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  • The Business Village People Podcast S2 E9 "THE BENEFITS OF FOSTERING".

    The Business Village People Podcast S2 E9 "THE BENEFITS OF FOSTERING".
    2025/08/28
    This is a POD ONE production. For more information, visit podone.co.uk. This is the Business Village People podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell and welcome to the Barnsley Business Village People Podcast. This is episode nine of series two. In this podcast, we showcase stories from the companies, service providers and staff at the Business Village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. In this episode of Business Village People. The Business Village has a strong working relationship with enterprising Barnsley. They provide business support to companies looking to expand, develop, and flourish, as well as guidance and help for new businesses. Paul Johnson is a key account manager. We'll be finding out from him. How enterprising Barnsley can help companies win. But first, I'd like to introduce you to Capstone Foster Care, an independent fostering agency that supports hundreds of carers across England. One of their officers is based here at the Business Village. I've been along to have a chat with them. My name's Allison Dixon, and um, I'm a senior practitioner, uh, social worker, and I work for Capstone North. It's a fostering agency. We're an, um, independent foster agency who are employee, employee owned. So a lot of our, um, business and our money goes back into, um, supporting foster carers and families. Lots of events for children and families. So we'll have like a celebration day. We'll celebrate Eid. For example, we have Christmas events. We take the children to like Gulliver's or rather valley, the water park we've done in previous years. So it's basically we're, we're a small ho in Barnsley. It's a bigger organisation, Capstone North. But, um, we've got that kind of family feel. So how did Capstone begin? Began in 2009 as an independent foster agency, and then obviously it's evolved over the years and it's quite a big organization. Well, it's become bigger, but like I say, we've got individual hubs. And we are based here in Barnsley Business Centre, but we've also got Hobson, Bradford and Hull in Manchester and also in the south of England. How, how do you fit into the picture? So basically we work with a wide variety of local authorities from all over the borough and, um, it can be as far as far away as, as say, Bristol down south. And sometimes children move around for whatever reason. Um, so, so we work with all the local authorities and we receive referrals for children that need to be looked after and cared for. 'cause they're in, they're very vulnerable and they've been assessed by the courts to come into care. And I don't know if you're aware, but there's a national shortage of foster carers. So, and, and I think as well since COVID and the Pandemic, a lot of the spare rooms that people had. That they need for fostering. 'cause they need to have their own bedroom. Um, they've been used for offices, so then that's created, um, a bit of a problem. And so nationally it's very difficult, um, for children to be placed in area. So the area, so we, we try to kinda. Manage that and recruit foster carers, which every, every fostering agency and local authority is trying to do. What do you look for in a foster carer? Someone that's empathic, that's obviously got got, they need a spare room and a bedroom for a start. They have lots of training. Um, we like them to be holistic and [00:04:00] therapeutic in the approach. And their approach to parenting. We look for skills. It, it could be that they've maybe been, um, teachers or support workers or possibly worked in the care sector themselves. Um, a lot of our foster carers are like kinda middle aged, or they could be in their fifties. We also have some younger ones. And, and there's, it's a wide variety. Sometime we have short break foster carers, so they might just provide care for children on a weekend basis or for a week or just like on a short term basis. And then other short term carers could be, could be up to two years. And if the child settles, then it goes to long term. So the skills we need is, is basically to accept these children as part of your family. That's what we're looking for. They get fully assessed. It's called a Form F assessment, and it basically goes through that person's whole life and any previous relationships or so we, so we look for any kinda strengths, vulnerabilities, uh, that doesn't kinda count them out. It just depends. Um, obviously if they've got a criminal record for violence or something, then we wouldn't consider it. It just depends on the person. So it is like a really thorough assessment because we want to get the right people there. There are so many different kinds of fostering that you are looking for. Yeah, and we also do parent and child as well. And that could be both parents and a child or children or one parent and that's, that's a different, but they need additional training to become a parent and child foster care. So, so it's quite, it's quite wide and varied really. The foster enroll and, and every year the ...
