myself. I accept that I can’t do everything. I have a small but very strong team of staff who I trust with their responsibilities, which enables me to focus my time on other elements of the business. It has been so important for me to surround myself with the right people. Every member of my team brings something different to the table which is crucial as everyone sees things differently. I encourage collaboration, team meetings and brain storming sessions. I want every member of my team to feel empowered and have a sense of ownership, giving them a reason to go the extra mile. The whole team needs to succeed, no matter what their role or responsibility in order for the club to be a continued success. There is no committee structure in place at the club so if a decision is made, we are in a unique position to be able to run with it. After all of the decisions that are made we reflect, re-assess and change accordingly for the better of the golf club.

I believe that this is only the start for Stanedge Golf Club.

The 2019 awards ceremony will be held at the biannual GCMA Conference, held from 10-12 November 2019 at De Vere Cotswold Water Park.

Dawson Radford, company and commercial law specialists, has joined forces with SFT Consulting Ltd and is able to offer clients an employment law and HR service.

Stacey Cox, the founder of SFT Consulting Ltd, is an employment lawyer with over 14 years HR support and employment law experience. She began working in employment law when she left university 14 years ago. Stacey then worked for a regional firm for 11 years, building up its employment department from scratch.

Jo Dawson, Director at Dawson Radford Solicitors said “I am so pleased that Stacey has decided to join us. Having worked with Stacey for many years I know just what a fantastic lawyer she is, and I also know that she shares our firm’s mission and values for our staff and clients. This is an excellent appointment for us, as it now enables us to deliver employment law services and expand our business law offering”.

Stacey has represented a vast array of clients from small bespoke businesses to international clients and can assist clients with any employment or HR issue, including:

• The drafting of policies and procedures, i.e. contracts and handbooks;
• The drafting of and advising upon executive service agreements;
• Settlement agreements;
• The conducting of internal meetings i.e. disciplinary and grievance meetings and redundancy consultation meetings;
• Employment tribunals, both in the preparation for and representation at the employment tribunal.
• Restrictive covenants – both the drafting of and enforcement;
• Mergers and acquisitions, this includes assisting our excellent corporate team to ensure clients are fully compliant with its TUPE obligations and staffing issues upon completion.

Whatever your business need may be, Stacey prides herself on her practical approach to assisting you in achieving your desired outcome.

Banner Jones’ Family Law and Personal Injury teams have received a Tier 2 ranking in this year’s Legal 500, the 7^th year in a row the firm has received acknowledgement.

The Legal 500 assesses the strengths of law firms across the world, and this acknowledgement showcases the continued great work of Banner Jones over the last 12 months, and the quality of the services they provide.

The latest 2020 guide states that the firm’s family law team have ‘outstanding knowledge’ in a broad range of family matters whilst the Personal Injury team were praised for being ‘happy to think outside the box’ and for how they ‘value the client as an individual’.

In addition, four of the firm’s solicitors have been listed by Legal 500 as a ‘Recommended Lawyer’ this includes Head of Family Law Kelly Parks, Head of Personal Injury Simon Wright, Head of Care Helena Downing and Family Law Solicitor Shetal Gudgeon.

Kelly Parks (right) commented: “This is a fantastic achievement and reflects the hard work of everyone in the team. We’ve been involved in some difficult cases in the last 12 months, such as domestic violence abuse cases, divorce settlements and childcare arrangements.”

“I would like to give particular thanks to the work of Shetal Gudgeon who the Legal 500 has stated ‘treats domestic abuse clients with respect and understanding’.”

Simon Wright said: “It’s been a great year and as a team we strive to provide the very best service to our clients. I’m thrilled that the Legal 500 recognise that our ‘communication is always excellent’ and that our ‘Support staff, especially Sarah Sadler, are very efficient.’ Well done Sarah.”

Banner Jones Solicitors is an award-winning law firm with offices in Chesterfield, Sheffield, Mansfield, Dronfield and Nottingham.

Kelly Parks & Shetal Gudgeon