Welcome to the latest issue of nova, news and views from Torbay Innovation Centre – the local business incubation unit based in South Devon College. Adrian Sheen

National Enterprise Week
TV Journalist and Newsreader Alastair Stewart will be the guest host at a the South Devon Business Excellence Awards taking place on on Thursday 15 November at South Devon College as part of National Enterprise Week. Businesses have until 12th October to enter (entry form pdf file, 316kb) under any of the seven categories for the Awards with a prize of £1,000 to the winner of each category.

Other events during the week of 12-16 November, include:

• An Audience with Steve Hindley CBE, Chairman of Midas Group Ltd. Discover how Steve transformed a small regionally based contractor into a £200 million building and construction business.
• An Audience with Sue Thomas, Executive Coach. Learn some tricks of the trade to help you manage yourself to manage your business.
• Speed Networking A fun way to meet a wide variety of business people and share your share ideas.

For more details, download the Programme of Events (pdf file, 778kb)

Optima Projects
Welcome to David Kendall of Optima Projects who has recently taken space in the Centre. David has moved to the area from Southampton, attracted by the local infrastructure, facilities and lifestyle, particularly the sailing opportunities!

Optima Projects is a creative consultancy business providing services to the engineering/architectural/construction sectors, and specialises in fibre reinforced polymer composites (FRP).

In construction, many architects are keen to challenge the established forms and shapes of buildings but are constrained by the abilities of conventional construction materials to turn futuristic concepts into reality. The use of FRP opens up new possibilities to produce dramatic geometric forms as illustrated by the classroom below. For more download Building the Future with FRP Composites (pdf file, 1.1mb).

Calling all Business Mentors
The South Devon Business Mentor Scheme, launched in May, has proved so successful that there is now a need for further mentors to join the team.

Over the past 3 months, the 12 existing mentors have been active in providing support and advice to 22 local businesses. Angela George is mentoring Elena Cooper of Atlas Language Centre. Elena enthused "It has been fantastic having Angela to help me in the early stages of creating the Language Centre. Not only has she helped me with setting up procedures to manage the business but the sales and marketing advice has also proved invaluable."

Keith Richardson is mentoring The Local Food Company. Keith urges other experienced business people who have a few hours to spare to get involved in the scheme and help new and developing businesses grow. If you are interested in finding out more, please contact Adrian Sheen.

Come along to the next First Friday Breakfast meeting on 5th October at the Innovation Centre where Sam Gilson from E-Strategy will be talking about 'How to make the most of your Website'.

 8.30: Buffet breakfast
 9.10: Welcome from Adrian Sheen
 9.15: Website Optimisation
 9.30: Networking
 10.00: Close

Please reply if you wish to attend so we can arrange a bacon bap, or vegetarian option for you.

September Meeting
Julian Reiman's talk on World Class Customer Service attracted 65 people to September's meeting. Julian highlighted:

• Moving from a service economy to an experience economy
• Principles of World Class Customer Service
• Reinforcing the message
• Financial benefits of instilling good customer service

News in brief

Welcome to Mike Orchard (centre) who has recently joined MillsHill IT Recruitment. The business specialises in resourcing IT specialists in the virtualisation, systems management and automated deployment fields. Mike is the second full time employee within the last 6 months to join founder Neil Mills (left).

Congratulations to Stuart Powell (right), the other member of staff, and his wife Sam on the recent birth of their daughter, Isabel.

Training
workshops
There are 4 business start-up workshops taking place over the coming weeks:

• 15 Oct: Planning & Regulations
• 19 Oct : Pre-start Awareness
• 29 Oct : Sales & Marketing
• 12 Nov : Finance

For more details, please call Lisa on 01803 540500.