Bluebird Care North Tyneside Wins another Award - North East Enterprise Awards 2015.

Ixion North East Enterprise Awards 2015 winners announced

Ixion North East Enterprise Awards 2015 winners announced

A community theatre company and a care franchise are amongst the winners of the inaugural Ixion North East Enterprise Awards 2015 on Thursday 12 February, which celebrate the success of individuals who have started businesses with the support of Ixion.
The awards ceremony was held at the Village Urban Resort Newcastle at Cobalt Business Park where 100 guests joined Linda Sian, Enterprise Director and Gary Kernaghan, Strategic Business Development Director of Ixion Holdings with special guest, His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, presenting the awards.

Winning the Community Impact award, Red Diamond is community interest theatre company offering performing arts to all members of the community regardless of age, ability or disability.  Alison and Tracy also work with participants with dementia providing a unique form of memory recall & sensory theatre that promotes memories through the use of music, costumes & olfactory mediums. Alison said “we are so excited and proud of our award! It is fantastic and reassuring to know we are doing something right. Thank you for all the support we have received, it’s been invaluable. Our award has given us the push to pursue our goals”

             

The Challenger Award was to recognise the difficulties faced by individuals starting a business, and many nominees shared their personal hurdles climbed with us.  The winner was Jon Mentell who started Your Computer Centre in North Shields after seeing 2 previous businesses collapse due to franchisor failure and then his son being born with disabilities. Jon said “I am ecstatic at winning this award. It is only at times like this that you reflect on the journey we have been on and realise what we have achieved so far despite all the sleepless nights and worry.”

The Innovation award went to SoundDampedSteel.com, owned by Les Thompson who had his Eureka moment years ago but didn’t have the full support and capital needed to market and sell his laminated steel sheet products.  In 2013 he found himself with a small redundancy package and a pension encashment and decided to go for it himself.  He invested in machinery and a website and is now selling his products online.  On winning the award, Les said “thank you Ixion for your help & support. I am delighted to have received the prestigious innovation award, it will certainly help the growth of my business.”

Garry Dawson’s business CD Heritage Ltd won the Outstanding Product category.  The business works with the UK's cultural and heritage retail sectors, creating original artwork or accepting high resolution images from clients and then translating these across a wide range of retail products which are outsourced to selected British manufacturers so that retail gift products are Made in UK.  Garry was delighted to win this award and said “winning the Outstanding Product Award category, for me, is the 'pat on the back' from Ixion and the Business Factory advisors for all the hard work and effort in taking an idea and making it a commercially successful reality.”

The final client award was for the very popular Outstanding Service award, the winner being Bluebird Care North Tyneside, started in 2013 by Julie McLellan.  Providing domiciliary care offering high quality care to adults in their own homes, they offer a wide selection of services which are totally bespoke from shopping and domestic calls to end of life care. They employ over 30 local people in both office based roles and care worker roles.  Julie said “Bluebird Care North T‎yneside are thrilled to have won the award for outstanding service as we pride ourselves on quality for our customers. Thank you to the Ixion team at the Business Factory for helping us on the way. ”

His Grace the Duke of Northumberland added “Small businesses play a key role in the economy of our region and Ixion provide vital support, helping many of them to start up, survive and thrive.  The awards demonstrated the high standard and variety of the businesses concerned and I was delighted to be part of the occasion”

John Govett, Chief Executive of Ixion Holdings, commented: “We recognised some outstanding small businesses all brought to fruition with the help and support of Ixion business advisers in the north east. The standard of entries across the different award categories was extremely high, demonstrating drive and dedication and acting as a shining example for all those people out there considering right now whether they have what it takes to start their own business.”

Runners up were Whitley Bay Skate Club, The Chocolate Smiths, Green Frog Developments, Happy Planet Creative Arts and Dream Pop Bakery.  Special awards were given to North Tyneside Council Adult Learning Alliance and Dave Stewart of Avanta, whose support has helped Ixion achieve its success in the region and North Tyneside in particular.