Working All Weekend

Just a quick blog post this week as it's normally done at weekends and in my "old role" as a sole trader I still work as a Chief Examiner for an international computer education company and have some tight deadlines to meet regarding assessments I have to write. So that's this weekend's activities dealt with (though I did sneak in a bit of time to watch the Wallabies v All Blacks match on Sky sports).

Bit of a mixed bag last week with a largely finished website uploaded plus an ancillary site for our tree contractor clients for selling their seasoned logs as firewood in the Cambridge/Newmarket area.

We also had a number of meetings including one with a local graphic designer who we plan to team up with for joint work, a freelance web designer who we may use and a business adviser - plenty to follow up on there plus a visit a potential client for an e-commerce website. There was also some prototype website designs, some Adwords work, SEO and a bit of mentoring work - a busy time.

The coming week sees a few meetings regarding potential freelancers, networking, providing a bit of work experience for someone on a disability back to work scheme, and when I'm not in meetings some web design, further work on the prototype application, trip to the bank, Adwords, SEO, exam writing all weekend and probably a brush up my a**e to sweep up whilst I'm walking around!!

Good to be busy though :-)

A Short Week & A Shorter Summer Holiday

It's only been a short week this week, which has simply meant cramming five days work into the available days. The office was shut on Friday (my Summer Holiday of 1 day) as I took the day off to spend some time with my family including a really great walk up in the Pennines in Upper Teesdale past Low Force, High Force (below) and beyond.

Work saw the iPlayer getting some use again (back to normal next week now the Olympics are over) plus completing the tree contractor website and creating the prototype designs for three new websites. We also worked on some SEO on a few websites and the Adwords account for one of our clients plus added code to a client's websites so that they comply with the latest "Cookie Law" - if your site doesn't comply, contact us.

The week was also Chloe's first full week with us and saw the assessor in for an afternoon to set up her Level 2 NVQ. Hopefully Chloe will rattle through that and we can help her achieve a level 3 as well during her apprenticeship.

We also had an informal networking meeting at The Wilton Centre which saw four businesses come along as we aim to set up a new group in Redcar. A useful meeting which will be repeated in a couple of weeks - so if you operate in Redcar or East Cleveland and are interested, drop me an email via our website.

Next week sees us meeting up with a web designer who has just moved into the area with a view to adding him to our small list of freelancers who we engage on specific projects, plus a meeting with a shop owner to pitch for an e-commerce site and a meeting with a business advisor. A busy week with a couple of websites to finish off as well, plus a bit of mentoring to do.

At least there's no Olympic distractions...

... and on that subject Mo Farah = legend.

Apprentice, Olympics and Cricket

The title pretty much sums up the week.

Wednesday saw Chloe our new Sales & Marketing Assistant begin her apprenticeship with us. We're happy  to see Chloe join the team and she seems like a great addition. However, we have taken it a little easy with BBC iPlayer getting some serious use for key Olympic events during work hours.

This weekend saw a trip to Headingley for the Test Match and a good day with my son and part-time Marketing Assistant Matt and a bunch of good friends, some of whom I only meet up with once or twice a year. A good day's cricket on Sat with a superb innings by KP plus far too much beer, especially as we piled into a pub straight after play to see a great night of athletics on the TV for team GB..
... and what a night it was.

Golds for Greg Rutherford, the wonderful Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah. Loved watching them all but the highlight for me was being in a pub where 99% of the faces were white and everyone screaming at the TV in support of Mo and celebrating the win of a black man named Mohamed who came to Britain from Somali. One in the eye for the racists and xenophobes and for me one of the things that makes Britain great.

Loving the Olympics and how well Team GB are doing - only another week and then we can start working normally again.