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    26 分
  • The Business Village People Podcast S2 Ep 8 "Remembering Adrian"

    The Business Village People Podcast S2 Ep 8 "Remembering Adrian"
    2025/05/29
    This is a Pod One production. For more information, visit pod1.co.uk. This is the Business Village People podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell , and welcome to the Business Village People podcast. This is episode eight of series two. In this podcast, we showcase stories from the companies, service providers and staff at the Business Village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. In this episode of Business Village People, we meet Dave Moss from Property Projects Yorkshire Limited. His company identifies houses that need renovation. He secures investment to fund the purchase and the refurbishment and ultimately utilises their buildings as social housing. I also have a conversation with Gemma Edwards from Get Real Comms. Gemma's business career has taken her to many countries , and while living in Spain, she secured a job with William Hill Online Betting. Today she runs her own communication company here at the Business Village. In February of this year, everyone at the Business Village, both staff and tenants, was saddened to hear of the sudden death of Adrian Waite, the former chief executive of the Business Village. Adrian retired just over a year ago. Not long after we began this podcast, we knew we wanted to invite Adrian to share more about himself. He came on, we recorded it, and this is Adrian Waite in his own words. My name is Adrian Waite. I'm the Chief Executive here at the Business Village. I was born in Lisbon in Northern Ireland and spent a little bit of time in England before my mum and dad took me off to Australia when I was fairly small. And so my formative years were spent Sydney. I can remember walking off the plane when it arrived in Sydney airport the first time. I think I was five years of age. I've been led to believe that Australia was very, very hot, but we arrived in the middle of winter , and it was absolutely freezing. The next thing, I looked around and I couldn't see a kangaroo anywhere. In my junior years in Australia, I think it was very much juniors who were still sort of seen and not heard. So I can remember my first time on a tennis court was when the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius and there were no adults interested in playing at that temperature. My early introductions into sport were playing tennis when it was too hot for the adults and playing golf at 5 o' clock in the morning because the tee times were booked from seven for adults only. I wanted to be a pilot, but as my eye deteriorated. You had to be very good at physics. The eyesight and the physics killed my dream of being a pilot. I ended up becoming a geologist. I have a degree in geology from the University of Birmingham. I got offered a PhD at the University of Edinburgh to go and study the algal growth on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. But unfortunately, I lost my grant and , to cut a long story short, ended up doing a master's degree at Leeds University in engineering geology. So my first career was as a geotechnical engineer. So that's sort of halfway between geology and civil engineering. I am what's called the Lawn Tennis Association councillor for Yorkshire. So I sit on the advisory body, about 60 LTA councillors in total. We work alongside colleagues at the LTA and advise them on strategy. I was self-employed in the noughties. When the world fell off a cliff in 2008. I went from being very gainfully employed as a consultant to working about 20 hours a week. I thought I'd better try and find something else to do to fill those hours. I heard about a role in Barnsley, working on a specific project, working with the larger companies and helping them with taking advantage of public sector support. And I thought it would just be for a couple of years. I kept getting into different projects and Tim Milburn, who was the chief here, he retired after 22 years. I sort of knocked on his door and said, do you think I might be the type of guy the board is looking for? And he encouraged me to apply for his job and here I am. We're much more modern, I think, than nine years ago. We've invested a lot in future-proofing. So I'd like to think that, you know, some tenant who came and based themselves here would say it's a modern, forward thinking organisation I've come to be based at, but the infrastructure that's in place is going to be the right infrastructure for my business moving forward. So I look at things like broadband. I think we have the fastest speeds in Barnsley. I think the infrastructure we're putting in place. So, as things like artificial intelligence take off, my understanding is it'll require a larger bandwidth. We've already put those sorts of structures in place so people won't have to say, well, you know, we'll have to leave the business village because it doesn't have the facilities, the technology that we require. So I'd like to think that we're, you know, ...
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    35 分
  • The Business Village People Podcast S2 E7 "I really wanted to be Carl Fogarty, but my mum said no!."

    The Business Village People Podcast S2 E7 "I really wanted to be Carl Fogarty, but my mum said no!."
