Aspen Waite Spring 2022 Magazine

Aspen Waite Group News • Spring 2022

After the storm comes a rainbow

In this issue

Building a world class business I’m loving angels instead...

Tax breaks for investors in business startups Meeting my hero Graham Bradley Mindfulness: Healing and hope

Advise • Educate • Innovate

Life throws challenges and every challenge comes with rainbows and lights to conquer it

- Amit Ray

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CONTENTS

04 Welcome from Paul Waite 06 Building a world class business 12 Client service - How important is it really?

14 Advance notice on R&D claims from 2023 - are your clients ready?

16 The incoming cap on SME R&D tax relief claims 18 I’m loving angels instead... Tax breaks for investors in business startups 22 There may be no place like home, but there could be a tax charge 24 Revenue based lending and borrowing for your business 28 DATA - The new oil?

34 Can VAT be used as an environmental incentive?

36 The opportunities for businesses on the road to net zero 38 It’s all in the strategy 42 Spare capacity is potential income.

How much is going to waste in your business?

44 Meeting my hero Graham Bradley 48 Hey Mr Redjam do you fancy presenting a radio show?

52 World Kidney Day 56 Mindfulness: Healing and hope 62 Frozen mindset? Challening your resilience through sport 68 Heritage Mint - Great British Birds 70 Grumpy Bear’s Cookery Corner

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PAUL WAITE - FCA FCCA - CHIEF EXECUTIVE ASPEN WAITE GROUP

Welcome to the Spring edition of our quarterly magazine.

We have a bumper edition with contributions from 14 individuals. If you are reading this and you would like to contribute an article, get in touch with me at Paul@aspen-waite.co.uk

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I am a great believer in creating impact and, in my opinion, all the artwork we produce is of the very highest quality. This is entirely down to our Creative Designer, Lara Honeybul, who is as good as there is.

It is important in business to stand out from your competitors. This can be done in numerous ways including strong branding, powerful marketing and innovative products/services.

This all requires investment and a sound plan. Lara is available at rates starting from £600 a day. Other than Aspen Waite, a great example of Lara’s genius is the artwork she has done for Heritage Mint. See the feature on page 62 What has happened to the world? Two years of Covid and all the hysteria and paranoia that went with that (and damage to people and business) and then, just as the world started to wake up, Mr Putin decides he wants to be the modern day Stalin and has invaded Ukraine.

One of the things I most hate about this war is having to listen to all the propaganda and misinformation put out by Putin, Lavrov et al.

It is gob smacking how many Russians believe what is said to be “special military operations” and they are “liberating the country run by drug addicts and Nazis”.

This conflict has profoundly upset me more than any other event of my lifetime.

Zelensky is an inspiration, a man of Churchillian qualities and total resolve. He and his wonderfully brave people are an inspiration to us all.

I am not a fan of Joe Biden or the Democrats generally when it comes to foreign policy but he said something recently that I really liked – “freedom comes at a price”.

The Western World has come together like never before and Boris has slightly redeemed himself in my eyes, although the jewel in the Cabinet is Liz Truss.

He dares to be different and I am proud of him. Another exciting initiative in the family is the launch of “Ink and Bloom Limited” which will trade out of premises in Bridgwater High Street.

This is a partnership of my daughter-in-law, Emily, and Harriet Popham. The effort they have put into planning the business is exemplary and Harriet is a force of nature.

In the next issue we will report on their progress.

I am proud that Putin hates us; we are the founders of democracy and we fear nobody.

Towards the end of last year we took on a new radio presenter, Chris Redjam, whose passion for life, music and alcohol knows no bounds.

Watching Zelensky address Parliament brought tears to my eyes.

We now have a full recording studio and are attracting a lot of new artists.

“Vladu Ukrayins Komu Nardu”

The next step is managing bands and setting up our own record label.

“Moye sertse z vamy” We have made great progress in 2022 with a number of businesses including Food, Radio and Environmental Consultancy.

We are launching Aspen Waite Wholesale and this service will be available free of charge to all Aspen Waite staff and affiliates. We have decided to brand as AWWCO. This is a rapidly moving project.

I also think that Aspen Waite Radio will become branded as AWR. We have started to amass a huge number of followers on TikTok in particular. I feel that Calum, alias Eldridge Oddbod/ Wizard Schleeb, is destined for greatness.

The highlight of the year to date has been meeting and then interviewing a long time idol of mine, top jockey Graham Bradley. My article on the experience is on page 38.

I think that the war in Ukraine reminds us that our own lives are not that important in the scheme of things. There really are things worth dying for or experiencing financial hardship.

This also extends to family.

My grandaughter, Evelyn, is now 2 years old and she is super smart and sassy. She is nearly as cute as little Yoda in The Mandalorian: this is a must watch.

Slava Ukraini

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PERRY LEWIS, ASPEN WAITE CORPORATE FINANCE

Building a World Class Business.

You founded and put your heart and soul into getting the business off the ground.

You’ve been through it all, the wins, the losses, the crises; and emerged in reasonable shape on the other side. You now want to build on your initial success.

But how do you see the business in five-ten years time? How do you create real value in the business?

Will you be able to extricate yourself from the business and realise the value you have built up though all of your hard work?

In 1985 an accountant who served as finance director of a well-known advertising agency, teamed up with an investment banker to acquire a small, listed company making wire shopping baskets.

This accountant had seen what the advertising agency could achieve through the acquisition of smaller advertising agencies.

He had seen first-hand the key ingredients of a successful acquisition strategy: talent and clients. Also how to create synergies through business integration and how to incentivise this talent.

The accountant had seen that with access to a ready stream of capital, one could acquire smaller businesses and retain the talented ownermanagers through earn-out arrangements. So that much of the consideration paid for these businesses was based on how these individuals performed following acquisition.

Of course, the accountant had little interest in the market for wire shopping baskets but was extremely interested in the ability of a listed company to tap into the financial markets for capital, this is what he did with enormous success.

By 1989 he had acquired eighteen advertising agencies including industry giants J Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather. These two agencies were acquired through a hostile takeover much to the irritation of a former CEO who famously called this accountant an “odious little s***”.

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Later he acquired two more industry giants: Young and Rubicam, and Grey Advertising.

This made this former wire shopping basket manufacturer the largest advertising agency in the world with some 130,000 employees in some 100 countries. He continued to acquire a whole string of smaller agencies, public relations consultancies, sales promotion, digital and new world advertising companies.

We are of course talking about and WPP plc (formerly Wire and Plastic Products plc) and Sir Martin Sorrell who retired as CEO in 2018.

Looking at Sir Martin and WPP what do we learn? What has he in common with some of the most successful business entrepreneurs?

What are the ingredients of their success?

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They understand where the growth in their business will come from.

The advertising market of the 1980s and 1990s was vastly different to what it is today. Much of the market focussed on traditional advertising through the medium of newspapers and magazines and television. The market was more fragmented with relatively large clients placing business with smaller innovative agencies. Much of the agency’s incomes was derived from media buying where they would take a percentage of the cost of the advertising placed.

WPP embarked on an acquisition initiative to: • Expand the range of services offered to clients from traditional advertising to sales promotion, public relations, etc.

• Refocus client fee arrangements to be consultancy and performance based.

• Focus on specialist industry sectors such as pharmaceuticals, consumer products and technology, providing clients with tailored advice relevant to their own industry.

• Provide services to enable clients to communicate with their customers more effectively through the rapidly expanding online world of the internet such as website design, market research, digital advertising, brand development, analytics etc.

They have a clear vision as to what they wish their business to look like in future and the ingredients of its success. Also, an ability to install this vision and the commitment to its achievement, in each member of their organisation.

Sir Martin’s vision was to build a business providing a complete range of creative services for its clients focussed on several market sectors with high growth potential. In essence, a one-stop shop.

He achieved this by recruiting and acquiring talent from smaller agencies/consultancies and bringing them into an environment with greater client reach and financial resources then to cross sell their creative skills and abilities to a wider client base.

He even introduced an element of competition by preserving the independence of the larger agencies acquired and having them compete against each other for new business. Often J Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather would be pitching for the same business.

Key individuals were retained with a large element of performance related rewards in the remuneration arrangements. Indeed, many of the acquisitions came with earn-out arrangements for the continuing directors.

Most successful businesses without ready access to capital, seek to develop the skills and experience in their personnel, through their own training and development programmes.

They have built an effective system to monitor and manage the business.

WPP installed a group-wide system of financial controls, monitoring and reporting. The system was able to cope with a group comprising of many divisions. Each division head was accountable to achieving agreed performance targets and was rewarded accordingly. It is often said,

“you can only manage what you can measure”.

They constantly review and update their business plan.

Throughout Sir Martin’s years at WPP, its marketplace was going through rapid change.

The ability of the group to maintain its earnings growth depended on its ability to anticipate and adapt to the changing requirements of its clients.

WPP was quick to see the emergence of the digital advertising market and in the early 2000s entered an intense acquisition programme of smaller businesses with expertise in this area under the brand name “WPP Digital”. Acquisitions included digital marketing agencies AKQA and Essence.

Digital advertising now sits at the heart of marketing businesses large and small - whether through social networks, search engines, websites, display advertising, mobile, email, etc.

Many proprietors/managers become too wrapped up in the internal operations to maintain a good awareness of what is happening in the marketplace. Seeing how the marketplace is evolving is essential to ensuring the business anticipates and adapts to change.

You can only manage what you can measure...

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They have built their own redundancy into their plans for the business.

Building a business of over 100,000 employees takes a lot of management. An organisation of this size needs delegation to management teams with strong financial controls to monitor and review performance.

Indeed, apart from occasionally making an appearance at meetings with major clients, Sir Martin left client servicing to the management teams of the separate divisions in the group.

To create real value in a business, proprietors/managers must construct a management infrastructure, enabling the business to survive and thrive without them.

They know how they are going to realise the inherent value they have created in the business.

Sir Martin already had an exit built into his plans as WPP was listed on the London Stock Exchange with a secondary listing in New York. This means he had the ability to sell his shares in a regulated marketplace.

So, my advice to business owners is to call time out from being immersed in the dayIf they haven’t planned business succession to develop say a to-dayfor business operations and family member ortheir to other members of the management vision of the business and the means team, many successful entrepreneurs will their business to achieve that vision.

It’sexit time to start through a sale to ‘working another business perhaps operating on the business’ as opposed in toa related market sector.

Who would likely pay the best price for ‘working in the business’. the business?

