Features - Page 156

The UKHospitality trade body has this week welcomed the launch of the Scottish government’s Hotel Support Scheme, while highlighting the need for further support for the industry from both Holyrood and Westminster.

Prime minister Boris Johnson will next week encourage people to go back to their workplaces as part of a wider government campaign, the Telegraph reports.

Since reopening in mid-August following the Covid-19 lockdown, one hospitality business, Portsmouth’s Becketts Southsea, has enjoyed a bumper summer of bookings fuelled by UK staycations and been buoyed further by 15 consecutive five-star reviews on Tripadvisor. However, the success has not stopped since, with the Becketts Southsea hotel business having now been recognised with a 2020 Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice award.

Recalling the watershed moment that he first decided to take the plunge from being in employment to starting his own business, Fuse Innovation managing director Marcelo Bustamante described the change as going from one side of a desk to the other.

Sir Ed Davey has been voted in as the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, after seeing off competition from fellow MP Layla Moran.

Businessman and inventor Thomas Edison once said the greatest weakness of humans lies in giving up and that the “most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time”. It is the same idea of motivation and determination in one’s work that underpins the mentality of Ross Kennedy and QHi Group Ltd, the business he founded back in 1989.

It is often said that one learns more about themselves, their colleagues, and their business in times of adversity than when things are going smoothly. It is a view that is also shared by Melba Fisher, chairman and managing director of exclusive business club and network Business for Breakfast, who believes that leadership is often ignored when things are going well and then called into question in more testing times.

When lockdown restrictions were announced in March 2020, WillisPalmer and its CEO, Mark Willis, raised alarm bells that a lengthy lockdown period could not be justified as it could cause more societal, health and wellbeing issues than the coronavirus itself. However, now approaching September, many children in England have experienced six months with no education, little routine, scarce social interaction and for the vulnerable children in society, a worse fate of witnessing domestic abuse, being neglected, experiencing emotional, physical or sexual abuse and not knowing where the next hot meal is coming from. In this article, Willis outlines the severity of the problem and presents WillisPalmer’s Children’s Charter, set up to ensure that all children impacted negatively during lockdown have access to help and support as soon as possible to address the problems and thrive.

Secondary school pupils in areas affected by local lockdowns in England will be expected to wear masks after the government reversed its guidelines on Tuesday night.

Wrexham-based Paul Bristow Associates are producing thousands of masks per week for major organisations and companies in the UK.

As has been the case for businesses all over the UK, Ye Olde Salutation Inn, a public house in Nottingham dating back to 1240 which lays claim to being the oldest in the city, has had to navigate the storm of the Covid-19 pandemic and chart its own course through troubled waters. Speaking on the Leaders Council podcast, director Jason Weston reflects on the business’ journey through the pandemic thus far, while prime minister Boris Johnson hinted at a future u-turn on guidelines over mask-wearing in England’s schools. Elsewhere, Ofqual chief Sally Collier has tendered her resignation following the exams controversy.

CGTech has announced the latest interation of their VERICUT software, version 9.1.

London based online market research agency FlyResearch has been issuing weekly polls to its research panel of over 3000 people throughout the coronavirus lockdown in the UK, in order to project how the outbreak and the implementing of social distancing has been impacting the daily life of UK citizens. This week, managing partner Greg Ward discusses the findings from the 21st wave of the Covid-19 tracker survey with the Leaders Council, published on August 19 and sourced from data collected on August 14.

Prime minister Boris Johnson has directly appealed to parents of school-age children, informing them that it is “vitally important” that pupils return to school as soon as possible.