    2024/11/14
    This is a Pod One production. For more information, visit Pod One. Co. Uk. This is the Business Village People Podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell. And welcome, welcome, welcome to the Business Village People Podcast. This is episode seven. In this Podcast, we showcase stories from the company's service providers and staff at the business village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Well, if you're ready, let's go. In this episode, we meet Karen Greenwood from Newable, a non-bank lender. Newable was founded in 1982 as the Greater London Enterprise by a number of London Borough Councils to help companies with funding. And today, they also have more than a finger or two in the business village pie as well. In the past, Karen has worked for banks and independent lenders and has provided funding ranging from 8, 000 to purchase a second-hand car to a multi-million pound deal. Which you'll hear about shortly. Here's Karen's story. I work at Newable Commerce and currently head up the credit and risk team. Newable Commerce was created 40-odd years ago by the London Borough Councils um, designed to service the SME market because they were underserved in many areas. So Newell has effectively three divisions, uh, workspace, advice, and lending, and it was designed to take in a One man band who needed an office for the day or a desk or a meeting room, give them advice on how to break into new markets, uh, how to achieve new customers, and then how to fund his work and capital. And we do exactly the same thing today from the little One man band through to businesses that turn over 10 to 20 million pounds. Could you help out a little Podcasting business in Barnsley? Quite possibly, we could help out a little Podcasting business in Barnsley. This One, we do have One caveat. So Nouveau Commerce is One of the divisions in Lending. We've been set up to help export in SMEs. Um, it's a part of the market we feel is very much underserved. In our advice division, we've had the International Trade Advisors in there. So we've got some experienced people behind the scenes that can help and direct, as well as things like DBT and UK Export Finance. Um, they're saying from our side, we look at finding different ways to find the right solution depending on what size of the exporting business is and what they're trying to achieve. So we've got some existing exporters and we've got some who are new to exporting. When I was reading the web page and the stuff that you sent through to me, it's straight out with the top of my head. How did you start in this business and why? Oh, goodness me. So I came through a traditional banking route many, many years ago, um, because I wanted to work in the small to mid market section. Didn't want to go into corporate banking where the big boys are because quite frankly, they're, they're really easy decisions to make. The difference is that we help the SMEs. Um, as I knew, but we're set up to help the SMEs, which really attracted me, um, into the job. Um, we've gOne from the last three years to no lending to offering under the recovery loan scheme and launching the growth guarantee screen, which is now replaced the recovery loan scheme. And we obtained our accreditation on UK export finance scheme. I'm very proud of that actually, because it took us two and a half years and we're the only non bank lender on the scheme. And the whole point is we are the Ones that's there to try and support the SMEs. Um, One of my favorites. Well, it's not my favorite, but it's One of my favorite to remind people of how desperate the need is for the SMEs is that SMEs in this country export compared to 44 percent in Germany. You know, we're supposed to be a nation of small businesses and the small businesses today become the medium sized businesses tomorrow and the big businesses thereafter. And I genuinely feel that they're not helped sufficiently by people with the expertise and knowledge, the ability to signpost and network people, or just understand what challenges they face. So this is why I came into it. And I absolutely love it. We've got 200 clients on our books in two years time. Um, we are the biggest lender by number of clients on the UK expertise. What finance scheme, which I say I'm very proud of because we can see we make a difference. We don't just provide funding which is used in day to day working capital. We've provided funding that's being used for recruitment for expansion for developing new products, a lot of green technology. So we really make a difference. I love it. What's the marketplace like for non bank lenders? Is it a particularly big market or? It's huge. So currently, as I said, we have 200 clients in our box in two years time, and we have huge growth ambitions. We've carried out research that we believe there's currently about 300, 000 SMEs in the UK that could actually be supported through our range of cash flow solutions. Can I just stop you there? If you even What did...
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    19 分
  • The Business Village People S2 E6. "You're a cross between Gary Barlow & Jason Manford!"

    The Business Village People S2 E6. "You're a cross between Gary Barlow & Jason Manford!"