The Aspen Waite Corporate Finance team are happy to undertake a free outline to help you and They have access toassessment the capital needed to your invest in expansion. management team develop your plans to achieve your vision for the future of Of course, many businesses are Call not listed a stock exchange your business.

01278on 445151 and ask so do not have a to ready source of capital for business speak to a member of the corporate expansion. But, by achieving the highlighted steps above, finance team. this makes the business far more attractive to lenders and investors alike.

Of course, few businesses have the skills, experience and financial resources available to achieve their plans for expansion. So much of the work of the Aspen Waite Corporate Finance team is to help business owners and managers: • Get the business into shape to make the business “Investor/Lender ready” including the presentation of the business • Make approaches to prospective investors and lenders, and negotiate and complete any financing requirements • For those looking to acquire or merge with a complementary business, to seek out, approach and secure such acquisitions • Realise the full value they have built in the business through finding, approaching and securing a sale of the business either to an external buyer or to the continuing management team

So, my advice to business owners is to call time out from being immersed in the day-to-day business operations and develop their vision of the business and the means to achieve that vision. It’s time to start ‘working on the business’ as opposed to ‘working in the business’.

The Aspen Waite Corporate Finance team are happy to undertake a free outline assessment to help you and your management team develop your plans to achieve your vision for the future of your business.

Call 01278 445151 and ask to speak to a member of the Corporate Finance team.

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JOHNO HARRIS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER ASPEN WAITE SOUTH

Client Service.

How important is it really?

Most business owners would agree that keeping a satisfied client is so much more enjoyable and comfortable than acquiring a new one. Has this been your experience and if so, how important is client service really?

Let’s rephrase the question, if you had a choice of spending your time communicating with people you really like and get on with, versus spending your time trying to persuade someone you don’t really know to buy your product or invest in your service, which would you rather do?

Some advantages of great client service: • Makes work fun because you know you are going to be communicating with friends and people who are interested in your opinions.

• Referrals from your clients will naturally flow into the company and it’s always nice to meet with people you have been referred to.

• Issues which usually arise from poor communication remain at a minimum.

• You find yourself in a position to be able to offer advice which may perhaps make a real difference to someone you respect - it’s a great feeling both ways.

Most businesses naturally focus on budgets and new business sales targets. A lot of time and energy goes into sales campaigns and similar can be said of then tracking the results on a regular basis.

How much time is spent by teams of people updating sales performance vs. budgeted sales performance? Now compare this to how much time is spent tracking relationship development with your best clients.

What would happen if an established business with a strong, loyal, client base encouraged all the salespeople, all the admin people, all the directors and all the operational people to really get to know their clients? To go and visit their clients in person where possible and speak to their clients personally.

Clients can always differentiate when someone is just trying to sell them something and when people have their best interests at heart. Our team in the Oxfordshire office have adopted the philosophy of a “happy business” office.

This has rolled out across the group and means we strive to get to know our clients on a personal basis and we enjoy seeing them to discuss where they are at and where they are trying to get to. It makes our job so much more interesting and allows us to provide a confident, professional, and friendly service.

When client service goes wrong…

As much as regular client visits, friendliness and politeness are important and essential for good client service, there will be situations where things do not proceed as anticipated, that’s life!

When this happens, it is important corrective action is taken before things potentially escalate.

Top Tips for corrective action: Never respond to an aggressive or complaining e-mail or telephone call in the heat of the moment.

Take time to read and re-read, or listen and listen again, to the written text or verbal message.

Get things in perspective and investigate why something has happened to cause the issue.

Think about what you can do to rectify the situation and leave your client feeling as if they have a genuine supporter on their team.

If you have a client who you feel is using more time resource than necessary, take time out to review the commercial reality of the situation, consider not just the time resource, but your relationship with them, the referrals they have passed your way, the referrals you have passed their way, and the levels of business you do. Whilst you want to spend time with people you get on with, you still need to keep a commercial perspective on things to ensure sustainable business. Friendship, like most things, is a two-way process.

The most common mistake most people make is trying to find time to spend on developing client relationships. One cannot “find” time. We all have 24 hours every day - if you want to get important things done you have to “make time” for your clients otherwise other arbitrary things get in the way and before you know it, another week goes by and you have not scheduled that client meeting!

Get the client servicing right and life becomes more enjoyable and less complicated! In my opinion it’s the life blood of any business!

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RICHARD HILL DIRECTOR OF INNOVATION TAX RELIEFS

Advance notice on R&D claims from 2023 – are your clients ready?

Amongst the mixed bag of announcements regarding the R&D tax relief schemes to take effect in 2023 was the decision by HMRC to require “advance notice” from any company intending to submit a claim. We are still yet to see any formal draft legislation outlining what form this notice will take, but from comments made at the R&D Consultative Committee it is clear that HMRC are seeking a “sooner rather than later” approach.

In my view, it is unlikely that they will succeed in requiring companies to give notice before their year begins, as was mooted

by HMRC at one stage, but it is quite possible that companies will no longer be able to make retrospective claims of even 1 year, contrasting to the 2 year window that we currently have.

If companies need to put in notice before their year-end, a great deal of decision making will need to come forward. R&D projects will need to be identified as they take place, and analysis begun from before the year end. Even in a best case scenario, it is likely that the claim will need to be made with the original submission of the tax return, and not by amendment.

This all adds up to a situation where claims need to be made at least 12 months earlier than has been habitual for some companies.

If we have clients that are making amended claims year on year, and are getting anywhere near the statutory deadlines, they need to be aware that this will no longer be a viable strategy. This could be an opportunity to work more closely with these clients and improve their processes for getting us information. Accelerating the claims also means accelerating our fees, so this is an opportunity to improve both the client’s cashflow and ours at the same time!

While HMRC’s decision is not what businesses would wish for, we need to take the positives from it, and prepare our clients well in advance. Managed well, this evolution in timing can be relatively stress free and cashflow positive for our clients, rather than a nasty surprise in a year’s time!

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The incoming cap on SME R&D tax relief claims.

In one sentence: From 1 April 2021, SME’s claiming a tax credit of more than £20,000 will need to check to see if they are affected by the PAYE/NIC cap, of 3 x PAYE/NIC costs + £20,000.

Why is this happening?

The government is concerned that some companies might be using loopholes to make R&D claims that they are not entitled to. This change is designed to prevent this, without impacting genuine R&D work.

It is possible that the net has been cast too far, however, and legitimate claims could be caught by the rules.

Will I be impacted by this change?

If so how?

There will be no impact for profit making companies that use an R&D claim to reduce their tax. However, where a company makes a surrender of losses for a tax credit, they will need to make

sure the threshold has not been breached. The cap on any credit received will be £20,000, plus three times the sum of all of the PAYE and NIC liabilities of the company, plus a proportion of the liabilities for any workers from connected companies that are used in R&D. For a company whose R&D costs are primarily staff salaries, it is likely that this cap will not be reached. This is a much more generous cap than the existing RDEC cap, both in terms of the multiplier and definition of relevant PAYE/NIC costs.

What type of legitimate companies might be worst hit?

Companies that make very large claims for non-staff costs are most likely to fall foul of the cap, particularly where they have a small number of employees and outsource a significant amount of their R&D work, especially if this work is outsourced overseas, where PAYE/NICs are not a consideration.

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What exemptions apply?

What should I do to protect my claim?

Companies that can show they are creating or managing their own IP are eligible for an exemption to this cap. IP is widely defined here and could be patents, trademarks, registered designs, copyrights, know how, or trade secrets for example. There is a further condition that no more than 15% of expenditure can be subcontracted to connected (or group) companies. This could be an issue where, for example, a UK company makes extensive use of an overseas parent company’s staff for its R&D work, with a relatively small presence in the UK.

Every case is unique, and if you are concerned about a claim, it is best to get advice sooner rather than later. In many cases the exemption will be available even if the cap is breached. It will be important to keep evidence regarding the exemption to avoid costly enquiries later down the line, and in some cases a small amount of planning in advance could make the difference between an unrestricted cash credit and one caught by the cap.

When do these rules take effect?

The new rules apply for periods starting after 1 April 2021, so in most cases, the first time the cap will need to be taken into account will be periods ending after 31 March 2022.

To get in touch with Richard to learn more about our Tax and R&D services, please email Richard.Hill@aspen-waite.co.uk

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BERNARD CRITCHLEY TAX MANAGER, ASPEN WAITE

I’m loving angels instead...

Tax Breaks for investors in business startups.

As we move back towards normality, several early-stage companies may be looking to outside investors to inject finance into their company to assist in its growth, such as hiring new employees, developing a product or marketing.

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By subscribing for new shares an individual investor could benefit from generous income tax and capital gains tax reliefs, under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) if the company has been running for less than seven years or Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) if the company is newly established - provided their individual shareholding (added together with those of their associates such as business partners, trustees, spouses, children and parents) does not exceed 30% of the total shares in the company.

Most new unquoted companies’ trades would qualify unless they were providing legal and accounting services, banking or were involved in property development or dealing in land.

Companies can raise up to £5 million each year up to a maximum of £12 million in the company’s lifetime. Furthermore, each company can apply for Advanced Assurance from HMRC that the shares would qualify for relief before the shares are issued.

If the company is older than the normal scheme allows, it may still qualify for the benefit of EIS investment if it meets the conditions for relief and it could be catagorised as a knowledge intensive company. Such companies would be less than ten years old and either conducting work to create intellectual property (and expect most of the business to come from this within ten years) or have 20% of the employees conducting research for at least three years from the date of investment.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has indicated that these schemes will run until 5 April 2025 but there is still time for both companies and individuals to act to benefit from the advantages that the scheme currently offer both for the companies and their prospective investors.

From the individual’s point of view the two schemes are similar but have some crucial differences.

SEIS is focused on very early-stage unquoted companies and allows an individual to invest up to £100,000 per tax year and get a 50% tax break in return. The investor would also benefit from exemption to capital gains tax on the sale of the shares after three years.

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EIS, on the other hand, focuses on medium sized startups. It allows an individual to invest up to £1 million per tax year and to receive a 30% tax break in return.

As with SEIS, the individual investor will not pay capital gains tax on any profit arising from the sale of shares after three years.

For both SEIS and EIS any unused relief in a given tax year can be carried back to the previous tax year but cannot be carried forward so some unused relief may be lost.

Additionally, should the company fail, or the shares are subsequently sold at a loss, the investor can choose whether to offset the resulting loss against their capital gains in the year or claim the loss against their general income and obtain an income tax refund, whichever is more beneficial.

