BUSINESS NEWS IN BRIEF
The Joseph Foote Ball raised more than £350,000 for The Brain Tumour Charity and was attended by a number of the region’s high profile business professionals. Guests were treated to
performances from X Factor finalist Stacey Solomon and comedian and singer Brian Conley. The ball is in its 15th year of
fundraising inspired by Solihull boy Joseph Foote, who died from brain cancer in August 2007. Forming the Joseph Foote
trust in 2001 after his son was diagnosed with a brain tumour, Joseph’s father Andy Foote saw the regional charity merge with Brain Tumour UK in 2013. This partnership went on to become The Brain Tumour Charity, of which Andy is chairman.
A team of athletes from a leading digital print and sign company are in the running to raise a monstrous amount of money for charity. Twelve colleagues at Birmingham-based Hollywood Monster, including managing director Tim Andrews, are training hard in preparation for the five-mile Knowle Fun Run, which the company is supporting for the fifth consecutive year. The event, which takes place
on 18 May, will include hundreds of runners from Solihull and the surrounding areas.
IT ransomware warning C
ompanies are being warned to be vigilant against a form of computer attack that holds them to ransom.
Coleshill-based IT firm Acutec is seeing increased
‘ransomware’ cases, where firms’ systems and servers become encrypted and a payment is then demanded by criminals to allow them access again. Steven Marks, of Acutec, said: “It’s a relatively
new form of cyber attack and it is certainly on the increase. “What normally happens is an email arrives that looks perfectly plausible and looks as if it is from a well-known and trusted organisation. “It will have a link and once that is clicked on,
you are under attack within a matter of minutes and the perpetrators will demand a ransom to un- encrypt the business’s files. It can affect individuals too.”
‘It’s a relatively new form of cyber attack and it is certainly on the increase’
Andantex, based in Coventry, is the UK subsidiary of a French parent company that manufactures and supplies gearboxes for machine tools which was recently hit by an attack. Andantex director Phil Spencer said: “A member
of the team received an email which appeared to be from Royal Mail. “At that time, she had been liaising with the Post
Office with regards to amending some of our details so had no reason to suspect anything untoward from the email. “But as soon as she clicked on the link, it started to ‘take over’ our system and was encoding all of
Steven Marks of Acutec
our files and documents so we couldn’t get to them.” Acutec’s advice is to switch off all PCs and
servers and for a business to call its IT provider immediately. In Andantex’s case, it was fully backed-up on to tape so Acutec could rebuild and reboot its system from the tape. Phil added: “We learnt two very valuable lessons. Don’t open a link unless you are 100 per cent sure it is safe and make sure you back-up on a daily basis.”
Curtain falls on Hippodrome’s record year
Birmingham Hippodrome achieved a record-breaking year in which paid admissions increased to over 625,000 tickets in the 2013/14 financial year. For some time the city’s Hurst
Street theatre, an independent registered charity, has been regarded as the most popular single auditorium in the country averaging over half a million visits annually. But this year’s extraordinary
increase, representing 85 per cent of capacity, has been driven by a season of blockbuster productions including Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, War Horse and the best pantomime for a decade. Chief executive Stuart Griffiths
said: “It’s not very often that these programming moments come together so perfectly, but with more than a little help from our producer partners Cameron Mackintosh, Disney, the National Theatre and pantomime producers Qdos, alongside others, it looks like we’ve
14 CHAMBERLINK MAY 2014
shattered all previous known records. “It’s gratifying too that we’ve seen such a huge rise in first-time bookers with over 48 per cent new to the Hippodrome in the last 12 months. “Dance received a boost with our
resident partners Birmingham Royal Ballet presenting its most successful Nutcracker at Christmas; and Mathew Bourne’s sell-out Swan Lake. We ended the financial year this spring with two other huge successes, the classics Fiddler on the Roof and Singin’ in the Rain.” Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre
Trust chair John Crabtree added: “We’ve checked the archive as far back as possible to find that last year sets a new standard. “There is no doubt that Stuart Griffiths and his team along with our producer partners have delivered a particularly impressive set of results, and we would like to thank our loyal audiences and the many thousands who came to the Hippodrome for
the first time this year.” The former Birmingham Chamber
president added: “In keeping with the successful formula created in recent years, the success of the last financial year is already being used to invest in the programme and towards further developing a diverse audience.
“The month-long International
Dance Festival Birmingham, co- produced with DanceXchange, starts at the end of April, South Africa’s Cape Town Opera return in July with their production of Show Boat whilst St. Petersburg’s acclaimed Mariinsky Opera bring Wagner’s Ring Cycle to Birmingham in November.”
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