PRIME business club

Date:Tuesday 25th September 2007, 10:30am to 12:30pm lunch included

Venue: Valley Leisure Centre, 40 Church Road, Newtownabbey BT36 7LJ

Status: PRIME event

Over 50 and wanting some new opportunities? Have you ever thought of starting your own business? This free workshop will help you explore your options.

Free advice on:
• Setting up in business or self-employment
• Planning your next move

Ring us on 028 902 67807 to book your place, or get more details.

Venue info

Map

Date: Monday 24th September 2007, 10:30am to 12:30pm lunch included

Venue: Stepping Stone Centre, 240 Newtownards Road, Belfast BT4 1HB

Status: PRIME event

Over 50 and wanting some new opportunities? Have you ever thought of starting your own business? This free workshop will help you explore your options.

Free advice on:
• Setting up in business or self-employment
• Planning your next move

Ring us on 028 902 67807 to book your place.
We can also give you more details.

Location map

Date: Thursday 18th October 2007 10:00am to 2.00pm

Venue: Upper Nidderdale Scout Hut, Riverside Hall, Millennium Green, The Sidings, Pateley Bridge, Harrogate HG3 5AQ

Status: PRIME event

Ever dreamed of being your own boss?

This free PRIME workshop will focus on

• using your skills and talents
• developing your business idea
• the basics of being self-employed

For more information and to book your place call 0800 783 1904

Location map

This web site is now equipped with its own text-to-speech facility - so you can get the content read to you by an automated voice. This can be useful if you have problems seeing the text, but is also handy if you just want to listen to one of the longer items while getting on with something else.

You don’t have to download any software to get it to work. Simply click on the small yellow-and-green Listen icon near the headline of the item you are interested in. This will pop up a new window with the reader controls in it, should you you want to skip backwards or forwards. But the voice should start automatically with no further intervention after a few seconds.

If you prefer access keys to using a mouse, then access key L is the equivalent of clicking on the Listen icon. If there are multiple stories on the page the reader will start from the beginning of the item nearest your cursor position.

To stop reading simply close the reader’s pop-up window. Or click on another Listen icon to start it reading something different.

The technology PRIME is using comes from Readspeaker, a company founded in Sweden eight years ago. It now has many public sector and corporate clients in the UK. The Readspeaker approach is to keep the complicated technology on its own servers, so web site visitors don’t have to download anything.

This approach makes things very easy for the web site visitor. The downside to this is that all the decisions about how the reader works have been taken by the particular web site’s authors - in our case PRIME.

So for example we haven’t set it up to read all the navigation links, because for most people just wanting to hear a particular article that would be pretty tedious.

But if you find text-to-speech particularly valuable , perhaps because you are having sight problems, then there is another approach which can give you much greater control yourself. That is to install suitable software on your own machine. Some of this is free. You can read more about the options on the Accessibility page.

Date: Friday 5th October 2007, 10am to 5pm, Saturday 6th October 10am to 4pm

Venue: National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham

Status: PRIME attended

PRIME has free tickets for this large business show, including conference admission, to be held at the NEC in Birmingham. It is sponsored by the Daily Express and Business Link. To register visit www.sme-events.com and enter the offer code GPR1

Growing your own business is held in the next hall to the National Franchise Exhibition, which you can also get into with the same ticket. This event is supported by the British Franchise Association, which is responsible for self-regulation in the industry. PRIME recommends you only consider franchises offered by BFA members.

Here’s a beautifully implemented - and quick, version of the popular Myers-Briggs psychometric test. What it really tells you is what you like to do, rather than what you are necessarily good at. But that’s a start.

You can treat it as a bit of fun. But its lesson for business comes when you realise that many people will answer the same questions very differently to you.

So you can’t assume every customer is the same, that people you work with have the same motivation, or that the person you are about to negotiate with will put the same value on things as you.

Another 10-day course in this successful series aimed at women over 50 starts on Thursday 20th September 2007 - and there’s still time to apply.

Run by London Metropolitan University, a PRIME partner, this free course offers a tried-and-tested programme of personal development, business training and networking in just 10 days spread over 10 weeks.

So you work on the course for for one day a week between now and December. This format gives enough time to cover plenty of ground on the course while still working on your business.  Sessions are delivered by University staff, professional experts and successful woman business owners.

Move on at 50 is aimed at women who are considering self-employment, as well as those who have recently started and who would welcome training. The course is also suitable for those in work but threatened with redundancy, who want to seriously think through their self-employment options.

You have to complete an Application form - which you can download here, and go through a brief interview to get accepted on the course. There is no upper age limit. The venue is London Met’s campus near Moorgate, but you can live in anywhere within reach for a 10am start to qualify.

Previous courses in the series have been heavily over-subscribed, so it’s a good idea to apply promptly.

If you are interested, please contact:
Katy Roberts or Hilary Farnworth on 0207 320 1573
email k.roberts@londonmet.ac.uk or hilary.farnworth@londonmet.ac.uk

Three previous course attendees feature as case studies on this web site - Linda March, Norma Vondee and Brenda El-Leithy.

Grandad’s Back in Business is a new four-part TV series that goes out at 9pm on Monday nights. Each programme follows an older candidate – aged between 50 and 65, as they try to break back into the industry in which they once worked. Pitted against them is a younger candidate looking for their first break. 

In the first episode, 60-year-old unemployed hairdresser Raymond goes for a full-time job at a top London salon. He is up against 17-year-old Rebecca in a month-long probationary test.

Who got the job? If you’ve got access to a cable or satellite time-shifting service you may still be able to view the programme. But here’s a clip that doesn’t spoil the ending.

Next week two comedians, one aged 62 and the other 25, compete for a year-long contract at a comedy club.

Reaction to first episode with Raymond and Rebecca (note: contain spoilers).

 James Walton at the Daily Telegraph

Nancy Banks-Smith at The Guardian