One further benefit of holding the SEIS or EIS shares is that there is no Inheritance Tax to pay on shares held for at least two years as they would qualify for 100% Business Property Relief.

Example George (who is not an employee of the company) decided to invest £100,000 in March 2021 in a recently established unquoted company which qualified for EIS relief. His income tax relief is therefore £30,000.

On completion of the 2020/21 Self-Assessment Tax Return George’s tax liability is calculated at £20,000 of which £18,000 has been deducted under PAYE through the monthly payroll.

George’s relief is, therefore, restricted to £20,000, with £18,000 being refunded and the balance used against the further tax that would otherwise be payable for 2020/21 following submission of the Tax Return.

Assuming that George’s tax position is similar for 2019/20 the balance of the relief of £10,000 can be claimed in that year from the tax deducted under PAYE. The company trades successfully and in June 2024, George’s shares are now worth £150,000. George, who has no children of his own, decides that he wants to help his sister, Emily and her two children and wonders if he should sell some or all the shares and give her the money directly. The uplift in value would not give rise to a capital gains tax liability but the gift of the cash to Emily would continue to form part of his estate for the next seven years and may increase any Inheritance Tax should he pass away in the meantime.

An alternative strategy could be to either give Emily some or all the shares directly or put the shares into a trust for Emily and her children so that the shares could be sold when the cash is needed.

In either case the shares would no longer qualify for exemption from capital gains tax so any further growth may be taxed, but George’s gift would qualify for Inheritance Tax Business Property Relief, meaning it is completely tax free from his perspective.

Furthermore, once the shares are held for two years from George’s gift, they would then qualify again for 100% Business Property Relief for the new owner, provided the company remains unquoted and continues to trade.

Whilst EIS and SEIS may not be attractive to all investors, because of the risk associated with the investment, there would still be a considerable number of individuals who may be comfortable with weighing up the risk of the investment with the associated rewards of ownership of fledgling businesses and the tax breaks that may result.

Although the relief is scheduled to end on 5 April 2025, it can only be hoped that the EIS and SEIS schemes are continued beyond that point or are replaced with equally attractive alternatives.

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BERNARD CRITCHLEY TAX MANAGER, ASPEN WAITE

There may be no place like home, but there could be a tax charge.

Although announced in the 2021 Autumn Statement a new tax, Residential Property Development Tax (RPDT), to be applied from 1 April 2022 has slipped through almost unnoticed.

RPDT will be charged on company profits in addition to its Corporation Tax at 4% on residential property development profits that exceed the annual allowance of £25 million.

Its introduction is meant to defray some of the costs of remediating cladding issues that has been or will be borne by the Government.

Whilst announced as time limited it is expected to be in place for at least ten years.

Whilst unincorporated businesses and small and medium sized companies may be excluded from the charge, splitting the development through a number of companies in the same group would not have any benefit as the £25 million allowance would be applied to the group as a whole and not each individual company.

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To get in touch with Bernard to learn more about our Tax services, please email Bernard.Critchley@aspen-waite.co.uk

RPDT does not apply to Property Investment Companies but all aspects of property development such as the dealing in residential property and also the construction, adaptation, design and seeking planning permission are included within the new tax charge.

As with any tax there are exemptions and the definition of residential property is adapted so as not to include (amongst others) the accommodation for children or those requiring personal care of some

sort nor for residential accommodation for either the armed forces, emergency services and hospital workers.

Despite RPDT being considered a temporary measure, history has shown us that temporary taxes have a habit of staying, after all Robert Peel introduced Income Tax as a temporary tax in 1842.

We may, therefore, have to come to terms with this new addition to the UK tax family for the foreseeable future.

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SHARON COOK DIRECTOR OF CHOICE BUSINESS LOANS

Revenue based lending and borrowing for your business.

I

am delighted to have been invited to contribute to the Aspen Waite magazine.

Unfortunately, my specialist subject is raising finance for businesses, rather than the food or cocktail section, which I imagine is extremely popular!

I have known Paul and Aspen Waite for several years and working with the Aspen Waite R&D team as many of my customers have benefitted from this service. We became closer during the pandemic, sharing knowledge and resources to help our businesses and customers navigate through this most difficult time. Our trust is built on solid ground. So here we are today, collaborating more closely than ever.

Firstly I would like to cover the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) with you. This is due to have a hard stop at the end of June 2022, with no mutterings of it being extended or replaced.

However; three months is a long time, and this could change; but right now we must assume this will be the case.

RLS Headlines: • Borrow up to £2 million • Up to 6 years • Under £250k there are no personal guarantees (PG’s), debentures that may be taken • Over £250k partial PG’s will be requested, debentures could be asked for • 70% of the capital of the loan is backed by the UK Government • The money can be used for growth, asset purchase, recovery, diversity, acquisition to name a few • Max. interest rate 14.99% • All fees covered by the borrower

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There are some stipulations, and each lender will choose how they wish to lend. Some will go on 25% of 2019 turnover, minus any CBILS loans. Others could look at the next 18 months liquidity requirement.

In all cases the RLS can only be offered if the ‘business as usual’ product could not be offered or is more expensive! You can see it becomes complicated. But what this does mean is if you have been turned down by one lender it’s not the end of the quest as you may fit another lender’s different criteria.

In my experience, I would also suggest that you don’t leave your application too late; if the scheme is not renewed then lenders will not recapitalize towards the end of the program and that could leave fewer options for you.

As always, where there is adversity, there is success. Many businesses moved online and discovered that selling online really worked for them, giving them a wider audience. Luckily, it seems the buying habits of the public have not reverted but maintained a high level of online activity.

We had many customers say, ‘if only I could buy more stock, I could sell more’. One of the challenges we see is a significant time lag in the sales cycle. From paying suppliers, to stock being delivered and then finally making the sales, the cash cycle isn’t quick enough. When a business does not have enough money at bank to increase marketing expenditure and additional stock purchases, it’s a very slow and frustrating growth process and cash flow challenges may arise.

In the early days we had limited resources to help, but now we have numerous revenue based lenders join the market place to allow online sellers to cost effectively buy more stock to sell more! They also come with added value benefits.

For example, some offer inventory support to help online retailers source products, others offer sophisticated marketing analytics tools and access to Google and Facebook marketing teams. All free with this funding, which is now referred to as Revenue Based Lending!

An incredible offering for any ambitious, growing online business. The best part is that there are a number of these lenders in the market, so the cost is being driven down.

It’s such an interesting space and we have found that lenders are coming in with very specific and varied offerings to try and beat their competition. Not only that but as it is all based around very visible and integrated online platforms, the level of security required by these lenders is scarily limited, in some cases none-what-so-ever! For example, no PG’s, no credit checks, no financials!

If you want to know more about the RLS, Revenue Based Lending or indeed, any borrowing for your business, please don’t hesitate to get in touch to discuss what can be done to help.

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To get in touch with Sharon to learn more about Choice Business Loans, please email SharonCook@choicebusinessloans.co.uk

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DAVID SCHEERES CEO - ASPEN WAITE IN WALES

DATA. The new oil?

Data (US: /ˈdætə/; UK: /ˈdeɪtə/) is individual facts, statistics, or items of information, often numeric. In a more technical sense, data is a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables about one or more persons or objects.

Albert Einstein said, “the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination”. He meant that knowledge is not intelligence and learning facts and formulae is not enough, but the motive of life is to think beyond imagination. In this short article I will explore some of my views on data, its use and acquisition.

In 1995 Tesco launched its loyalty club card and I, along with subsequently 20 million other UK citizens, signed up for one, as did my wife. I thought it was a great idea to reward loyalty with points that could be credited against future purchases and as many of the purchases were essential anyway, why not?

I used my card infrequently, usually on the way home from work to buy dog food, the odd bottle of wine and to fill fuel at their garage. My wife used her card when making most grocery purchases and other household items. About two years into the scheme on one Saturday morning two envelopes arrived addressed independently to my wife and I and both containing “offers” of discounts and products. The offers were completely different and it was clear that Tesco thought that I was some alcohol crazed animal lover and my wife a stay at home “nuclear housewife”. Whilst I may enjoy a tipple, on occasion such as at recent lamentable performances by our national rugby team, and I do like animals, these two facts far from define me as a person and it became immediately obvious that I was being stereotyped for marketing purposes and the “loyalty” card was really an exercise in harvesting data.

In the words of Patrick McGoohan in “The Prisoner” television series I decided instantly that “I am not a number; I am a free man” and cut my loyalty card in two. I regarded it as an intrusion and almost dystopian. Tesco now knew that I had a dog(s) and a pretty good idea of my religious or ethnic background from a couple of regularly bought items.

If you have not heard of “The Prisoner” check it out, it is a 1960’s avant-garde psychological science fiction TV series.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

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Whilst I am not precious about my interests, I do try to preserve some element of privacy in my life so see no need to broadcast where I am and what I am eating on social media.

In hindsight, I now appreciate that this was my first real exposure to the value of data – the “new oil”.

Data is here to stay and is expanding exponentially more than anything else that has happened in the evolution of mankind. The very fact that you are reading this is creating data as somewhere, someone has logged the fact that you have opened this page. In this instance it will be Google and possibly Aspen Waite to determine if this article is read. If not I may not be writing another article and the value of harvesting data has been proved.

Data has been compared to oil in a commercial sense and the popular analogy is that it is the new oil but, in this instance, unlike oil it will never run dry as the volume we are creating is expanding faster than our ability to harvest it properly and use it wisely. As one industry expert analogised, “Data is like iron ore and steel.

Just like you need steel to make a bridge, factory or car, to gain analytical insight you need analytics-ready data. Data starts off like ore and needs refining into steel by joining it together, cleaning it up, making sure it’s the right data and then embellishing it with metrics.”

The Covid crisis has led many firms rapidly into digital transformation either willingly or unwillingly and the necessity to gather and value intelligence should be apparent to every CEO, CFO and COO. The problem is that there is so much data it is difficult to know what is good data or bad data and there is a real need to produce actionable data which is truly valuable.

As a result of digitalisation there is so much data available it is hard to know where to start and it is essential to evaluate at an early stage what you need and why you need it.

It is very true that bureaucracy creates bureaucracy and in the first instance companies seek to put in robust architecture and governance, for example GDPR, that they get

enraptured in processes and policy making.

Company leaders need to understand what is possible with data, employ people who understand it and then determine what is needed.

