Richmond Business Awards 2011

RACC is sponsoring the category of Best New Start Up

The race is on to become one of the winners of this year's Richmond Business Awards.
Richmond Borough Chamber of Commerce and Newsquest have joined forces to bring the gala awards to your doorstep.
The sponsors are secured and the categories are set. All that is needed now is for Richmond's brightest and best businesses to put themselves forward for an award.
Anne Newton, head of the Richmond Borough Chamber of Commerce, said: "The chamber wishes to promote business success in borough, as not only is this good for business and their stakeholders, but also supports our wider community in so many ways - from social and charitable initiatives though to a prosperous economy where our local people can work and enhance their lives.

Over the last 10 years RACC has developed a unique educational proposition embedding enterprise skills across the curriculum for adult learners as well as delivering dedicated training on entrepreneurship to respond to the needs of adults in the local community. RACC’s success in this arena is due to its unique position as an FE college with a focused mission for adults. Since 2005 RACC has been surveying a 20% stratified sample of college leavers to explore the relationship between learning and enterprise to understand how these ‘innovators and early adopters’ have developed learning journeys that have led to successful enterprise outcomes. The area that has seen the greatest change between 2005 and 2010 has been the area of enterprise outcomes: during this period the proportion of adult learners who felt that their learning had supported them into self-employment or starting a new business rose from 23% to 31%

The Criteria:

• Business or Self-employed Start-up in last 2 years (since September 2009)
• Special consideration will be given to anyone who has undertaken some form of adult learning in last 3 years that has helped in realising the start-up/transition to self-employment
• Is based in London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames either as resident or business location
• Integrates the novel use of new technology to transact business eg e-commerce
• Demonstrates a willingness to learn new skills to ensure business success
• Has applied the effective use of networking to generate business
• Has created a sustainable business that has the capacity to grow and employ others
• Business or self-employment is generating income and is profitable
• Business is small and has less than 10 employees
• Overcome a personal barrier to achieve business success

The categories will be judged by a team from the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, Richmond & Twickenham Times and other local dignitaries.
Click here for the rules of entry.

The closing date for entries is 26th August 2011.
For full details of the Richmond Business Awards, please visit www.richmondbusinessawards.com