It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

A quartet from Southwell Minster Chorale performed a trio of carols. During their excellent performance, Newark Business Club’s committee handed out Christmas presents in stylish blue #ShopNewark tote bags.

Family Fortunes

December’s meeting was sponsored by Beaumond House Hospice. Matthew Colbourne, Head of Fundraising and Communications, kicked off with a fun round of Family Fortunes, featuring the top answers to a survey of 100 people who were asked the question, ‘What does Beaumond House do?’ Attendees gave many good answers, but some were surprisingly not among the top survey responses, which were: end-of-life care, fundraising, care for people at home, bereavement care, and helping people live well.

Louise Sinclair, the Chief Executive of Beaumond House, busted some myths. These included the myth that Beaumond House is a sad place. This is definitely not true – people make the most of every day there.

An emotional video showed how isolated and lonely people can feel after a devastating diagnosis of a life-limiting illness, and how Beaumond House makes life less sad and lonely with practical, emotional or spiritual support. Around one quarter of Beaumond House’s patients live alone, so the care and support that Beaumond House gives them is invaluable, especially at times like Christmas. Beaumond House staff go the extra mile to listen, care and help patients and their families. Hence, the theme of their new ‘Be Bright Blue’ campaign against loneliness, which aims to remind all of us that we can lift someone’s blue day.

You can support Beaumond House’s ‘Be Bright Blue’ campaign in a variety of ways, including attending events, such as the Beaumond House Winter Wonderland on 9^th December, and taking part in Christmas bag packing at Marks & Spencer. Further details can be found on Beaumond House’s website.

Beaumond House has launched its Big Give Christmas Challenge in which it aims to raise £12,500. Every donation of £1 will be matched by funding from a local business, so each donation will be worth double to Beaumond House. This fundraiser ends at noon on Tuesday 5^th December. Beaumond House receives just under one third of its funding from the government and needs to raise £1.2 million in additional funding each year, so all donations to support its valuable work in the community are most welcome.

After the coffee break came the Who Gives a Book?! section in which The Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett was Newark Business Club’s inspiring business book of the month, recommended by Mark Jarvis.

The winner of a copy of this book, drawn from the business card bowl, was Nicola Auckland of Nicola Auckland Brand Photography.

 Next up was Ben Poucher of Peachy Events, the patron guest speaker, who gave us an insider’s view of this multi-faceted events company, which manages the sound and lighting at each meeting of Newark Business Club. Peachy Events is a well-established business, set up in Lincoln in 2001. One of their clients described an event that the founders, Chris and Simon, had organised as ‘peachy,’ hence the company name!

Peachy Events organise both large and small-scale events, mainly in Lincolnshire. Their clients include the Lincolnshire Co-op, Rand Farm Park, and Springfields outlet centre in Spalding. Peachy Events carry out immersive experiences featuring sound and lighting, such as the Winter Wonderland Walk at Springfields, and they enjoy challenging projects such as providing the lighting for historic buildings like Lincoln Castle and Lincoln Cathedral.

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Moving Beyond Stress are a workplace wellbeing consultancy based in Newark on Trent providing businesses and organisations with accredited and effective stress management and resilience training for their staff teams.

With stress now the primary cause of staff absenteeism in the UK – our motto is “When people thrive, so does your business” –  and as such, we have a range of products and packages for employers to incorporate into their Wellbeing Charter to ensure their staff are getting the best training and support when it comes to effective stress management and wellbeing.

Our primary product is the CPD accredited ‘Moving Beyond Stress’ workshop. The half day workshop is an engaging and informative workshop that leads the field in providing delegates with the knowledge, insights, tools and techniques required to manage daily stress more effectively – the key modules to the workshop being:

– The biology and psychology of stress

– Methods and strategies of optimal stress management

– New ideas in how to improve wellbeing and avoid burnout

– Easy and effective relaxation techniques 

– Easy to learn exercises to release physical tension in the body

Other offerings include staff development and team building events, lunch time stress busters, one to one health coaching and comprehensive workplace wellbeing consultancy services.