The best way to do this is to ask what your business goals are, what your problems are and the best way to achieve the goals and solve the problems. Choosing the right data is challenging in its own right as there is simply so much of it.

The best way to harvest and use actionable data is to start with a user case or a real commercial problem that could be solved with data.

Remember that the data you consider useful might be meaningless to anyone except you so simply outsourcing its interpretation to technical people alone will probably not work as they may not recognise the value of it.

Case studies that will impress board members or management tend to be those that are easy to understand and show the value of the data by showing what cost savings can be achieved when data insights are used or what short term gains can be made utilising focused data.

Over the past two years we have experienced a paradigm shift in working practices that now include hybrid working with the reliance on a traditional office platform holding less emphasis than it did previously. Time has always been at a premium but more so now and a company’s ability to make data useful is directly correlated to its core outcomes and the ability to generate useful data is now a competitive imperative.

The value we provide our customers and clients is now becoming everything to them in a highly competitive market place and in the future acquiring a customer and retaining a customer have to be recognised as vastly different things.

We all need to know what our customers want and when they want it and those that can anticipate faster than their competitors will win the commercial race.

Data also needs to be shared with affiliates and partners as data can recognise trends. Amazon are superb at this and share their insight about buying behaviour with their partners which earns their partners retention.

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An emerging technology is search engine research engineering which is something I have been interested in for several years. Why for example are some competitors consistently on the first pages of search engines? With the requisite skills this is something that can be deduced forensically and you can audit a competitor’s digital profile retrospectively to determine how they arrived at their pole position. Clearly a huge driver is social media that ranges from LinkedIn to Facebook with differentiation of sector use. The platforms are global and changing by the nanosecond and your position and the quality of your content will determine your success or otherwise. These platforms can make or break trends instantly and a good marketing team needs to appreciate their value and how to use them properly.

One of our marketing consultants told me that she recently employed a specialist social media person in the USA. I was surprised as I would have assumed that such skills are available domestically.

I was told that they are but employing someone in North America extended her office opening hours to 19 hours a day and in media trends can change overnight! This is how fast the market can change in reaction to events occurring globally.

There is no doubt that the behaviour and attitudes of customers is influenced by multinationals who operate on every continent and “Big Data” is truly International creating its own methodology and terminology.

As examples we have data lakes, data banks and data warehouses.

Let me explain. A data lake is a place to store your structured and unstructured data, as well as a method for organising large volumes of highly divisible data from diverse sources.

A data warehouse collects data from various sources, whether internal or external and optimises the data for business purposes.

Finally, a data bank is an organized collection of data. Databases are classified by the way they store this data. Early databases were flat and limited to simple rows and columns. Today, the popular databases are: • Relational databases, which store their data in tables • Object-oriented databases, which store their data in object classes and subclasses There are other terms such as data mart and data swamp, which can be explained simply.

Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW): This is a data warehouse that serves the entire enterprise.

Data mart: A data mart is used by individual departments or groups and is intentionally limited in scope because it looks at what users need right now versus the data that already exists.

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Data swamp: When your data lake gets messy and is unmanageable, it becomes a data swamp.

So how are these resources used effectively? If we revert back to the Tesco scenario I began with, they operate a loyalty card program.

Their database might hold your most recent purchases, with a goal to analyse current shopper trends. The data warehouse might hold a record of all of the items you’ve ever bought and it would be optimised so that data scientists could more easily analyse all of that data. When I bought my bottle of Barolo on a Saturday night, some of the relevant data that could be deduced would be my age (I would need to be 18 to buy the wine) the day, time and location. From that data a specific offering could be made to me to give a discount on multiple purchases of wine on a week day, not weekend, to increase traffic on a less busy day, which could allow more time for impulse purchasing. The weight of purchases would indicate that I probably drove to the store so I would be included in any motoring offers or fuel discounts to incentivise purchases. As I write this article in March 2022 I doubt that I will be seeing many fuel discounts in the near future!

As you can see, this data has immense value if it can be harvested and interpreted correctly.

Anticipation of trends and the quantum of services and products that are likely to be required is valuable to determine stock levels or staffing levels that directly impact capital employed and cash flow.

As a company we assist clients with marketing and social media that uses many platforms including radio, which produces content that can be retrieved on demand. This then can produce data that can be harvested by clients to provide an insight into their status and ranking with competitors and create innovation and change where it is needed.

We have backroom technicians that can analyse data and trends, monitor web traffic and advise strategy. We like to consider ourselves as a disruptive influence in our industry and as such we study our own data and that of our clients. It’s also worth mentioning that bad data never goes away and will probably exist on a cloud platform after we are all long gone so always think twice before hitting that “send” button!

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LIZ MAHE - DIRECTOR AND MIKE TROTMAN SENIOR MANAGER, VAT AND ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES AT CENTURION VAT SPECIALISTS

Can VAT be used as an environmental incentive?

Since they were first introduced to fill the country’s war coffers, taxes have been an invaluable tool for governments to push through their agendas. They can be used punitively, to get us to stop doing certain things, or as an incentive, with tax breaks encouraging actions.

Analyse a government’s taxes and you will see their priorities. The environment is certainly a case in point. Despite the government repeatedly paying lip service to its commitment to becoming carbon neutral, their actions tell another story.

Arguably, this was perfectly demonstrated in October’s budget when Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled plans to cut taxes on domestic flights, making this highly polluting mode of transport even cheaper than the already costly, far greener, railways.

However, there are still a myriad of other taxes in place to either punish or promote environmental good behaviours at every level.

It’s probably fair to say that there are currently more punitive environmental taxes than encouraging ones. Fuel Duty, Landfill Tax and the Climate Change Levy (a carbon tax on energy supply for commercial consumers) are probably the most well-known examples of this (although, there might be an argument to be made that after freezing Fuel Duty for the 12th year in a row, this isn’t necessarily being used to its full effect).

In contrast, VAT is being used as a tool to incentivise positive behaviour, offering discounted VAT rates for activities like investment in energy saving materials.

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Unfortunately, using VAT in this capacity is very prescriptive and difficult to manage. For example, lots of Housing Associations trying to upgrade housing stock and reduce energy consumption find that new energy-efficient boilers or radiators don’t qualify, so is the VAT relief really broad enough in scope to incentivise this work?

Another example is re-insulation work (new cladding). HMRC is being very exacting in what qualifies for the relief so that where a whole house is being refurbished, of which insulation works are just a part, they don’t qualify for the lower rate. It’s a fairly limited scope therefore for many people who are genuinely trying to limit energy consumption.

As VAT Specialists, we’re currently doing a lot of work trying to secure VAT reliefs on recladding blocks of flats. Here a block landlord, who cannot recover the VAT on the recladding, might be able to get the work zero rated for VAT if it was a building they originally had built.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are another case in point.

HMRC has set out its policy around EVs – applying the standard rate of VAT to electricity used to charge the car. Also, the rules for businesses reclaiming VAT on charging costs are very restrictive, meaning that some EV owners are actually slightly worse off than owners of petrol and diesel cars.

There’s no real VAT recognition of the environmental benefits of using EVs. Now that the UK is outside the EU, the government has greater freedom to apply VAT rates as it sees fit, including zero rating supplies that have a positive environmental impact.

However, they would need to address any revenue lost from that source so there is only likely to be a certain number of zero and reduced rates in play at any one time.

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MARK POWNEY, FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS NEWS WALES AND FOUNDER OF GREEN INDUSTRIES WALES

The opportunities for businesses on the road to net zero.

Wales is on the cusp of a critical transformation. The race to net zero presents innumerable challenges and a multitude of new opportunities that will enable businesses of every size to build a cleaner, sustainable future for every community in Wales.

But it’s not just about ‘doing the right thing’ - the change to a green economy in Wales offers unique short and long-term commercial opportunities, in manufacturing, hospitality, retail, tourism, transport, food, and agriculture.

The green economy will reward those businesses that offer bold ideas and new products, products and services tailored to the new needs of customers, whose own behaviours are changing in a revolutionary way; customers who will demand more and more that the products they buy are part of a circular economy, that values re-use, recycling and less waste.

Our actions alone will not save the planet, but our ambition and innovation can create an exemplary economic model for the international community to follows - and there are profits to be made in this brave new world.

The establishment of Green Industries Wales was the beginning of a mission: to bring together those united in the

quest to realise net zero and build the green economy Wales and the world needs.

Across Wales today, hundreds of remarkable projects being undertaken by businesses of every size and shape are already underway. These pioneers of de carbonisation include major initiatives by companies in North Wales like Hanson Cement and Eni, who are both partners in the HyNet North West consortium that is creating a revolutionary carbon capture, utilisation and storage network.

Also involving Essity, Kelloggs and Tata to date, the HyNet scheme has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 10 million tonnes every year between its start date in 2025 and 2030, and the potential to transform industry across Wrexham and Flintshire through switching to clean hydrogen.

Enormous opportunities are opening up for developing locally managed renewable energy projects, solar, wind, and tidal - able to provide electricity on a local level and for providing power to the National Grid. Social enterprise Menter Mon’s ‘Morlais’ tidal stream energy project is one such project - a 35 km2 area of seabed off the coast of Anglesey has the potential to be a world first.

For Swansea, a visionary plan

by Bridgend-based technology business DST Innovations is being proposed to create the UK’s first tidal lagoon. This massive project, including solar energy, large-scale battery storage (using DST’s groundbreaking Batri product), and the building of new low-carbon bayside housing, offers enormous opportunities.

Associated British Ports have begun a visionary plan to reimagine their major ports across South Wales, particularly Port Talbot, as new hubs to base and connect manufacturing and clean energy businesses.

In the west, the Port of Milford Haven has begun its evolution from the UK’s largest energy port to the UK’s most innovative renewable energy port.

With an expanding cluster of marine energy companies being established on the Milford Haven Waterway, all are poised to take advantage of the opportunities to harvest wind and tidal energy in the Celtic Sea. In the south, the South Wales Industrial Cluster (SWIC) is key.

Backed by government and the big-hitting industry players, SWIC is there to pro actively assist businesses, large and small, from Pembrokeshire to Gwent. Tapping into SWIC’s advice and financing routes is a must for any company

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A

E

F

G

B

D

C

looking to transition to net zero - and keep their profits intact and growing.

Away from the major industry players, the green economy is providing a palette for individual entrepreneurs, tiny SMEs, to turn their visions into commercial realities.

Riversimple, an eco car manufacturer in Mid Wales, is developing one of the UK’s first affordable hydrogen/electric powered cars as part of the clean mobility revolution. It has ambitions to create small regional plants in Mid Wales that could produce 5,000 cars a year.

