Welcome to Birmingham Event – roaring success!

Wednesday October 7th saw the third annual Welcome to Birmingham event, hosted by Future’s Talent Retention and Development Committee at the Council House. Now a firm fixture in the Birmingham Future calendar, the event was once again a roaring success and welcomed almost 250 guests and sponsors including Locate, Marketing Birmingham, Generation BEST, The National Skills Academy, FleetMilne Residential and Crest Nicholson, in addition to several significant charities.
Guest speaker was Paul Thandi, Chief Executive of The NEC Group and number 1 in The Birmingham Post’s Power 50 2009, who extolled the virtues of the city as a venue to both start and progress a successful career and urged Birmingham’s newest recruits to do all in their power to “make the city different”, pointing out that we have at our disposal all of the

resources to drive Birmingham forward as one of the most exciting cities in the world.

Anthony McCourt, Chair of the Talent Retention and Development Committee commented: “The Welcome to Birmingham Event 2009 was deemed a huge success by all in attendance and once again provided a great forum for our new graduate talent to meet and start building new relationships. Birmingham is the only UK city to extend a civic welcome to its graduate intake, and bearing in mind we’re in the middle of a recession, the turn out was simply fantastic.”

BYPY WINNER CHALLENGES BIRMINGHAM’S NEW RECRUITS TO SLEEP ON THE STREETS

Suzie Branch, 2009 BYPY Winner, has challenged Birmingham’s new recruits to sleep out for a night to help raise money for the West Midlands homeless charity St Basils.
At the annual Birmingham Future “Welcome to Birmingham” event, Suzie urged the audience of new graduate employees and trainees to get involved with the city by supporting local charities.
She highlighted the forthcoming St Basils Corporate Sleep Out as a great opportunity to start getting to know more about Birmingham and the wider community.
“This is the second year that the team at BHMG Marketing and I will be taking place in the St Basils Corporate Sleep Out,” she said.
“I remember last year’s event so well – the dawning realisation a couple of days beforehand of what we had signed up for, quickly followed by a rising fear of whether we would actually be able to complete the challenge of sleeping outside with nothing more than a cardboard box,
“It underlined just how tough life is on the streets but it also proved to be a very positive experience for everyone in the team, so positive that they have committed to do it again.”
The St Basils Corporate Sleep Out is an annual fundraising event when Birmingham’s business community are encouraged to work together for one night to raise sponsorship for the charity by sleeping out.
“The entry fee is just £30. Thirty pounds allows each young person arriving at St Basils to work with a professional key-worker to assess their needs and create an action plan – in short it helps them plan their future, which is why I am encouraging our future business community to be sign up and get involved,” said Suzie.
This year’s event is being held on Friday 13th November on the St Basils car park in Digbeth and further information can be found on www. www.stbasils.org.uk. To register for this event please contact the SleepOut Team at fundraising@stbasils.org.uk

BYPY is going digital

Birmingham Young Professional of the Year (BYPY), Future’s flagship awards ceremony, is embracing social media this year with its first Twitter account.
The BYPY committee is hoping that Birmingham’s professional community will use Twitter to share views on the event and put forward suggestions and ideas for 2010’s 10th anniversary bash.
The event will take place on 27th May in the ICC’s largest hall. Last year more than 650 people attended the lavish dinner and awards ceremony and the committee is hoping that BYPY 2010 will prove even more popular.
Darren Walker, committee chairman, said he was hoping social media would play a big part in helping to shape next year’s event.
“Twitter could be a great way for people to have their say and let us know their opinions on what they would like to see at next year’s BYPY.
“We want people to contribute ideas as well as sharing their thoughts on our existing plans.
“For example, one great debate we would like to open up is whether we should have a band or a DJ or both.”

If you would like to keep up to date with the latest BYPY news and share your thoughts on the event then you can follow it on Twitter by going to www.twitter.com/BYPY
For information about tickets please contact Isabel Drabble in the Birmingham Future office on 0121 632 2204 or via email isabel@birminghamforward.co.uk.

Out and About with Lise-Ann – The Orange Tree, Chadwick End

The Orange Tree
Warwick Road
Chadwick End
Warwickshire
B93 0BN
With Autumn well and truly here it’s out with barbeques and alfresco dining and in with log fires and good hearty food, which was exactly what we found last weekend at the Orange Tree.

When we arrived at 6:30pm the bar was already buzzing with the post-office crowd welcoming in the weekend. We ordered a couple of drinks and managed to find a free couch by the open fire to settle into. After a while our hunger got the better of us but having not booked we were regretfully informed there were no tables available in the restaurant, however we could still order food and eat where we were which we decided to do.

If you have visited any of the other five venues in the ‘Lovely Pubs’ collection, including The Boot in Lapworth and The Crabmill at Preston Bagot you will be familiar with the menu which features a selection of sharing plates and starters, followed by salads available in either small or large portions. The mains are divided into sections starting with a range of ‘fired pizzas’ which when read quickly is easily mistaken for fried pizza! There then follows a selection of pasta, grill, and stove dishes to chose from and finally four rotisserie options including piri piri and lemon and tarragon.

We decided to go for a selection of dishes to share which included a sharing plate of rustic breads with roast garlic and extra virgin olive oil, crostini with deviled chicken livers, fresh mint and chili from the appetisers, a pizza pollo pesto with tomato, chicken and pesto and a side order of fries. The food arrived and we proceeded to tuck in attempting to retain some form of table manners despite essentially having to eat on our laps!!

The deviled chicken livers were delicious, perfectly cooked they melted in your mouth and packed a fair punch of flavour. Pizzas in pubs are in my experience a rather hit and miss affair but I can happily report a definite hit this time, with plenty of chicken and a generous scattering of mozzarella it was crispy and delicious and all gone in next to no time! The rustic bread was a little greasy for my liking but the chips were good and fluffy.

We did manage to leave room for dessert and opted for the daily special, a warm brownie with vanilla ice cream. Now with brownies being one of my favourite cakes to bake this dessert had a lot to live up to and unfortunately it didn’t quite make the grade, we both agreed it was more of a chocolate cake than a brownie but still tasty enough in its own right.

Overall the Orange Tree continues to deliver a reliable and friendly atmosphere with well cooked food freshly prepared according to the season. Worth braving the chilly autumnal wind for!

Alternatives:

The Saxon Mill
Coventry Road, Guys Cliffe, Warwick CV34 5YN

Twenty-Three Essex Street
23 Essex Street, Birmingham, B5 4TR

Oxjam Brum 2009 – Get Involved

Do you have a passion for music?  Did you dream of making it as a rock star / concert pianist / celebrity DJ before the need to pay the mortgage and take a sensible job took over?

Then OxjamBrum, in aid of Oxfam’s ‘Here and Now’ climate change campaign, is for you.

Whatever you’re into – from club nights to classical, folk to funk – OxjamBrum is your chance to fight poverty with music and show your colleagues there’s more to your talents than simply getting to your desk on time and solving that spreadsheet conundrum.

Events will be taking place around the city throughout October but we need YOU to take part to make it a success. So why not pick up your guitar, dust down the DJ equipment or get that band back together and have some fun raising money for a fabulous cause?

If you’re interested in re-living the dream and performing at an event, please email elizabeth@encore-communications.co.uk for further information.

Alternatively, why not find out more about events taking place across the city, including the flagship ‘takeover’ event on Saturday 24^th October (featuring 40 bands and 15 DJs!) at www.oxjambrum.org.uk or www.myspace.com/oxjambrum2009.