Colbea’s Greatest Highlights of 2019
2019 has been another greatly successful year for Colbea! Here we will highlight our 5 favourite successes and moments of the year.
1. Winner of NEN Award 2019
Winning the National Enterprise Awards for a second year in a row, this time for the award of Enterprise Support Organisation of the year (turnover under 750k). This was by far one of our most treasurable moments.
Chief Executive Ashleigh Seymour-Rutherford said –
“This award is a fantastic acknowledgement of Colbea and all of our hard work in developing and implementing our innovative new strategy, and also of Colchester and the wider Essex area delivering on its outstanding business potential.”
2. Expansion of Business Advice in Essex
For over 35 years we have provided business advice sessions led by our expert advisors to the people of Colchester and surrounding areas. This year has been really exciting for us as for the very first time we have been able to expand our business advice sessions. They are now being held on a regular basis in Chelmsford as part of our new campaign ‘Connect with Colbea’ in partnership with Chelmsford District Council. We have also taken a similar approach and partnered with Rochford District Council to deliver these sessions in Rayleigh enabling the people of Essex to access to much-needed, invaluable business support.
3. Celebrating Success at AGP
Of course, our Annual General Party of 2019 has to be one of our most memorable and exciting evenings of the year. Joined by our sponsors, tenants, clients and even the Mayor and Mayoress of Colchester we celebrated the ongoing success of Colbea. At the event, we heard a heart-warming, inspirational speech from Helen Armstrong (managing director of www.silvercloudhr.co.uk) who was supported by Colbea during the expansion of her greatly successful business.
“Colbea truly was the reason that Silver Cloud got started. We are very lucky to have such a great resource on our doorstep in Colchester, and one which will go on to help many more business owners and entrepreneurs like me. There is a lot to be celebrated.”
4. Providing Support for Hundreds of People
To date since April 2019 alone, Colbea has helped over 600 businesses through business advice and training with the number of people benefiting from our services continuing to grow each month. We have been able to deliver our IM4S 2 Course in 2019 and are excited to hold another upcoming course in the new year, providing a platform for even more Essex women to explore the possibility of starting their own business. We are extremely proud that we see a start-up rate of approximately 60% for businesses that we come in to contact with, which is around 45% greater than the national average (according ONS statistics).
5. Expanding the Colbea Community
In 2019, we have been very lucky to welcome new sponsors and board members to our community. This year we have been privileged to appoint Kate Everett (Managing Partner of marketing agency TWI) and Jo Clifton (Director of human resources consultancy Heptagon HR) to our Board of Directors. We have also welcomed The Write Impression (twi.agency), Chancery West Law Solicitors (chancerywestlaw.com), Continuum (mycontinuum.co.uk)and Fisher Jones Greenwood (fjg.co.uk) as our valued sponsors.
Visit www.colbea.co.uk to see what services we can offer you this new year.
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Colbea CENTRAL Colchester
1 George Williams Way
Colchester
Essex
CO1 2JS
Call: 01206 548 833
Email: enquiries@colbea.co.uk
Hours: 8:30AM – 5:30PM Mon-Fri
Colbea NORTH Colchester
340 The Crescent
Colchester
Essex
CO4 9AD
Call: 01206 848 420
Email: enquiries@colbea.co.uk
Hours: 8:30AM – 5:30PM Mon-Fri