Every kind of business can and must play its part on Wales’ journey to net zero, and there’s little doubt that every Mark Powney business can and will benefit its bottom line by doing so.

A

ABP Tidal Harbour

B

Eden Blue Oceanic and Climate Change

C

Pen y Cymoedd Windfarm

D

Riversimple Hydrogen-Powered Cars

E

Hydrogen Car Refueler in Milford Haven

F

Dinorwig Slate Quarry

G

Pembroke Power Plant

For a fuller picture, please visit Business News Wales:

www.businessnewswales.com/green-industries-wales/

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SAMANTHA CLYDE CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER

It’s all in the strategy.

How would you define strategy and how important do you rate it in your everydaybusiness activity?

There are a great deal of businesses who have always managed without one and would argue they don’t need one as they have done OK because they are still here. I have met a lot of these over the years, of varying sizes and success.

Qualified and extensive research has shown that a clearly defined, well-articulated strategy and execution is essential for the longterm success of an organization.

What worked?

“Hope is not Strategy” Vince Lombardi

Does your business have an overall strategic plan? Just think how much better it could be doing if you had one in place at the moment, or invested in putting one in place.

But the questions begs: How much better could they be doing if they had a strategy?…

Maybe they had a 20% increase last year, which might seem significant but that might have been 40% or more had they been working with a solid strategy in place.

And what about a separate strategy for ALL parts of the business? Including - Marketing, Sales , Growth, Social Media, Content, Management, Development, Pricing, Operations, Customer Services etc…to name but a few.

We live in a world of constantly evolving technologies and forward thinkers; so not having a plan at all will leave businesses vulnerable, on the back foot and open to threat.

Too many businesses who do have a strategic plan rely on a general strategy that ‘works’ for all parts of the business instead of developing individual plans, that are all fundamental to the success of the organisation.

Every part of a business or organisation will undoubtedly benefit from having a solid strategy, but does this attitude really exist in the majority of businesses today? Do owners and managers really see the true value in having one?

Too many managers and owners across the business world spend too much time working ‘in the business’ on day to day tasks and not enough time working ‘on the business’ and developing its strategy AND execution.

What about having a strategy for individual parts of the business...

Alot of questions to ponder!

What have we done?

What didn’t work?

What were the results?

What could we do differently?

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Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to succeed, but more importantly, what’s your plan to succeed?

- Jim Rohn

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In a recent strategy and global survey, 700 business executives were asked to rate their company’s top leaders in terms of their skill at strategy creation and at execution. Only 8 percent were credited as being very effective at both.

Developing the strategy is only the half of it. Execution is crucial to ensuring the plan works. Quality, innovation, profitability, and growth, all depend on having strategy and execution fit together perfectly.

A successful strategy is a proactive one, considering all the departments within the business, making effective decisions on a daily basis and with constant test and measure, to ensure the focus and direction is working and achieving results on every level:

What have we done?

What worked?

What didn’t work?

What were the results?

What could we do differently?

A simple process, that can make a significant difference to what we achieve and how we achieve it.

Given the research findings, why are more businesses investing in doing it?

Well that’s the big question... But more importantly, If you do already or are planning to invest some time into your strategy for the future, you won’t be the one on the back foot in the years to come, or worse, not here!

“Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to succeed, but more importantly, what’s your plan to succeed?” - Jim Rohn So what’s your strategy going to be…? Do you have one? Have you thought about it recently, updated it?

Reviewed its results?

It’s not rocket science, but it could propel your business to bigger, better, longer term achievements!

We at Aspen Waite are more than happy to help you with developing your strategy if you need any help at all...Just shout! We’re here to help..

Contact me samc@aspen-waite.co.uk for a complimentary discussion about improving your strategy plan.

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SCOTT CLANCY COFOUNDER BBX UK

Spare Capacity is potential income.

How much is going to waste in your business?

What is spare capacity and are you using it in your business?

You may have heard of the buzz word spare capacity? So, what is it and what can I do with it? An effective way to find out if you do have spare capacity is to have a look at your business and decide, can you take on another client or customer and do so without having to outsource, subcontract or increase any of your fixed costs? So, what does this look like in the real world of business? Do you have excess stock or end of line stock? Do you have spare appointment time? An empty table at your restaurant or a vacant room in your hotel? What about a spare hour of consultation time or unfilled advertising space? If you can answer yes to any of the above, then you have spare capacity! All this represents lost revenue to you and your business. Almost every company both large and small have this and most of the time, it is your biggest unused asset. Why not make your spare capacity work for you?

But why care about this and is it relevant to your business?

A significant aspect of spare capacity is the extra leverage it gives your business and YOU! Firstly, let’s assume your business is already breaking even, every pound earned (instead of going to waste as spare capacity) has massive profit margin potential as your fixed costs have already

been covered by your existing workload, therefore harnessing this unused potential allows you to boost your profits and balance sheet. An example of this might be a restaurant serving an extra table for £100. They would only have the ingredients as a variable cost and approximately £75 of the revenue is extra profit. That extra profit you can then use to offset your cash expenditure within your business. Win win!

Secondly, if your company needs a capital boost, spare capacity could be tapped into like a reservoir of money. Let me tell you how. If you can manage more customers, BBX, a global business community, can help you harness the spare capacity.

As a collaborative community, BBX can offer you guaranteed customers to fill up some of your spare capacity at your normal prices (so no discounting), therefore turning previously wasted infrastructure into instant profit. Additionally, assuming a capital boost is what you are seeking, BBX will give you an interest free line of credit to spend on goods/services you need from their community (therefore boosting capital) and to re-pay this all you do is supply your goods/services back to the community. This ensures you get the capital boost you are looking for, don’t pay any interest, get guaranteed growth to repay the line of credit. Collaboration is a growing force in commerce and having a BBX facility, even for a rainy day, is an asset to your business.

All BBX suppliers trade using BBX Pounds which are valued and accounted for in the same way as sterling pounds and ensure the community is 100% efficient. Just about anything that represents value can be used to purchase with your BBX Pounds, there is really no restriction and sales, and purchases can either be for business or private consumption. This way you can also save on those cash expenses.

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These are the generic areas that account holders spend BBX: 1. Regular business expenses e.g., printing, vehicle maintenance, accounting, legal services, cleaning.

2. Personal expenditure e.g., dentist, optician, clothing, holidays, gifts, restaurants.

3. Sponsorship, PR, Promotions, Advertising and Marketing (turn spare capacity into attracting more cash business).

4. Training – all forms of self -development for you the business owner or your staff e.g., specialist training, sales training, manual handling.

5. Staff incentives, bonuses, overtime, competitions, entertainment.

6. Charity – many business owners support local and national charities by using BBX. 7. Wealth creation – many global opportunities – see real estate.

8. Networking e.g., a sign company buys graphic services from a fellow BBX account holder enabling them now to provide a sign and design service to their customer base.

9. Value Adding – instead of discounting, purchase a goods or service from a fellow BBX account holder e.g. A car body shop instead of discounting buys towing services and offers tow and repair for its prevailing body repair price.

Using your spare capacity to offset these expenses can have a huge positive effect on your business cash flow, increase your customers and build or expand your business.

It is BBX’s mission to transform this otherwise lost profit into new income and investments for corporations, companies, and SME’s. Talk today to us to find out more. Call 0333 400 2014 or visit bbxuk.com

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PAUL WAITE - FCA FCCA CHIEF EXECUTIVE ASPEN WAITE GROUP

Meeting my hero.

I have loved Horse Racing since I was a small child. I remember watching the legendary “Arkle” and, on the flat, “Nijinsky”.

My father loved his Saturday gamble, as he still does to this day, and he loved to take us racing with Wincanton, Devon and Exeter and Chepstow being his favourites.

An early memory was watching the Champion Hurdler “Persian War” win the Welsh Champion Hurdle.

I followed the horses studiously, as I still do, and in my late teenage years my favourite trainer was Tony Dickinson who retired and handed over the licence to his son, Michael, arguably the most successful and innovative trainer of all time. He is also the inventor of a world leading artificial horse racing surface called Tapeta.

Three British tracks use Tapeta – Newcastle, Southwell and Wolverhampton.

In 1980, a young apprentice jockey called Graham Bradley got his first ride for the Dickinsons, finishing third on a horse called “Talon”, who soon provided Graham with his first winner.

In November 1981, Graham rode a young horse called “Bregawn”. In 1982, Graham rode “Bregawn” to come second in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and then win the Hennessey Gold Cup.

At the Cheltenham Festival in 1983, “Bregawn” went one better, leading home a Michael Dickinson first five. This had never been done before and almost certainly never will again.

Graham had tremendous talent but also lived life to the full.

This attitude to life combined with a smattering of naivety would get him into numerous scrapes, not least with the Jockey Club who remain his nemesis to this day.

Graham rode for 22 years and, while riding an amazing number of superstar horses such as “Wayward Lad”, “Collier Bay”, “Morley Street”, “Badsworth Boy”, “Suny Bay”, “Couldn’t Be Better” and “Rhyme ‘N’ Reason”, he also had barren periods where he could not get a good ride for love nor money.

For some reason I identified very closely with Graham and I was with him every step of the way.

The only sportsman I held in anything like the same esteem as Graham was Jonny Wilkinson. Jonny is another genius who can find life hard and has had more than his share of mental issues.

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47 Great ability, while being entirely human, did it for me. The story of him missing schooling on “Alderbrook”, the Champion Hurdle favourite, because he got drunk at a big party in Lambourn, has gone down in folklore.

This led to him losing the ride, but at the 23rd hour, he got the ride on another horse, “Collier Bay”, who he had ridden to win at Sandown a few months earlier.

“Collier Bay” needed the ground to have some give in it but, up until the night before, the ground was firm. Then the skies opened and it rained incessantly.

“Collier Bay” duly won the Champion Hurdle beating “Alderbrook” into second place.

Graham has always mixed in the top circles with people like Steve McManaman, Gary McAlister and Robbie Fowler being good friends.

I was in the gym during the time of his last ever ride.

The TV happened to be on and, as the race started, I went on the running machine so I could watch. I got quite emotional as “Ontheboil” duly won. The end of an era.

My love of horse racing has been heightened by our regular sponsorship of a race at Taunton and acting for a few trainers, notably Jonjo O’Neill, who rode my favourite horse of all time, “Sea Pigeon”.

I regularly watch old races on YouTube and one evening I had a prompt on LinkedIn to link up with Graham Bradley. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and he accepted my invitation.