    2024/10/03
    This is a Pod One production. For more information visit pod one.co.uk This is the Business Village People Podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell. Welcome to the Business Village People Podcast. This is episode six of series two. In this podcast, we showcase stories from the companies, service providers and staff at the Business Village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Well, if you're ready, let's go! In this episode of Business Village People Two people who started working for themselves totally by accident. We meet a young chap who was set up as an estate agent, but not any old agent. Barnsley's first. Disclaimer. We think, but we could be wrong, there may be others. Your house is at risk if you keep the back door open. Disclaimer. Barnsley's first, possibly, personal estate agent. He reckons it's the future. I'll be asking him why. Also, we meet the motivational educationalist, teacher, author and humourist, who at times looks and sounds like a cross between Gary Barlow and and Jason Manford. His business, Create, Learn and Inspire, is based here at the Business Village. Time to meet our first guest. Owen Beasley has recently begun working for himself as a personal estate agent. Here's his story. You've got a lot of people out there, a lot of estate agents out there, that are more corporate and work on volume if I'm honest. And I think it's time now when the market is changing for estate agents, where there is that personal touch, that personal branding, where they're not working on volume and the work on your property and get it sold, because each property is different. Some will sell quickly, just because of what everything is and the price tag. Some will sell slowly if they're more expensive. And he needs a personal touch to make sure it all gets sold, because nearly 50% of properties that go on the market don't sell. And I want to put the time in to each property and get them all sold, rather than it being a flipper coin kind of thing. And that's what I bring to suppose the Barnes and Mac is. So what do you mean by personal estate agent, say how are you different? I'll take them from A to Z, so value the house, get it sold, go for all the legal process. Anyone rings me up, they've got my mobile number from 9am, 8pm, up until 9pm at night, they don't have to ring an office and be passed around the office as such, which you get a lot in the corporate side. And that's the personal touch I'll do with everything, basically, and that's that. So how did you get into estate agents, you can say? By accident, to be fair, I wanted to get into property and I was more interested in building a portfolio for the back of it for retirement. And I joined B-craft estates in One Will, and it's spelled from there, I covered the media side of it, enjoyed it. I always knew I wanted to score myself. So what you said you wanted to get into property, did you mean owning the property rather than just getting into estate agents, say, straight away? Yeah, I wanted to get into flipping properties and... What's that mean? So buy one, renovate it and sell it on for a profit, essentially. I just loved it, I saw the people doing it, I wanted to get into it, and I started off getting into estate agents, getting into an estate agent role, and I enjoyed it. And I felt, you know, there's potential for me to do this as well. Yeah. So yeah, that's how I kind of go into it, I kind of fell into it accidentally, I suppose. So what's the market like at the moment in Barnsley and South Yorkshire? There's a lot on the market, a lot more than other years, to be fair, there's a lot of choice, and I think that's two things. Buyers have too much choice, so sometimes property can sell slowly, but also on the other end, you've got interest rates that are not the lowest. I mean, theoretically, historically, it's not actually the eye. But at the same time, it stops people buying, but that's why a lot of people are selling, so you've got a lot of sellers, not as many buyers, but stuff is still moving, and, you know, the base rates dropped. That's brought more buyers to the market, and it'll continue to drop up by the end of this year. It's at roughly 4%. But it is moving, and there's a lot on the market, to be fair. And although, if you look at the property prices and you look at statistics and whatnot, across barns, stuff is still rising. People say, you know, prices aren't at the 2022 eye, but actually, it's not the prices, it's the timing. In 2022, you could sell an house in a day, in an hour, whereas it takes a little bit longer now, but you'll still get more than you would in 2022, because it's jumped about 4.5 cents instead. So it's still growing, and barns is actually one of the strongest markets across the country. Some people, some areas have dropped 8%, some have gone up 8%, in oil, and in the last 12 months, it's gone up 8%. It's crazy. I think that is. I think there's a lot going on in barns, so it's had a £200m investment into the town centre...
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    29 分
  • The Business Village People "My business started by accident".

