BUSINESS NEWS
Chamber patrons play a role in RGF agreement
W Sir Terry Wogan pledge support
Surviving winter campaign launch
Birmingham and Black Country Community Foundation (BBCCF) has launched its Surviving Winter Appeal along with 42 UK wide community foundations, to help older and vulnerable people keep warm and survive this winter. The organisation is calling on all who can afford it to forgo their winter fuel allowance, as well as those who do not receive the payment but wish to support the cause, to donate to the appeal. Pledges have already started to
come in before the campaign has been launched, with Sir Terry Wogan, Sir David Jason and Denise Robertson of ITV’s This Morning pledging their Winter Fuel Allowance to the Surviving Winter campaign.
For more information visit
www.localgiving.com/winter
W Mids directory gets under way
The West Midlands Chambers of Commerce Directory 2012/2012 goes into production in the new year. As a member of Birmingham of Chamber of Commerce Group your company details will be automatically included in the directory. It will carry features on legal and financial services; manufacturing; skills and training; and transport and distribution – providing plenty of promotional opportunities for Chamber members. Kemps Publishing, publishers of
the directory and Chamberlink, will be contacting members between January and April 2012 to discuss advertising opportunities. Please be advised that Kemps Publishing is the only organisation appointed by the Chamber to undertake advertising sales on the directory and Chamberlink. Organisations falsely claiming to
represent the Chamber will be reported to trading standards.
Impression of the new language department
KES Old Boy donates £2.5m
A former pupil of King Edward’s School, Birmingham has made a £2.5m donation towards a new Modern Language Department at the school. The donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “I am delighted to be able to make this gift to my old school to ensure that it stays amongst the very best in the teaching of languages which were important to me when I studied at the school and have remained important to me throughout my career.” The gift will be a very substantial contribution to a major development of the teaching facilities. The £5m project, which will start in the summer of 2012, comprises not only a new Modern Language Department, but also the extension and renewal of the science laboratories and a new Sixth Form Centre. This project forms part of a £20m+ building programme to improve the facilities for teaching, music, drama and sport within the school. The first phase of this programme is the construction of the £11m Paul and Jill Ruddock Performing Arts Centre in collaboration with King Edward VI High School for Girls. This is due to be completed in April 2012. In addition, there are well- developed plans for the final phase, which will involve the building of a new sports hall and swimming pool. The Chief Master, John Claughton, said, “This is a gift
of great scale and significance. It will enable us to create a state-of-the-art Modern Language Department. The teaching of Modern Languages is very
14 CHAMBERLINK DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/12
est Midland business leaders welcomed the Prime Minister’s
announcement of a ground- breaking deal which will release £95 million as part of the Regional Growth Fund. And the Chamber praised the major part that two of its patrons will play. RBS/Nat West will facilitate £70 million and HSBC will facilitate £25 million. The banks will not profit financially from the administration of these schemes. Small businesses which are unable to secure
‘SMEs are the lifeblood of our economy and account for the vast majority of Chamber membership’
regional networks. Jerry Blackett, chief executive of BCCG said: “Through the banks and Chamber networks, Birmingham, Burton, Chase, Lichfield, Tamworth and Solihull businesses will have the opportunity to invest in new capital assets, such as plant and
machinery which in turn will create new jobs. “SMEs are the lifeblood of our economy and account
commercial funding for their project have the potential to benefit from government support through the banks’
for the vast majority of Chamber membership. We need to support them and help them expand and with this new initiative, backed by our patrons, businesses will be better able to grow their way out of these current economic difficulties.”
important to this school, at a time when there are concerns about language teaching in this country. The school has been consistently successful in getting boys into the best universities to read languages and I can’t see that changing.” Every boy at King Edward’s takes at least one modern language to IGCSE and, since the introduction of the International Baccalaureate in September 2010, every boy in the Sixth Form also studies at least one language. Languages studied at King Edward’s include French, Spanish, German and Italian – as well as Latin and Ancient Greek. This gift means that the school has now raised over
£10m from former pupils of the school in recent years. Fellow former pupils, Paul Ruddock and John Osborn, have previously made generous gifts.
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