One very useful thing about having the radio station is that it is a great way of making an impact. I asked Graham if I could interview him and he readily agreed.

Corresponding with my long time sporting hero was a rather surreal experience but it soon became clear that I knew more about Graham’s career than he did. Also, he was a bit of a Tech Dinosaur.

Drew did a lot of preparation with him to make sure the interview went well.

Even so, when the time came for the interview, we had some teething issues before the great man came onto the screen.

I thought I would be a little nervous but I was very well prepared and we established a great rapport.

Graham really enjoyed himself and he proved himself to be somewhat of a character.

It was an amazing and rewarding experience. Graham wrote a best-selling book in 2000 called “The Wayward Lad” and I have encouraged him to write another.

Even better, I will ghost write it.

We are now friends and I am looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together.

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CHRIS REDJAM, MUSIC PRODUCER AND PRESENTER

“Hey Mr Redjam, do you fancy presenting a radio show?”

It was 30th October 2021, on a peaceful Saturday afternoon, I was in the company of my favourite Rombouts filter coffees and a lemon incense stick remixing a track I was working on in Redjam Studio A in deepest Somerset at the time. The question regarding the radio show came during a phone conversation I was having with one of my greatest friends of the last 15 years Drew “Drewbag” Armstrong. It was asked in his usual casual manner in the middle of a discussion we were having relating to the multifarious benefits of certain types of plug-ins for music production that were currently available.

I considered, thought-through and gave Drew my response to the radio show question in under one second which is quite normal for me and then instantly formulated a dozen questions in my mind which, knowing me as he does, Drew had clearly anticipated and before I was able to draw a deep breath and begin to verbally scatter gun him he simply and clearly stated “The Answer’s Yes What’s the Question” It was a tacit assumption; however, that all the information that is already known was contained in that one statement.

There was a momentary pause before Drew broke the silence to inform me that he was part of a relatively new venture for Aspen Waite into the zany world of owning a radio station and that was the stations motto. Wow I replied, rather cautiously, and then continued to fire, much to Drews amusement, several questions at him all at once not quite convinced at this point that I could present a radio show in any manner I chose with whatever song content

I wanted, (this has subsequently been aligned to Ofcom guidance without ever breaking it).

Drew knew my music taste already and indicated the station would be receptive to a new show playing songs of my “alternative music taste” I sent Drew a short, recorded example that same afternoon of what I felt the show could sound like. The following week a proposed start date was given to me for my first show, a virtual meeting arranged with Craig, and it was off we jolly well go on Saturday November 13th at 8pm for 2 hours of my alternative song choices every week.

Fast forward to February 2022 and I’m now 14 Radio Shows in. I’ve got to know several very creative individuals and spent lots of time with Calum Waite who I did know before and had done some studio recordings with. I’ve also communicated with and got to know hundreds of bands and artists of whom I probably would have never heard of, and I enjoyed a very pleasant Saturday afternoon in the company of Paul Waite who has subsequently asked me to write this article.

It’s a natural assumption for anyone that knows me to think the show would be about music and as I appear to have an inherent affinity to talking, rather a lot, so no one seemed particularly surprised about me presenting a radio show in the way they would have if I had said I’m going to have flying lessons. The easy answer to what I play on the show is anything I want both old and new that I like, most people quickly make the connection on what that is likely to be.

All of my old, and new, friends and family are now aware of my latest adventure, I’ve had a few, and the question that I regularly get asked is “what sort of music do you play on your show?”

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The station set me up initially to be called The Alternative Rock Show which I swiftly requested to be changed to the Alternative Music Show before the first one was aired. I play music from any genre that I find (or now finds me as seems to be the case) and am particularly drawn to artists and bands that follow their own musical path true to their creative inspirations, irrespective of what others are doing and any commercial viability. The show has naturally evolved into a platform for new music and I am being contacted and followed on social media by lots of bands, artists and music support sites, that are interested in engaging with me and the show, in what seems to have been a fairly short period of time since I aired my first one in November last year.

I have been asked my views on the station by several different people connected to it and although everyone will have their own view, and most are likely to differ from each other mine has been consistent from the start and has now been reinforced by Paul’s recent email regarding the monetisation of Aspen Waite Radio and as such this opens up a number of discussion points.

The name of the radio station is one topical question and whether it should be changed has been an active talking point. I think it depends on several things.

The first is are we keeping DAB? it’s very expensive to have the licence so it is worth it?

If yes it won’t draw music listeners in by default if that’s what we want it to do and ultimately, it’s just a name and like band names it soon becomes associated with a particular style, sound or image anyway.

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AB will be more appealing to advertisers and sponsors locally however - it’s a high price to pay for that but it could at least partly be recovered as more advertisers buy airtime. It’s worth keeping locally either way if we can make it pay.

Do people listen to DAB radio for business and financial advice? I don’t think they do enough to justify a DAB licence, I think what they will listen to is a phone in type show where questions can be asked either live or by listeners sending in questions that are then answered by an informed specialist whilst the show is on air.

The station could easily set up a What’s App Group for this and all other shows for engaging with listeners, it’s quicker and more user friendly than emails or station contact forms.

None of the bands I speak to and play have ever questioned the name of the station, they don’t care what it is as long I’m playing their songs.

The bands and fans of the bands I’m playing will only listen to my show on the station and maybe Calum’s and Sam’s but that’s fine as the rest of the station content is unlikely to appeal to them.

I’ve checked this with several of my friends but it’s not that big a deal, BBC Radio has distinctively different stations that all have their own identity.

It’s unlikely that anyone listens to all of them.

We have one station, so can it have various shows all with their own distinct identity?

I

think it can with themed shows and more emphasis on listener engagement. We have one station that needs inclusive specialist content to replace some of the current blandness, that I don’t think anyone is listening to, from the current schedule. This will attract advertisers. The global identity will then be more about the entertainment and engagement content of the station, and less about the name, if the monetisation options are to be fulfilled.

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The overall station identity is still being developed and may take some time to establish globally, so when Aspen Waite Radio is mentioned in the future there will be a connection as to what content is likely to be on it - so that’s currently work in progress.

If we have no DAB licence and just have an online presence the name will matter less. People will accept whatever it’s called if they like the content. TikTok for Pandora’s Box figures proves that, and equally the poor views for the stations You Tube channel tells its own story. The right social platform for each show needs careful consideration with the right content being created for the intended end user - and then an all-out marketing assault to promote the content accordingly needs to be planned specifically for each social platform. I prefer AWR as the station name either way, but we will all have our own view on that.

As well as my own show Paul has given me use of the top floor of Rubis House to set up a recording studio, this will enable me to invite bands and artists in to record exclusive sessions for mine and any other shows on the station, we could then licence the recording rights to the sessions and release them on our own AW record label.

The studio could also provide us with facilities to produce in house adverts for future advertising customers. I have also contacted a friend of Calum and I who is the head of commercial music

at Bridgwater college with a view to forming a link with them that would allow a student night show run by students in return for the station to display materials at the college and presenters doing talks to the students about how their shows are created.

This is a win-win. I also think we should be looking for sponsorship opportunities with any relevant local events like SomeRock and any other associated events that would have a mutual benefit.

In summary, the station has masses of potential and as Paul has clearly communicated his wish is for it to be monetised everyone needs to understand their role and responsibilities within this.

I think all show presenters should be actively promoting their own shows across the relevant social media platforms and building their own profiles like Calum has done with TikTok to engage with and grow their listenership to support the great work Lara does for the station with her graphics and media releases.

I understand Calum is now directing the radio show content, schedule and presenters’ profile with Paul taking more of an executive director role. I see this as an important step for the station as Calum has already demonstrated the potential his own show has and is now well on the way to a million views on his Pandora’s Box Tik Tok channel created from scratch by Nathaniel only a few months ago. This is

a phenomenal achievement in what has become a very crowded platform and will be monetised accordingly in due course.

The station has got the potential to have a very bright future once it has a true understanding of exactly where its listener base is going to come from and has the relevant presenters and shows accordingly. The answer is yes so let’s ask the right questions.

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CERI MILLAR CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT FCA, ASPEN WAITE

World Kidney Day. World Kidney Day (10th March) is a global health awareness campaign focusing on the importance of the kidneys and reducing the frequency and impact of kidney disease and its associated health problems worldwide.

With kidney transplants dropping a third during the pandemic and with 148 people on the waiting list in Wales alone, it’s more important than ever to help spread awareness of kidney disease and the incredible stories of those who have helped transform lives through their own kidney donations. One of those incredible stories comes from none other than our very own remarkable Ceri Millar, Chartered Accountant FCA at Aspen Waite.

Ceri donated a kidney back in 2017 to help transform the life of a kidney patient she didn’t know, after hearing another altruistic living

kidney donor talking about their experience on the radio.

Her story was recently shared in the following press release by NHS Blood and Transplant to coincide with World Kidney Day and we have the privilege of sharing it with you below: With kidney transplants dropping a third during the pandemic, it’s more important than ever for people in Wales to share their organ donation decision and consider living kidney donation.

NHS Blood and Transplant says kidney transplant activity is recovering but this World Kidney Day thousands of patients are waiting and could wait longer.

As 148 people wait for a kidney transplant in Wales, and with this figure expected to rise*, NHS Blood and Transplant is calling on everyone in Wales to share their organ donation decision and also take a moment to consider living kidney donation this World Kidney Day (Thursday 10 March 2022).

Kidney transplants have been the hardest hit area of organ transplantation throughout the pandemic, with deceased donor transplants down 22% and living donor transplants down 60% - an overall drop in kidney transplants in the UK of 32% in 2020/21, compared to 2019/2020**.

This means around 1,100 fewer patients received a kidney transplant in the UK in 2020/21, compared to the year before.

In living donor transplantation, 422 patients benefited instead of the usual 1,000 and there were 500 fewer deceased donor transplants**.

Sadly, the thousands of people waiting for a kidney transplant in the UK may end up waiting longer for a deceased or living kidney donor as they’ve been unable to have a transplant for most of the pandemic and the waiting list has increased.

Living donor transplantation opens up opportunities for patients wating for a kidney transplant by minimising the time people need to rely on dialysis and by offering patients who wait the longest i.e. those who are most difficult to match, are particularly ‘sensitised’ (which means they have higher levels of antibodies which could cause their body to reject a transplanted organ) or are from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background, the chance of a successful transplant.

