Tag Archive for Coronavirus

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South Western Railway launches £12,000 prize packages for small firms

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
In a bid to help small businesses recover from the COVID-19 crisis, South Western Railway is giving away five prize packages worth £12,000.
Each recovery package includes £2,000 of bespoke equipment and marketing support from South Western Railway (worth £10,000), including promotional activities within their train stations. The £2,000 can be spent at any UK electrical, furniture or office supplies online retailer. It cannot be used to purchase resale or second-hand items.
Two of the businesses will win the top prize of a tailored business package plus advertising on Smooth or Heart Radio.
Locals can nominate their favourite businesses, as long as they are based in London and the South West. Firms in the following locations are eligible:

London
Dorset
Exeter
Hampshire
Berkshire
Sussex
Surrey
Middlesex
Wiltshire
Isle of Wight

The business must have premises, along with a Facebook or Instagram account, to qualify for the competition. It must not be a sub-brand of a larger organisation.
If your business is selected for a radio slot, you must be available to pre-record a remote radio advert between July 20-26.
In addition, all customers who nominate their favourite business will be entered into a prize draw to win one of two £1,000 cash prizes.
Entrants must explain why their nominated business

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How to reopen your gym, pool or leisure facility post lockdown

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
The Government has announced that gyms, pools and other leisure facilities in England can reopen from July 25.
Culture secretary Oliver Dowden also said that tattooists, beauticians and nail salons can reopen from Monday, July 13.
As well as general COVID-19 safety advice, such as encouraging contactless payments and putting up signage to highlight social distancing, the government has issued specific guidelines for leisure facilities.
The full guidelines can be found at the Gov.uk, but we’ve picked out the most important ones you should know about.
Visiting instructors, coaches, teachers, and management
If you’re running class or personal coaching sessions, keep these in mind:

Consider limiting the number of classes that rotating instructors teach in order to minimise exposure
Determine the number of facilities they are comfortable with instructors rotating amongst in order to minimise exposure. Establish a system for monitoring this
Given the high risk of transmission from visiting instructors, where possible, establish a private testing programme for rotating/visiting instructors

Contact while using facilities
Fitness spaces
Pieces of gym equipment should be an appropriate distance apart so as to comply with social distancing guidelines and with a suitable margin for adequate circulation or one-way routes. This can be achieved by moving equipment,

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Small businesses say that they won’t survive second COVID-19 spike

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
A significant proportion of small businesses wouldn’t be able to survive a second spike of COVID-19, according to new research.
Sage’s latest report, ‘Survival, Resilience and Growth: placing small businesses at the heart of the UK’s economic recovery’, says that 86 per cent of respondents believe a second wave would have a negative impact on their business. Meanwhile, 39 per cent say that it would be severe and a further 15 per cent say their businesses could not survive it.
What’s more, one in two SMEs say they’re not confident they oculd handle a 20 per cent drop in revenue between now and September. A significant number (39 per cent) of businesses aren’t even sure that they’ll return to profitability by December 2020.
These businesses say they would struggle with other issues like a decrease in customers, losing key talent, cyber security and disruption in their supply chain.
Problems will also arise in the early months of 2021 as businesses will need to make payments that have been delayed due to the pandemic.
Dealing with a second spike or coronavirus and other challenges
Small firms are relying on preparation, liquidity and digitisation to protect them against future crises.
Some 40

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Coronavirus small business diary – James Cadbury, Love Cocoa

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Originally written by James Cadbury on Small Business
Love Cocoa is the luxury, ethical chocolate start-up created by James Cadbury (great-great-great grandson of Cadbury founder John Cadbury).
Based in Dalston, London, Love Cocoa has five full-time staff, while production of its handmade chocolate is outsourced to a family-run factory based in Stoke.
The brand offers luxury, ethical chocolate sustainably sourced from Columbia, palm-oil free with 100 per cent recyclable packaging and compostable inners made from wood pulp. Quirky flavours included gin and tonic, avocado and birthday cake.
The brand turned down an investment offer from Dragons’ Den in 2018 and has grown 400 per cent since to become a million-pound brand.
Love Cocoa is about to redesign its brand and launch a tree-planting project – “One bar = one tree”; for every Love Cocoa product sold, the company will plant a tree in partnership with the charity Trees for the Future, with the aim of planting over 500,000 trees in northern Cameroon in 2020, helping cocoa farmers gain a much needed second source of income while combating deforestation and climate change.
>See also: Coronavirus small business diary – Alessandro Savelli, Pasta Evangelists
25th January
We begin to think that the path ahead might be tricky when the bespoke

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Hot Business News Today

How to reopen your gym, pool or leisure facility post lockdown

by  •  • 0 Comments

Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
The Government has announced that gyms, pools and other leisure facilities in England can reopen from July 25th.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden also said that tattooists, beauticians and nail salons can reopen on the same day.
As well as general COVID-19 safety advice, such as encouraging contactless payments and putting up signage to highlight social distancing, the Government has issued specific guidelines for leisure facilities.
The full guidelines can be found at the Gov.uk, but we’ve picked out some of the ones you should know about.
Visiting instructors, coaches, teachers, and management
If you’re running class or personal coaching sessions, keep these in mind:

Consider limiting the number of classes that rotating instructors teach in order to minimise exposure
Determine the number of facilities they are comfortable with instructors rotating amongst in order to minimise exposure. Establish a system for monitoring this
Given the high risk of transmission from visiting instructors, where possible, establish a private testing programme for rotating/visiting instructors

Contact while using facilities
Fitness spaces
Pieces of gym equipment should be an appropriate distance apart so as to comply with social distancing guidelines and with a suitable margin for adequate circulation or one-way routes. This can be achieved by moving equipment,

Read more...