    The Business Village People "My business started by accident".
    2024/09/05
    This is a Pod One production. For more information, visit podone. co. uk. This is the Business Village People podcast. Hello, I'm Davey Markwell, and welcome to the Business Village People podcast. This is episode five of series two. On this podcast, we showcase stories from the companies, service providers, and staff at the Business Village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Well, if you're ready, let's go. In this episode of Business Village People For some business, compliance requirements can be easily overlooked or forgotten due to the fact that the people are too busy actually doing the job. We meet a chap who accidentally created a website that helps hauliers stay legal. Also, a man who admits his management style is not to everyone's taste. So much so that his office is not even in the same building as his employees. Lee Pritchard took the plunge and set up his own business just as the first COVID lockdown began. In four years since, Lee has established an award winning company providing transport compliance to the haulage industry. Here's Lee's story. An interactive website, so it provides um, Features such as compliance guidance, there's industry news, um, there's networking opportunities, um, for various things. It keeps, uh, operators compliant with regulations, uh, connected with the industry. And we're developing it all the time, um, so it's one of those where we've just added, um, other features to it, which includes fleet management. Um, so, operators can send me their, um, service records, um, we upload that onto a fleet management system, so we can keep a close eye on them, make sure that they're, you know, they're, they're keeping legal and compliant. So it's, um, it's very interactive, um, but it is brand new. Um, we're, we're very sort of in its infancy, if you like. So we're adding new features, we'll, we'll keep on growing, and hopefully it'll, um, it'll provide a good platform for, for many operators in the future. So where did the platform come from? Did you create it or is it part of a franchise or? Yeah, it literally is. We, I created it, um, by mistake to be honest, and I will be honest. So originally it was a conversation with a website developer. Um, and I literally asked, um, could we upgrade in, you know, update our website? And we had a good chat for about two hours, which wasn't, you know, scheduled. And all of a sudden, we come up with this platform where it was like, Okay, we'll not So we do our current website, we'll create a new website. So we do have two websites. Um, one predominantly sort of telling everybody as a consultancy what we do. But then we have the Hawleyers Hub, which is obviously the interactive website. Um, so yeah, it was created by a mistake, but, but I love it and, and what it stands for. And, you know, we've got some good guys on there at the minute that are really seeing the benefits of it. Um, so, so yeah, that's, that's where it is. Well, it was a big mistake, but not a big mistake, if you know what I mean. Mistakes can turn out good, can't they? You know, you learn from them. Yeah, we love it. I mean, I do. And, you know, like I say, it's getting updated every day and we keep on top of it. Um, but I've had a meeting this morning and, you know. You know, a client's coming this morning. He just said, I'm loving it. You know, he's interacting with it because many operators, you see, and what we're finding is, is they're not transport people, so they struggle with a compliance side of things. And some of them are, you know, so run an operator license where they don't need a transport manager. So this kind of platform creates that kind of interaction where they can go onto it, find out what they need and they can book a call with myself as well. So it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's really good. I'm passionate about it. I love it. And, you know, especially when you see it helping people, that's, that's, that's what we're trying to achieve. Where did it all begin? What did you want to be at school? When I left school, um, I PE teacher. So that worked out really well, didn't it? You know what I mean? Um, yeah, I was always into sport when I was growing up. Um, bit of background in rugby league as well. Um, but yeah, I always wanted to do that. But kind of fell into this as you do. Um, you know, you find your way. Um, I mean, four years ago, I was a transport manager at a company. Um, but always sort of had the inkling of, What would it be like going on my own? Could I, could I do this? You know, um, You know, I had doubts, don't get me wrong, but been thinking about it for a while. And lo and behold, um, You know, I don't know what come over me, but decided to do it when COVID hit. Which I'm thinking, what on earth are you doing? And people did question it. Um, but four years later, here we are and I'm loving it. Yeah, I really do. Um, the variety is what we're after. You know, being on your own, you get into different things, you're ...
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    22 分
  • The Business Village People Podcast S2 E4 "I was a rebel at school, especially with my socks".

