In his opening statement the Chairman rightly recognised some of our successes and achievements from the past year. We know from experience that we oftern 'move on' without reflecting on our activities or learning from what has gone before and it is good to be reminded of this.

Our programme of work for the coming year is without doubt one of the most challenging that we have ever set ourselves; it is also diverse and ambitious. I think that this is right, we have certainly matured as a company, and we have built skill and capacity to deliver in all of our Staff and have generated a philosophy of always doing what we say we will do.

Edwinstowe House

The flagship of our operation is Edwinstowe House – without doubt one of the most popular venues for meetings and conferencing in the north. Our managed workspace and business incubation facilities run at 98% occupied. We have gained full planning permission to extend the facilities at Edwinstowe House and are currently looking to raise the finance to do so.

Blackburn House

We started the year with an empty shell of a building, in much need of improvement and repair. I am personally pleased to see this magnificent building coming back to life bringing much needed employment and activity to this locality. I expect this to continue in 2007/8.

Newark Beacon

I was delighted when Newark and Sherwood District Council awarded us the contract to manage this prestigious new building – purpose built, state of the art – Business Incubation and Innovation Centre. We now have the Staff in place and are ready to make this project the great success it surely deserves to be.

Centre for Technology Excellence

This project goes from strength to strength – recognised by the regional development agency – emda - as the regional technology demonstrator project. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and emda the project overall has helped 917 businesses to use and apply information communication technologies to business processes.

Europe

Our work in Europe will continue throughout the coming year and well beyond this. We expect to continue to meet the challenging standards set for us by the European Business Incubation and Innovation Network (EBN) and to continue to work with the ‘best in class’ across Europe in this exciting area of work.

Bringing best practice together with innovation to economic regeneration programmes in Hungary and other ‘Accession States’ will be a key focus of our work for the foreseeable future.

This is challenging work that forces genuine partnership working and sharing of expertise. It is also great fun and learning about the differences and similarities between us and our fellow Europeans all adds to the vibrancy and character of our company.

Standards

We are accredited Investors in People and have been since our first year of operation (2001). We expect to achieve ISO 9001 by December this year and have recently committed ourselves to the Customer First and Matrix standards.

2007/08

We look forward to the coming year with confidence and pride, together with a real sense of purpose and achievement. We are always striving for improvement and will continue with our goals of the highest quality standards, efficient and professional delivery, supported by knowledge, skills and enterprise.

My thanks

My personal thanks go to my Chairman, from whom I receive the highest level of support, whatever the issue, whenever it is needed. To my fellow directors and senior management team and last but certainly not least – every single member of the Nottinghamshire Enterprises team who remain committed and focussed on delivering what we say we will deliver.

Linda Shepherd
Chief Executive
18 June 2007

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