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Where to apply for your coronavirus arts grant

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Arts Council England, Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and British Film Institute are among the arts organisations tasked with assessing applications for the £880m worth of performing arts grant ring-fenced in the government’s £1.6bn coronavirus arts rescue package.
The rescue scheme will begin assessing coronavirus arts grant applications this month, and this page will be updated as information feeds through.
The £1.6bn arts rescue package, secured by culture secretary Oliver Dowden after weeks of studying the problems facing the arts sector, includes £880m of grants for the financial year to April 2021.
>See also: How to get the government’s £10,000 cash grant for small businesses
The £880m worth of grant money will be shared between theatres, music venues, heritage sites, museums, galleries and independent loans, will be supplemented by £270m worth of repayable loans.
In addition to the £880m worth of grants and £270m of repayable loans, other measures announced today for struggling arts organisations were:

£100m of targeted support for the national cultural institutions in England and the English Heritage Trust
£120m of capital investment to restart construction on cultural infrastructure and for heritage construction projects in England that were paused due to the coronavirus pandemic
An extra £188m

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Hot Business News Today

Where to apply for your coronavirus arts grant

by  •  • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Arts Council England, Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and British Film Institute are among the arts organisations tasked with assessing applications for the £880m worth of performing arts grant ring-fenced in the government’s £1.6bn coronavirus arts rescue package.
The rescue scheme will begin assessing coronavirus arts grant applications this month, and this page will be updated as information feeds through.
The £1.6bn arts rescue package, secured by culture secretary Oliver Dowden after weeks of studying the problems facing the arts sector, includes £880m of grants for the financial year to April 2021.
>See also: How to get the government’s £10,000 cash grant for small businesses
The £880m worth of grant money will be shared between theatres, music venues, heritage sites, museums, galleries and independent loans, will be supplemented by £270m worth of repayable loans.
In addition to the £880m worth of grants and £270m of repayable loans, other measures announced today for struggling arts organisations were:

£100m of targeted support for the national cultural institutions in England and the English Heritage Trust
£120m of capital investment to restart construction on cultural infrastructure and for heritage construction projects in England that were paused due to the coronavirus pandemic
An extra £188m

Read more...

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Sunak decides whether to subsidise small businesses hiring young people

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is deciding whether to subsidise small businesses giving young people aged below 25 full-time jobs.
Such a scheme, which could be announced next week when the chancellor unveils his plans to get the UK economy moving again, would be similar to the future jobs fund which ran between 2009 and 2010.
The commitment to subsidise young people working for small businesses would be part of an “opportunity guarantee” to ensure that every young person has a chance of an apprenticeship or an in-work placement.
>See also: How to reopen your restaurant, pub or hotel post-lockdown
Young people aged below 25 are the most vulnerable when it comes to the jobs market post pandemic, with the Bank of England estimating 9 per cent unemployment as the country struggles back onto its feet. According to a Be the Business survey published this week, businesses expect to lay off 11 per cent of already furloughed workers, while a quarter have already had to make redundancies.
Although the future jobs fund cost the Treasury £720m when it ran in 2009-10, the Exchequer recouped half its cost through taxes. Yet then prime minister David Cameron axed the scheme, saying

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Hot Business News Today

Sunak decides whether to subsidise small businesses hiring young people

by  •  • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is deciding whether to subsidise small businesses giving young people aged below 25 full-time jobs.
Such a scheme, which could be announced next week when the chancellor unveils his plans to get the UK economy moving again, would be similar to the future jobs fund which ran between 2009 and 2010.
The commitment to subsidise young people working for small businesses would be part of an “opportunity guarantee” to ensure that every young person has a chance of an apprenticeship or an in-work placement.
>See also: How to reopen your restaurant, pub or hotel post-lockdown
Young people aged below 25 are the most vulnerable when it comes to the jobs market post pandemic, with the Bank of England estimating 9 per cent unemployment as the country struggles back onto its feet. According to a Be the Business survey published this week, businesses expect to lay off 11 per cent of already furloughed workers, while a quarter have already had to make redundancies.
Although the future jobs fund cost the Treasury £720m when it ran in 2009-10, the Exchequer recouped half its cost through taxes. Yet then prime minister David Cameron axed the scheme, saying

Read more...

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Pay us within one month if you take COVID-19 cash, say small businesses

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) wants policymakers to ensure that large firms who receive Government COVID-19 financial help pay their small firm suppliers within one month.
As part of its current calls, the FSB wants to make any big corporation that receives state or Bank of England-backed finance to sign a supplier charter committing to this payment term.
It also wants it to work with the BoE to shore up supply chain finance and ensure said finance is used to pay small businesses swiftly.
The latest data from pay.uk shows that the latest sum of late payment due across the country rose 80 per cent to £23.4bn at the end of 2019.
Almost two thirds of small businesses (62 per cent) have been subject to late or frozen payments during the pandemic.
FSB’s new report, ‘Late Again: how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting payment terms for small firms’, reveals that only one in ten small business have agreed changes to payment terms with clients. That means that most of the recent examples of poor payment practices have not been formally signed off by creditors or debtors.
Despite efforts by the Government to improve procurement practices since the fall

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