    The Business Village People Podcast S2 E4 "I was a rebel at school, especially with my socks".
    2024/08/01
    This is a Pod One production. For more information, visit podone. co. uk This is the Business Village People podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell and welcome to the Business Village People podcast. This is episode four of series two. This podcast showcases stories from the companies, service providers, and staff at the business village, in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Well, if you're ready, let's go! In this episode of Business Village People, we meet a woman who was more impressed with her education from a local college than the one she received from a tuition-paying university. According to the United Nations, the top five emitters of greenhouse gases are China, the USA, India, the European Union, and the Russian Federation. That accounts for about 60 percent of the emissions in 2021. We'll be discovering what help is available to you to reduce your carbon emissions in your workplace, with a little bit of help from the business village. Also, we meet the brand new members executive for the Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber of Commerce. It's time to meet our first guest. Laura Fish owns Fashion Toolbox, a company that is bridging the gap between traditional education and modernity and the ever-evolving world of fashion design. Fashion Toolbox is a little bit of a long story because it didn't start out as what it is today. It started out as an idea as part of my master’s, and I was working in the fashion industry for a very, very long time. I think it was around 15 years. And when I got into the industry from university, I realized that there was a little bit of a skills gap, shall we say, and that I wasn't really prepared for everything that I needed to know within the industry. I've got to do a lot of learning on the job. When you say that, what do you mean? Because you've, you've just did a master's degree. Is that right? I did my BA first. Right. Okay. You've done your BA first. You've come out. ready to be working in the fashion industry, but you felt as though you were lacking certain skills. Yeah, I would say more like the technical skills. I did learn a lot. I learned a lot about fashion design and pattern cutting. But then when you're in the industry, industry. There's so many different roles that I felt like I wasn't even informed about, to be honest. And how did that make you feel? Because you've just spent three years and got probably into a lot of debt to come out and not be able to do the job you wanted to do. Yeah, I'm quite frustrated. I mean, I was, I did get into the job that I wanted to do, but I felt like there was a lot of learning on the job to do and a lot of upskilling, which was quite frustrating. Yes, obviously, after spending all that money, then it was a little bit of, I did courses here and there in my own time to learn, particularly in like digital skills, Adobe Illustrator is massively required within the industry. And I just didn't, I wasn't taught it. So I think I had one lesson while I was in university. So I taught myself, um, pretty much. And then, yeah, when I asked others, they felt pretty much the same way. They didn't have the skills. So when I worked in the industry for quite a few years, as I said, and then this became a real like passion project thinking there's all these people that haven't got the skills that we need to join forces and upskill. So when I went back to do my masters. I decided to focus particularly in fashion education and did a heck of a lot of research into the history of education, how it's evolved over time or not evolved. And I guess this is, um, I'm generalizing in a way because I looked majorly at the UK and the fashion education system here, but there are, um, other areas that Doing a lot more to support students and bring more innovation and digital skills on board, but within the UK I found that it was quite lacking and to be honest at that time so I built Fashion Toolbox, which was Originally, it was a podcast So I interviewed people. I'll have no more of that then, quite frankly. Yeah, so I interviewed people from the industry in various roles. Roles that hadn't really been discussed at university. I basically asked them what their role involved and tried to educate people from that side of things. And I wanted Fashion Toolbox to be a platform where people could come and learn and upskill. Okay, right. Let's just shut the back door a moment. Why fashion? Oh. And what were you like at school? I was a rebel at school. Were you? Yeah, I was, I was a rebel. I, um, got in trouble a lot. In what way? I think I probably got in trouble a lot for, uh, My appearance, more than anything, I think that's where the whole fashion thing comes from. How, how, how did you used to go to school looking like? Was it like Charlie Carolli or, or a punk or a rebel? Yeah, a rebel, I would say. Like, I, I, Emo? Wearing way too much makeup. Always dyeing my hair, which was not really allowed...
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    31 分
  • The Business Village People Podcast S2 E3 "Who is Fozzie Bear?"

