THE winners of the 2011 Morgan Foundation Entrepreneur Awards were revealed at a glittering gala awards ceremony held at Carden Park Hotel, Chester.
The winners and runners-up in the seven categories won a total of £115k in cash prizes as well as a package of professional services.
The awards were open to charities, social enterprises, businesses and entrepreneurs from Merseyside, Cheshire, Shropshire, North Wales and the Wolverhampton area.
Businessman Steve Morgan, the founder of the Morgan Foundation, said: “Our theme for this, our fifth year, was ‘Targeting Inspiration’ which is what the Morgan Foundation Entrepreneur Awards are all about, on so many different levels.
“What’s remarkable about this year’s entries and winners is the number centred around renewable energy or recycling, as well as the number founded by young people.
“It is particularly heartening as Britain tries to claw its way out of recession to see so many new businesses not only starting up, but thriving in our area. Long may it continue.”
Barbara Richmond, Group Finance Director, Redrow plc said: “Redrow is proud to be the main sponsor of the Morgan Foundation Entrepreneur Awards 2011. The combination of generous cash prizes coupled with an impressive professional support package make these awards unique in rewarding the entrepreneurial efforts of the individuals and organisations in our communities.”
The £20,000 first prize in the Best New Business category went to Easy MCS Ltd from Saltney in Flintshire, founded by Thomas Farquhar and Simon Roberts. Thomas and Simon recognised that those installing renewable energy devices needed help and guidance to gain accreditation without crippling themselves financially. Since 2010 Easy MCS has grown quickly to become the most recognized training brand in the renewable sector and was awarded ‘Advisory Firm of the Year’ earlier this year.
Simon Roberts, who established Roberts Recycling in Liverpool, won the title of Best Young Entrepreneur and £10,000 for his business which offers cash incentives for people recycling their unwanted items of clothing. The judges thought that 22-year old Simon’s vision for a social enterprise venture where unwanted clothes and items are diverted from landfill, and employment and training are offered, showed the entrepreneurship needed to succeed.
The Best Entrepreneurial Charity or Social Enterprise first prize of £12,500 was scooped by the Dee-Tex Project, founded and run by Brian McManus. Based in Saltney, the Dee-Text Project is a social enterprise committed to providing paid employment and training opportunities to those on the margins of society. The judges recognized Brian’s phenomenal success in raising funds for the community and engaging those who would otherwise struggle to find work.
The winner of the Best Entrepreneurial Charity or Social Enterprise in Liverpool category, sponsored by Liverpool Vision and with a prize of £5,000, was Little League Sports. Founded in November 2008, Little League Sports engages with over 4,500 people each week using sport and other activities as a vehicle to make a positive change in communities and give young people more opportunities. The judging panel was impressed by Jordan Wright and Joseph Mulhearn’s dedication to improving lives through sport.
A new category for this year, Best New Business Idea by a Young Entrepreneur offered a prize fund of £5,000, which was awarded to Richard Rees of North Wales Hydro Power Ltd. Richard’s idea of developing hydro electric schemes with landowners, rather than for them, impressed the judges with its simplicity. Richard aims to make NWHP the largest medium scale developer of hydro electric schemes in Wales.
This year’s Business providing the Best Social or Economic Contribution to the Region award went to Galeri Caernarfon Cyf, a not for profit community enterprise operating as a development trust in one of the most deprived parts of North Wales. The £12,500 prize money will help the trust to continue to pursue social, economic and environmental projects for the benefit of the community in Caernarfon and the surrounding area.
The Against All Odds category was the emotional climax of the evening, with a prize of £10,000 awarded to the person or organisation that had overcome the biggest obstacles on their path to success.
Steve Morgan said that reading through the applications had been a “truly humbling experience”.
The winner this year has seen more than her fair share of hardship and heartache.
Having raised her siblings from the age of 13, Jean Taylor went on to lose her sister, son and daughter to violent murderers.
Despite, and because of, her losses, Jean is determined to fight for changes to put right the failings she encountered in the judiciary system and to establish a support life-line – Families Fighting for Justice – to those who are suffering as a result of the murder of a loved one.