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e y n D d i ay K

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I have absolutely no regrets and would urge others to consider if they could do the same. I feel it’s a wonderful gift to be able to offer someone the chance to regain their health.

55 People can donate a kidney in life to a particular individual (a relative, friend or someone they know who is in need of a transplant) or choose to donate anonymously where their kidney will either go to a high priority patient on the transplant list or create a chain of transplants via the UK living kidney sharing scheme.

Ceri Nelson decided to donate a kidney to someone she didn’t know, after hearing another altruistic living kidney donor talking about their experience on the radio.

The 61- year-old, from Porthcawl, was inspired to follow in their footsteps and gave a kidney in 2017 to help transform the life of a kidney patient.

Ceri, a mum of two, says:

“When I heard that this was something that was possible, it immediately struck a chord with me.

I was fit and healthy with a full life and I felt strongly that I wanted to do something to help someone who was not as fortunate. Not everyone understood my decision but while we can always find reasons not to do something, I prefer to look for reasons why we can.”

Ceri volunteered her kidney to the transplant team at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff where she was put through several months of physical and psychological testing to ensure she was suitable to be a donor.

The grandma of one said:

“The support I received from the team at the hospital was fantastic from day one. I was given all the information I needed throughout the process and was never put under any pressure. I knew it was something I would go through with if I was found to be suitable as a donor.”

Ceri, who is an active member of local amateur dramatic societies, spent five days in hospital and was back at work three weeks after her donation in the summer of 2017.

She says:

“I have absolutely no regrets and would urge others to consider if they could do the same. I feel it’s a wonderful gift to be able to offer someone the chance to regain their health.

Five years on, absolutely I would do it again without a doubt, it hasn’t impacted on my life at all.

My family were worried at the time but are very proud of me now.

However, living donation is not for everyone, but everyone can sign the organ donor register to donate their organs after their death and I would encourage you to take a couple of minutes to do this and tell your family you’ve done so.”

Given that a living donation is not for everyone, and that some people are not suitable donors, the majority of kidney patients will still be saved by a deceased organ donor. It is more important than ever to tell your family about your organ donation decision to help those on the waiting list.

Even though the law around organ donation has now changed to an opt out system across England, Wales and Scotland, many people are still not aware that families will still always be consulted before organ donation goes ahead.

Anthony Clarkson, Director of Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation at NHS Blood and Transplant, says: “We know the pandemic is very worrying for kidney patients as thousands of people, including children, wait for a life-changing kidney transplant.

We’re pleased that transplant activity is now recovering and we’re doing everything we can to enable as many transplants as possible to take place as quickly as possible.

Sadly patients are facing a longer wait and more people need a kidney transplant, so it is more important than ever for everyone in Wales share their organ donation decision with their family to help others after your death. And if anyone in Wales is willing to consider living kidney donation, they can find out more on our website.”

For more information, or to register your organ donation decision, please visit: www.organdonation.nhs.uk or call 0300 123 23 23.

NHS app users can also use the service to record, check or update their organ donation decision. Please tell your family about your organ donation decision and leave them certain.

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SAMI TUCKER OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR/ HR ASSISTANT

Mindfulness: Healing and hope.

In a world where I can hardly find the correct words to describe the horrific tragedies that are going on, it is now more important than ever before for everyone to stop and take a beat. To really open your eyes, your ears and your heart; and to really just ground yourself in that moment.

Our lives are always so busy – be it personal or professional lives, and sometimes the lines between those two lives can be blurry. I know it myself; I take my work home with me and sometimes I struggle to switch off over the evening or weekend. Those who know me well know that I also took my laptop on honeymoon and checked in with the office pretty much every day!

I take an immense amount of pride in my work and strive to make everyday a little bit better than the last. Everyone also has different drivers in their lives, and I would say that my main one is my daughter, Scarlett (five). I want to show her that hard work and patience pays off. I want her to know that she can do anything she wants, be whoever she wants to be – she just needs to work hard to do it. I want her to be proud of her Mummy.

But sometimes, that elusive ‘drive’ drifts off into the sunset, and I float around a bit, lost and unaware of why I work so hard and put in all those extra hours.

When this happens, I must really try and focus on getting back to where I was before and there are a few tactics and techniques that I would like to share with you which I hope will help.

Firstly, there is “grounding”. Grounding is really what it says on the tin – it brings your mind back to Earth. To re-establish a connection with your basic senses. The premise is as follows:

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Stop and take a beat, really open your eyes, ears and your heart; and really ground yourself in the moment.

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4 Find four things you can feel and lose yourself in the textures – the silkiness of a hand cream or the waxiness on the outside of your apple

5 Find five things that you can see and really study the intricate details of these things - the stamen on a flower or the weave on a scarf

Find two things you can smell and inhale deeply, taking note of the scent filling all the way from the bottom of your lungs to the top – the smell of sweet strawberry jam or the smell of your daughters favourite cuddly toy

2 3 Find three things you can hear that you would not normally notice – the sound of the church bells in the distance or the noise of a train passing over the rails

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1 Find one thing you can taste and really focus on the way it feels in your mouth – a sweet and juicy apple or a salty and dry crisp

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Something else you can use is a body awareness technique which again is how it sounds – taking the time to tune into the reverberation of each cell in your body, to see how they harmonise together to make the wonderful you. The best way to do this exercise is to wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothes without shoes or socks on. The soles of your feet touching the floor/carpet/grass makes the experience more intense and effective. Breathe in through your nose, holding it deep within your lungs and then back out through your mouth. Shaking the extremities and the whole way through your body can loosen up any muscles, reduce stress and anxiety and help to put you in a naturally reflective state. Stretching is also incredibly good at releasing built up tension and this is why so many ‘stress release’ guides include the use of Pilates and Yoga.

This will take care of the physical side of how you are feeling, but we also need to focus on the mental side too.

I am useless at meditations; I fidget a ridiculous amount and my mind just drifts off to the to-do list or what I am going to make for dinner. Mindfulness needs to be practiced for it to become second nature and do its best work – so my aim is to do just a few minutes every single day, without committing myself to a twenty-minute meditation session which will most likely be a waste of time and will stress me out even more. I need to re-train my brain to remind me that I am in-charge of it, not the other way around – and I think with the pace of society at the moment, this is a fact that sometimes eludes us all.

When I need to get out of my head, I use mental games – either by myself or with others – where I engage my grey cells in ways I would not normally do. This could include some maths (starting at 100 and counting back by six at a time), a test of knowledge (how many animals can I name that begin with ‘F’) or even playing around with the alphabet (name a type of food for each letter of the alphabet). Sometimes this little bit of distraction can help to take the mental load off for a minute, enough to give your brain a bit of a reboot.

Easy Mindfulness Exercises - Bing video

Something that I have been trying to push myself to do a bit more, even on the days when I don’t feel I need it – is mindfulness. This is a term that has been thrown around a lot over the last few years and its simple definition probably lacks the enormity of the difference it can make to someone.

The NHS website defines mindfulness as: “Paying more attention to the present moment – to your own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around you”. In its own way grounding is a form of mindfulness, but mindfulness also helps us delve into the thoughts and feelings that we have throughout the day – and with practice it helps us become more in-sync and communicable with our subconscious.

There are some wonderful YouTube videos and apps out there to help you with learning how to practice mindfulness and what you might get out of it if you do.

For more information about mindfulness, check out the below links: Mindfulness - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Simple Mindfulness Strategy -- Take 5 - Bing video Calm - The #1 App for Meditation and Sleep Meditation and Sleep Made Simple - Headspace

Employees of Aspen Waite are lucky to have access to the Employee Assistance Programme which provides 24/7 information and support for both you and your immediate family on a wealth of topics including weight, depression, stress, money management and lots more. Please do use this wonderful resource as it is free to all our staff.

As always, we are all special and we all have something amazing to share with the world.

Don’t ever doubt that you are not good enough, because the person blocking your way is normally you. Find that reason to get out of bed in the morning and cling onto it with both hands.

Sami x

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RACHAEL WOOD BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Frozen Mindset?

Challenging your resilience through sport.

Over the last 2 years and in these ‘uncertain’ times, the terms Mindset and Resilience have been bounced around like rubber balls.

Can you survive in business without a strong mindset and resilience?

Maybe, though more likely not. However if you are struggling with your mindset, the good news is you can change it, and you can build upon your resilience.

Looking after your own mindset is key for you to survive and indeed flourish in business. “If you care for your mind, if you nurture it and if you cultivate it just like a fertile, rich garden, it will blossom far beyond your expectations. But if you let the weeds take root, lasting peace of mind and deep inner harmony will always elude you.” Robin Sharma: ‘The Monk who sold his Ferrari.’

At Aspen Waite we are enthusiastic about sports, and wholeheartedly believe there a correlation between sports performance and business success. After all a strong mindset combined with the necessary skills and expertise is a key ingredient to succeed in both. There are many business and life lessons to be learnt from taking part in any given sport as demonstrated by my recent winter swimming experience.

What we eventually accomplish may depend more on our passion and perseverance than on our innate talent.

At the end of the day, grit may matter more than talent...

Angela Duckworth, Grit.

I am an open water swimmer and through winter stretched myself to attempt the ultimate, aptly named Jedi Level of the Polar Bear Challenge.

Swimming a minimum of 3000m each month from 1st Nov-31st March was the easy bit, the real challenge being completing ten set distance swims at reducing temperatures from 2,000m at nine degrees or less, to 1,000m at five degrees or less, in ‘skins’ i.e. just swimsuit, swim hat and goggles. The 21/22 season is the third year of the Jedi Challenge. In 20/21 35 people, only 44% of those who entered completed it. In 19/20 66% (44 people) of those who entered completed it. As well as the cold water and general swimming ability, you need a combination of a strong mindset, determination and focus on the end goal to succeed.

Since November 1st, I’ve swum 46,500m in water ranging from 4.something to 9.something degrees, in the river, lake, English Channel and North Sea, at sunrise, sunset, before breakfast and dinner, at lunch and after dark in the moonlight, in the water for only a few minutes to almost an hour and only ‘ice-cubed’ (been near hypothermic) myself once, maybe twice and only after the longer, colder swims and I’m delighted to say that as of last weekend I am now officially a Jedi Polar Bear.

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Challenges faced and how they can relate to business:

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Plan As the saying goes, “If you Fail to Plan, you Plan to Fail.” My plan was to complete the Jedi swims in order as the water temperature (hopefully) steadily dropped. I kept a detailed log of all swims; date, time, distance, minutes spent in water, water temperature, flow rate (if in river), air temperature, swim buddies, noting how I felt afterwards. This log provided useful stats to ascertain how long I could stay in at each given temperature.

