1813 Club and Premier Members


1813 Club and Premier Members


Greater Birmingham’s leading companies


Crown makes skills pledge


Burntwood firm Crown Highways has underlined its commitment to staff people development by joining The 5% Club, an industry led initiative focused on boosting the recruitment of apprentices, graduates and sponsored students. The club, found by Balfour


Beatty chief Leo Quinn in 2013, is a movement of more than 300 employers providing ‘earn and learn’ opportunities to develop the skills and talents people need to become more employable. Companies joining The 5%


Club commit to raising the number of apprentices, sponsored students and graduates on formal programmes to five per cent of their total workforce within five years. Members are also asked to


publicly report their progress in their annual report. Existing members range from large to small businesses and cover a number of diverse industries, from engineering through to the legal sector. Crown managing director


Mike Dale said: “It’s well known, spoken about and documented that there is a skills gap in the highways industry. “The only way to bridge


that is to bring in younger people and apprentices, train and upskill them to the highest standards and create more skilled workers for the future good of the sector. “This is ultimately our


motivation for joining the 5% Club, to create more skilled workers for Crown Highways, and the highways sector as a whole. “This is something that we’ve


been working towards for some time now, being a member of The 5% Club has been a real company objective so we’re very proud to be here now.”


30 CHAMBERLINK November 2018 Making venues match


Unique Venues Birmingham (UVB) is the newest member of venue matchmaking service Academic Venue Solutions (AVS). AVS was formerly known as


Venuemasters and has more than 35 years’ experience of matching event planners with venues. UVB, the commercial venture


between Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Library of Birmingham, is home to Brasshouse Languages, the largest adult education centre in the UK, and The REP’s Learning and Participation Department, which is the biggest in any UK theatre. The organisation has become AVS’s seventh member. Suzanna Reid Barreiro da Silva


(pictured), commercial director, UVB, said: “Our eagerness to join Academic Venue Solutions was born out of our commitment to


‘We recognised the importance of clients looking to book academic venues’


exploit all opportunities to partner with organisations where there is a mutual benefit. “We recognised the importance


of clients looking to book academic venues and in turn UVB as a commercial venture re-invests profits into both the learning resources at The REP and the Library of Birmingham. “Coincidently, our joining was


perfectly timed to enable UVB to bid to host the Academic Venue Solutions conference in December. We’re thrilled to have won the bid and look forward to welcoming delegates from across the


Academic Venue Solutions membership to showcase the truly unique facilities UVB has in Birmingham City Centre.” AVS general manager Natalie


Williamson said: “We’re so proud to welcome Unique Venues Birmingham into our membership. It’s important that we stay true to our mission and showcase the unique offering of academic venues. “Unique Venues Birmingham is a


great example of the diversity of academic venues within the consortium and I look forward to working with them and to hosting our conference with them in December.” As a member of AVS, UVB will


be able to partner at key events and exhibitions throughout the year, as well as share best practice and ideas.


Firm moves up legal rankings


Solicitor Freeths is celebrating becoming a top 50 UK law firm after moving up the listings in the influential ‘The Lawyer’ magazine’s latest top 100 ranking. With income close to £80m in the last financial year,


Freeths has moved to a national ranking of 47, following major revenue growth during the past year. Freeths managing director in Birmingham, Richard Beverley, said: “Financial growth at Freeths has allowed


for investment across the UK, including in 2018 a new Liverpool office and plans to open in Bristol in 2019. “We are making rapid progress in Birmingham,


underpinned by our ability to attract high quality lawyers, such as Kirstin. Further growth is very much on our agenda, assuming that we maintain our current rate of growth we expect our Birmingham office to double in size within the next five years.”


Premier Membership


Contact: Howard Blow T: 0121 607 1841


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