    The Business Village People Podcast S2 E3 "Who is Fozzie Bear?"
    2024/06/28
    This is a Pod One production. For more information, visit podone. co. uk. This is the Business Village People podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell and welcome to the Business Village People podcast. This is episode three of series two. Here we showcase unique stories from the companies, service providers and staff at the Business Village in Balsey, South Yorkshire. Well, if you're ready, let's go! In this episode of Business Village People, we meet the mum who was so unimpressed with the quality of face painting her daughter received that she decided to wipe the wonky smile Off her face and do it herself. 14 years later, she's turned face, body and bump painting into a thriving business. We'll hear her story shortly. Working alone can be very isolating. That's one of the reasons the business village began its monthly creative collective. A place to share ideas, listen to guests and chat, and we'll get the full story of what happens at a Creative Collective session a little bit later on. Donna Godfrey's business started with a Well, if they can do it, I'm sure I could moment and has since become a thriving venture. A company has achieved so much success that she's even been invited to the United States to train people in the art of face painting. Here's Donna's story. I used to work in finance, so I was doing payroll for, oh my gosh, years. I just fell into it. But what I'd found was like, I would go into work on a Friday and then I'd be like bouncing around the office going, Yay, the weekend's here. And they were all like, Donna, it's month end, get serious. Do you know what I mean? I was like, I just don't feel like this is my place and I'm not kind of fitting in. Um, and then my daughter at the time just was into face painting. So we just queued up everywhere for it. And I thought, how hard is this? And bought a little cheap set and then. It's gone from there. Did she get a really dodgy face painting dump ones? Um, I think it, it varies where you go. Some places should have an hour. Well, I, I can do better than that. And we hear a lot of these stories with the students that come on my course as well and they get the same thing. They go somewhere and it's a bit naff and they go, how hard is this? I'm gonna give it a go. But then there is some people out there that's absolutely phenomenal. And like beautiful kind of artwork, so there's a huge variation in what you can kind of get. So what did you want to do when you were at school? When I was, when I was like primary school, I wanted to work at ASDA. That was like the huge aim. For some reason, I don't know why, but watching people kind of scanning, I was like, this is, We're going back some time. So like till then we're like high tech. Um, but in high school there was a period of wanting to be a fashion designer, which I never even went into. Um, and I don't, um, thank God I did. Cause I have no idea about fashion now. So, um, I didn't really kind of have anything specific. Um, I just, I did a lot of retail when I left school. I've worked ever since leaving school though, always worked. Um, so I did a lot of retail, worked at some car garages on receptions. Um, I've even worked in an egg factory. It was like one of my first ever jobs. So I've always worked. Go on then, what were you doing there? So it was a very thrilling job. Um, it was weekends and school holidays that I'd do it and I literally had to stand in this like booth with a curtain behind me and then eggs would come over the factory kind of belt and they would go there would be a light underneath and my job was literally to look for cracked eggs and you would pull them out and put them on the shelf if any were cracked and that was all day just doing that. Hated it. But I wanted money. That's all I was bothered about was the money. Your daughter had come back looking like Charlie Carolli, having her face done. And you thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this meself. What did you do next? So I bought a little, um, Snazaroo set, which everyone can kind of get hold of from What? Sorry? Snazaroo. Bless you. You can get them from like, Amazon, um, eBay, uh, some like, the range sells them. It's like the, the main at home kind of face paint that's safe to use. So I'd bought a little set like that. And I'd painted my daughter at home and I painted her as a tiger and it wasn't actually half bad. It was, it wasn't, it wasn't the best, but it wasn't half bad. But it was more the enjoyment of it. It was, I thoroughly enjoyed painting her and her reaction, Kind of after being done, just, it gives me goosebumps now just talking about it. That's the main part of our job that I love the most, is the kids reactions and even adults reactions. And it was just, it was, I just loved it. So I thought I'm just going to carry on playing. I went online and then you find there's a massive world of face and body painting that you You know, you wouldn't know unless you were in the industry. So ...