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Be ready to revise that plan.

What happens when things do not go to plan? Conditions weren’t always perfect. At times the water was too cold or too warm, resulting in being unable to complete one of my specified swims, I revised my plan.

1. If it was too warm, I would still swim the distance, to remind myself that I could still achieve it. In fact I would regularly stay swimming this distance until the temperature dropped to the level required to complete the swim. For example, when training for the first swim, 2000m 9 degrees or less, I continued to swim 2000m at temperatures above 9 degrees until it reached the magical 9.0 to complete the swim. Thereafter, as the temperature dropped, I took comfort in the fact that I didn’t have to swim 2,000m again until the Spring/water warmed up. The next target distance was 1750m at 8 degrees or less and I followed the same process, and once completed, again was motivated by the fact all remaining swims would be shorter and require less time in the water.

2. If it was too cold? With a cold front of weather the water temperature was almost dropping too quickly at the start of the season; falling from 8.something to 4.something degrees in a matter of days. This resulted in us missing out on the 7 degrees swims at the start of the season. When the water was colder, I accepted that I had to revise my plan and instead build upon my resilience to the cold, i.e. I would stay in as long as I sensibly could, accepting that the water was too cold to achieve the specified distance.

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How to deal with the fear of failure?

Bite sized chunks. Breaking the end goal down into sub goals motivates you to keep going. From the outset, I knew the challenge could on occasion involve pushing myself significantly beyond my comfort zone. However I went for it, safe in the knowledge that IF I only achieved half of the specified swims, I would still qualify as an Apprentice Jedi, which itself would still be a big step forward from my achievements last year, and a stepping stone to achieving the ultimate goal of Jedi Polar Bear which is a recognised training platform to swim an Ice Mile; a mile in skins in water temperature sub five degrees.

How to deal with negative talk (whether from others OR yourself)?

1. Be careful who you share your plans with. Don’t listen to naysayers. Those who don’t fully understand your business or goals may dismiss your ideas or question their feasibility. In my case, on numerous occasions people have said I must be crazy or mad to attempt such a challenge. I didn’t let their view of what they thought was or was not possible affect what I believed I could potentially achieve. As one great swim buddy said “Swim your swim, nobody else’s. You can do this” 2. Surround yourself with people who support your plan. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Be mindful who you mix with both in business and for pleasure. Similarly, be mindful who you share your wins with not everyone will want to celebrate with you. Some might be uncomfortable with the fact you are willing to do what they are not.

3. Get a coach. Let me be clear, I am far from the fastest or most efficient swimmer In truth, when I first started river swimming 2 years ago, I was one of the slowest in the group, though with a commitment to regular practice, and some coaching, my pace and efficiency has improved. Whilst there are still more gains to be made, I certainly seem pretty resilient to the cold water, and what I lack in swim efficiency, I make up for with a strong mindset; resilience, grit, and a laser-light focus on achieving the end goal.

4. Learn to coach yourself. In the build up to my final distance swim of 1500m sub 7 degrees, I visualised each 400m lap of the swim and successfully completing it. In the words of Henry Ford: “Whether You Think You Can, OR Think You Cannot, You are Right.” I 100% believe this to be true as this last Jedi swim went exactly as I had visualised, if not slightly better! I kept telling myself “You can do this, you got this, well done, keep going, almost there.” Only once did a “this is crazy” thought sneak into my head. I was quick to weed it out and replace with a more positive thought.

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05

Can you go it alone?

Every business needs a good support team including trusted business advisor, accountant and friends. As per #TheAspenWaiteWay, creating a world where no business owner feels alone, the same rings true for my swim challenge, and I am incredibly grateful for the support of my fantastic swim buddies.

1. The challenge is so-called for a reason. When in cold water for extended periods, you get a lobster glow tan, your face can freeze making the jubilant smile on exiting water look more like a grimace, your hands often turn to ice blocks and can ‘claw’ with some temporary loss of full function. On exiting the water it can feel like you are walking on stumps. My feet turn white and I often hairdryer them back to life when I get home! Whenever I was attempting one of the Jedi swims, as well as a buddy in the water, I always had and was very grateful for a buddy during the thaw out and warm-up period afterwards, to be on hand to help with zips and help pour warm drinks.

2. Company post swim is essential due to the afterdrop effect.

Afterdrop is the phenomenon of your body temperature continuing to drop even after you get out of cold water and into a warmer environment – i.e. you feel colder 10-40 minutes after you exit than you did in the water as when you swim, your body shuts down circulation to your skin, pooling warm blood in your core.

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How to deal with distractions?

Be Present; in business, in life, in meetings, when with family, always be present, silence phones, pay attention to whomever is speaking, listen with both ears. Any sport, particularly those that could be considered dangerous, forces the mind to be present, to focus on the here and now, and in my case getting back to shore safely.

Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve.

Napoleon Hill, ‘Think and Grow Rich’ 1937

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What about when the going gets tough?

1. Don’t give up. Stay Focused.

Stay in the game, whether business or pleasure. Successful people are willing to push themselves further than those less successful. On cold mornings when my bed was cosy and warm, the commitment to both myself and my swim buddies got me up. If I skipped a swim, I wouldn’t just be letting myself down, I would be letting others down too.

2. Whilst I am all for the optimism of “Don’t give up,” you do need to maintain a level head and realistic eye on the KPIs. When the water was colder than I hoped, and my hands were turning to ice blocks earlier than anticipated, I had to be realistic about the distance I could safely achieve and revise my plan again. Same applies in business; prepare a new forecast (i.e. revision to original plan).

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As rewarding and motivating as it was, I am certainly not suggesting anyone should attempt cold water distance swims without becoming fully acclimatised first. I trained long and hard and am very acclimatized to the cold. However, if you’re intrigued to try cold water swimming, though not sure where to start, the first step is to fully appreciate the risks associated with it. There is a brilliant, short free online course available from Aspen Waite client, Love Open Water which is mandatory before swimming in their venues in winter months. They also have a great mini cold-water quiz to assess your knowledge afterwards. I consider both MUST DOs for anyone considering dipping their toes into cold water. Please see links below.

What next after achieving your goal?

Celebrate with like minded souls! If necessary, take time to recharge and reassess before embarking on your next challenge.

Closing with one of my favourite quotes and something I wholeheartedly believe: “Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve.” – Napoleon Hill, ‘Think and Grow Rich’ 1937 Stay safe and enjoy! Any Questions, feel free to contact me: Rachael.Wood@aspen-waite.co.uk https://nowca-education-portal.teachable. com/p/mini-cold-water-quiz https://loveopenwater.co.uk/cold-waterinduction/

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If you’re looking for a nice three-course meal to tuck into this Spring-time, why not try these dishes.

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Somerset Mussels John Porteous

John.Porteous@aspen-waite.co.uk

I love shellfish and this dish works well as a starter or a main – just adjust the amounts accordingly.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients • 4 pints of mussels (1 pint per person)

• 1 oz butter

• 1 pint good Somerset cider (or Zummerzet Zoider)

• 2 shallots

• ½ pint single cream • 2 cloves of garlic (crushed or finely chopped)

• Salt and pepper for seasoning • Parsley to garnish

Method 1. Unless already prepared, scrub the mussels clean in plenty of cold water, discarding any that are open and do not close when you tap them.

2. Soften the shallots in the butter.

3. Add the cider. Bring to the boil then add the mussels, garlic and seasoning. Bring back to the boil and simmer, covered, for 5 minutes – or until the mussels have opened.

4. Discard any mussels that do not open during cooking.

5. Strain the cooking liquor from the mussels into a pan and simmer until the quantity has halved.

6. Take the liquor off the heat, stir in the cream, then pour over the mussels.

7. Serve with a sprinkle of finely chopped parsley and some lovely crusty bread to soak up all those juices.

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Lamb Shoulder with Anchovies, Garlic and Herbs John Porteous

John.Porteous@aspen-waite.co.uk

I have tried many different slow roast lamb recipes over the years – this is one of the tastiest!

Serves 4-6

Ingredients 4 sprigs of rosemary leaves (finely chopped)

2 lemons

4 cloves of garlic (crushed)

1.5kg (3lb 5oz) shoulder of lamb (on the bone)

1 tbsp capers (finely chopped)

2 red onions (cut into wedges)

3 anchovy fillets in oil (drained and finely chopped)

A glass of white wine

2 tbsp olive oil

Method 1. Preheat the oven to 160OC/fan 140OC/gas 3.

2. Mix the rosemary, garlic, capers, anchovies and olive oil with the zest and juice of 1 lemon, reserving the squeezed lemon halves.

3. Make a few slashes across the top of the lamb joint and rub the mixture all over.

4. Toss the onions into a large roasting tin. Cut the remaining lemon in half and squeeze the juices over the onions, then put all the lemon halves in the tin with the onions.

5. Place the lamb on top and roast for 1 hour.

6. Pour the wine over the lamb and roast for a further 3 hours until the meat is tender.

7. Remove the lamb from the roasting tin, cover and leave to rest for at least 15 minutes.

8. Keep the tin on a medium hob and stir to extract as much flavour as possible. Strain the juices into a jug.

9. Pull the lamb into chunks rather than carving.

Serve with the pan juices and whatever veg you fancy. I quite like this with new potatoes and French beans, but roasties and some other greens (or a salad) work just as well.

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Mango Fool John Porteous

John.Porteous@aspen-waite.co.uk

I pinched this recipe from a local Caribbean sailing directions manual that I came across during my days working at the Hydrographic Office compiling Admiralty charts. It is truly yummy.

You can also try this recipe with other fruits – mashed bananas, stewed guavas, etc.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients • 6 mangoes (not fully ripe)

• 1 egg

• 4 ozs sugar

• 3 tbsp double cream (single will do at a push)

• ¼ pint water • ¼ pint full cream milk

• Rum (optional)

Method 1. Peel and chop the mangoes. Put in a pan and simmer with the sugar and water until soft and pulpy.

4. Return the mixture to the heat and stir constantly until it thickens. Do not allow it to boil.

2. Pass through a sieve and keep to one side.

5. Allow to cool and then stir in the mangoes and cream.

3. In a bowl, lightly beat the egg. Heat the milk and gradually pour in to the beaten egg, stirring all the time – you don’t want scrambled eggs!

6. Pour into glasses and chill.

7. Serve with a shot of rum on the side!

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