Champagne performance celebrated (From Salisbury Journal)
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Champagne performance celebrated
9:40am Friday 6th July 2012 in Business
Rene Fullerton and Jenny Hamblin with their mentor James Grazebrook and Dragon's Den star Deborah Meaden.
THE creators of Fullerton and Hamblin, a Hindon-based business, celebrated their success in making the top 12 out of 3,100 businesses in the Local Business Accelerators competition by enjoying a glass of champagne with TV Dragon Deborah Meaden.
The Dragon Den’s star had nothing but praise for Rene Fullerton and Jenny Hamblin after learning how they had developed the business.
Ms Meaden was at London’s Millbank Towers for the culmination of the LBA awards, a national competition run by the Newspaper Society.
Shortly before announcing Ilkley Brewery as the overall winner of the competition she said the LBA initiative was something “really important” and added: “The start-up businesses are going to spearhead our recovery so this was just the right time (for the competition).”
“My experience has been that many of the businesses involved in this scheme have been delighted with the results they have achieved by engaging with their local newspaper.”
The initiative was backed by the Prime Minister David Cameron, who sent a personal message to the final 12. He said: “Congratulations to all the Local Business Accelerators winners.
“This excellent initiative shows how local papers can support and energise some of the brilliant new British businesses in their area and really help them flourish.”
Fullerton & Hamblin was picked as one of three businesses in the Journal’s circulation area to be a part of the scheme and have been mentored since January by James Grazebrook OBE, chairman and joint managing director of Halyard Ltd.
Despite narrowly missing out on the top prize - a year’s mentoring by Deborah Meaden - the pair said they were still more than happy.
“The first bit of good news is that it means we will not lose our current mentor James, who has been absolutely incredible,” said Jenny.
Her partner Rene said: “We have had an exciting time, but this is just the start.
Now we want to move forward with our plans, which include building the business, employing new key staff and branching out into new avenues.”
She also said they would be looking to produce their own range of fabric.