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    30 分
  • The Business Village People Podcast S2 E2, "The Old Chuffer, Inspired An International Style Guru".

    The Business Village People Podcast S2 E2, "The Old Chuffer, Inspired An International Style Guru".
    2024/05/27
     This is a Pod One production. For more information, visit podone. co. uk. This is the Business Village People podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell, and welcome to the Business Village People podcast. This is episode two of series two. Here, we showcase unique stories from the vibrant companies and service providers of the village. Based at the business village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Well, if you're ready. In this episode of Business Village People, we meet a clothes designer who would not be doing what she does now if it wasn't for an old chuffer puffing about at a railway station. Plus, we chat to the Business Village's new chief executive, Martin Beasley. He was all set to join the RAF and possibly fly helicopters. But that dream ended when they found out he was from Rotherham. Hello? David? What? It was just a joke, Kevin. Yeah, I know. Okay. Okay. Bye. I've been advised to point out that the last bit is untrue. He wasn't allowed to play with the choppers due to a sports related injury. I just thought my reason was funnier. Time to meet one of the newest clients to join the many companies at the business village in Barnsley. In saying that, she's run her own designer clothing business in Barnsley since the late 1960s. Since then, Rita Britton has become renowned around the world as a straight talking business guru. A few years ago, she retired, but now she's back. I asked her why. I think it lasted, well, probably a month, but I was seriously thinking after about four days this is, this is a big mistake. I think me and my other half. Or I probably would have killed him for not moving his breakfast pots off the table and putting them in the sink. So yeah, I thought, get back to it. Worked since I was 15. You know, you can't turn it off like a tap. And the other thing that you can't turn off, talking of taps, is creativity. You can't, you know, you've only got to look, I was listening the other day to the playwright. It looks like David, David Hockney. What's his name now? Alan Bennett. That's it. And he was in Westminster Abbey. And, you know, he must be eight, what, eight, five, eight, six years old. And he, it's the same there, isn't it? Can't just turn it off. It's still there, it's still interested in who those people were in those graves and what their lifestyle was like. And it brings it to life for you. You know, you just think this is wonderful. And David Hockney, you know, I think in Yorkshire we're an incredibly creative people. I really do think, maybe it's to do with adversity, I don't know. But, um, When I used to work at the paper mill, which I did from being, what, 15, 16. And the girls there were incredibly creative. We used to go to jazz festivals at City Hall in Sheffield and, you know, it was just wonderful. So yeah, it were, it were great. I think creativity is knocked out of people as they get older. by organizations and businesses and things like that and they're frightened to actually have a go at making something or creating something or drawing or coming up with a creative idea. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I have come across that. But then on the other hand, um, I was working with a young student from Barnsley, but she's now working in London at Westminster College doing fashion. She came to see me in the shop and she wrote, a mother with her and she brought her work with her and then she, I looked at her work and I thought, you know, this is good. This is really good. And she wanted to work with one of the London designers, a designer called Simon Rocher. And one of my guys who used to work with me as an assistant buyer. Oh gosh, I could go on and on and on and on, couldn't I? He was from Glasgow, right? And he was a real Glaswegian, red hair, fiery temper, the old lot. He is now one of the most successful men in New York, James Gilchrist. He works for He's virtually second in command to, there's a source called Dover Street Market, I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but they are the most avant garde stores on the planet. And he works for them. So I sent her his work and he said, yeah, what, what, what she want to do? I said, she wants to go and do a placement with Simone Russia. Two days later, she got the placement. And I did it with a jewellery design and then I thought the jewellery was gobsmacking. I mean, no one could have sold it here. It was like, uh, It's at about 10, 15 grand. And I sent it to James and said, what do you think of this? It's now in the New York store. So I'm still, what I find is that the people that I trained, and what he said to the jeweler who went to the store to place their jewelry in, he said, if Ree says, listen, or look at it, that's exactly what I do. And I thought that was great because he's so loyal that if I say, look at this. So I do work with young people and people that I've worked with in the past, buyers. Um, I mean, lovely stories I have to tell. The first buying job he ...
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    38 分