The runners-up and highly commended in each category were:
Best New Business
Jolly Good Van Hire, Wrexham – joint runner-up awarded £5,000
Jolly Good Van Hire is a company providing quality vehicles to local business and retail customers. Their ethos from the start was to bring something fresh to the vehicle rental industry and to provide their customers with the service to match the high standard of the rental vehicles.
Label Line UK Ltd, St Helens, Merseyside – joint runner-up awarded £5,000
Label Line’s business started from a bedroom with an initial investment of £4,500 from three directors. Regular orders from large organisations such as Weyl Beef Products, Honeywell, Tulip Ltd and Geotechnics have since established them as one of the UK’s largest suppliers of service and maintenance in the thermal printer industry.
Highly Commended:
Eco Environments Ltd, Bootle, Merseyside
Eco Environments specialises in providing homes and businesses with a comprehensive range of renewable energy solutions including solar PV, solar thermal, heat pumps and wind power. They aim to become the most customer focused and leading provider of renewable energy solutions in the UK by March 2015.
Navigate IT Ltd, Bretton, Chester
Navigate IT enable their clients to reach their business objectives by removing the potential headache of IT and allowing and supporting the business to focus on its core activities. They have grown quickly since their inception in 2010, and through reputation and referral their client base has expanded to include organisations such as Elan Homes and Moneysupermarket.com
Best Young Entrepreneur
Thomas Farquhar – Easy MCS Ltd, Saltney – joint runner-up awarded £2,500
Thomas Farquhar is one of the founders of Easy MCS Ltd who provide support to installers across the UK looking to enter the renewable energy industry. At only 21, Thomas plans to develop the business to diversify into new areas such as a renewable training academy, renewable software and ISO certification. All these ideas are being developed by reinvesting existing profits with no outside investment.
Jordan Wright & Joseph Mulhearn – Little League Sports, Liverpool – joint runner-up awarded £2,500
Little League Sports was founded as a CIC by Jordan and Joseph while they were studying at university and delivers a wide range of services in the community. Training, Education and Coaching are the three core services provided using sport and other activities as a vehicle to engage over 4,500 children, young people and adults each week.
Highly Commended
Mark Gleave – Healthbox CIC, Chester
Healthbox CIC is a health promotion organisation delivering a wide variety of health and well-being initiatives across Cheshire, predominantly to disadvantaged families. While working for Healthbox, Mark has designed, promoted and executed a variety of popular nutrition and exercise programmes aimed at improving the general health and wellbeing of children and adults of all ages.
Eva Zych – Flavory Nature, Liverpool
Designed to provide a natural alternative to fizzy drinks, for kids and for anyone bored of water, Flavory Nature focuses on bottling sugar-free fruit juices, teas, cordials and vegetable juices that are organic, cold-pressed and traditionally made without any chemical additives, Eva aims to provide vending machines to schools and hospitals, as well as approaching coffee shops, health food stores and organic box schemes about stocking the range.
Best New Business Idea by a Young Entrepreneur
Craig Churm ¬– Textbooks for Students, Shifnal – joint runner-up awarded £2,500
Craig Churm used his experience of university, and the cost of purchasing textbooks to come up with the idea of Textbooks-4-Students – an eBay store selling second-hand textbooks. The business will aim to supply affordable, good quality textbooks that will meet the needs of university undergraduate students who cannot afford, or do not wish to incur, the expense of buying brand new textbooks.
Tina Lee – Creative Craft Jewellery, Liverpool – joint runner-up awarded £2,500
Tina Lee recently graduated from the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy where her final year fired her enthusiasm for starting her own business offering people the opportunity to design, customise and personalise their own jewellery. Tina plans to donate 10% of profits to KIND (Kids in Need and Distress).
Highly Commended
Kelsey Donlevy – Just Dance, Liverpool
Kelsey Donlevy has always wanted to open a dance school teaching children between the ages of six and ten. Having done some research and spoken to people living locally, Kelsey has identified Croxteth as being a good area to start up as it currently offers football and after school sport activities, but no affordable dance classes.
Toni Marie Hynes, UK Visits, Liverpool
Toni Marie’s vision for UK Visits is a social enterprise which will provide accessible, affordable and consistent transport between a central Merseyside location to various prisons around England, Scotland and Wales. Toni would like to employ ex-offenders as drivers and offer additional services for them and their families, such as education and training and housing.
Iman Espeut-Mills – Elite Enterprise, Wolverhampton
Iman Espeut-Mills is part of the ‘Elite’ youth group at the Jubilee Community Support Centre based in Wolverhampton and has long had aspirations to break into the fashion industry. Her business idea is to create customised imaginative earrings, bracelets and necklaces as well as decorating shoes, mirrors, picture frames, bags and much more.
Best Entrepreneurial Charity or Social Enterprise
Crest Co-operative, Llandudno Junction – joint runner-up awarded £5,000
Social enterprise Crest Co-operative works to support some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in the North Wales community. Crest operates recycling enterprises to get the long term unemployed back into work and provides work placements for adults with learning disabilities whilst also promoting social inclusion. Since 1998 they have helped over 900 people find jobs and have diverted 55,000 tonnes of re-useable waste from landfill.
The Brink, Liverpool – joint runner-up awarded £5,000
The Brink is a brand new recovery social enterprise providing an eclectic mix of a beautiful and trendy bar, meeting space, entertainment, great food and imaginative alcohol-free drinks. Drug and alcohol-free, it offers a refreshing change to the city’s ‘Booze Britain Capital’ image. The Brink is working with the Primary Care Trust to support recovery and bridge to the mainstream in a venue that ostensibly is a bar and café.
Highly Commended
Kindness in Mind (KIM), Mold
KIM aims to support women to move forward from mental illness to recovery by reducing isolation and encouraging community involvement. KIM has two social enterprises – a service user run café and shop in the psychiatric unit of Wrexham Hospital and a service user led training and consultancy called Compass. As a result of KIM’s support, women have progressed to new hobbies, college courses, or returned to employment.
Best Entrepreneurial Charity or Social Enterprise in Liverpool
(sponsored by Liverpool Vision)
Highly Commended
The Brink
The Brink is a brand new recovery social enterprise providing an eclectic mix of a beautiful and trendy bar, meeting space, entertainment, great food and imaginative alcohol-free drinks. Drug and alcohol-free, it offers a refreshing change to the city’s ‘Booze Britain Capital’ image. The Brink is working with the Primary Care Trust to support recovery and bridge to the mainstream in a venue that ostensibly is a bar and café.
Merseyside Domestic Violence Services
Merseyside Domestic Violence Services is a voluntary organisation in Liverpool city centre, working directly with women, children and young people who have been affected by domestic violence. They have a proven track record of engaging with, and retaining, large groups to tackle the societal issues associated with domestic violence; such as poverty, offending, substance and alcohol misuse.
Squash Nutrition
A social enterprise introducing creative health projects to deprived communities, Squash works with and for the wider community across Merseyside, embracing food and the environment as tools for social inclusion and wellbeing. Squash is fast becoming recognised as a unique brand providing good quality services and products with a strong social conscience.
Best Business Providing a Social or Economic Contribution to the Region
Comtek Network Systems UK Ltd, Deeside – joint runner-up awarded £5,000
Comtek Network Systems (UK) is a successful knowledge-based Pan-European company which addresses the global e-waste environmental challenges that plague the ICT industry. Comtek offers high quality sustainable jobs in the local Flintshire community and has to date prevented over 500 tonnes of usable communications products from going to landfill.
Lewis Psychology CIC, Wolverhampton – joint runner-up awarded £5,000
Lewis Psychology CIC is an innovative, forward thinking social enterprise and not-for-personal-profit organisation that provides affordable psychological health services, health education, employment and other benefits to the local community. All profits are used to expand the services and generate employment for local people disadvantaged in the labour market.
Highly Commended
Eco Environments Ltd, Bootle, Merseyside
Eco Environments specialises in providing homes and businesses with a comprehensive range of renewable energy. The company employs 30 staff in offices across the north of England and North Wales. Eco Environments pride themselves on educating people about renewable energies and aim to become the most customer focused and leading provider of renewable energy and energy efficient solutions in the UK by March 2015.
Imagematch Social Enterprise, Shrewsbury
Imagematch Social Enterprise CIC is a ‘not for profit’ organisation which works to increase employability and reduce worklessness throughout Shropshire, Telford, Hereford, Worcester, the Marches and North Wales. Since Imagematch began trading it has contributed significantly both socially and economically through the provision of high quality training and education for candidates coupled with support.
Against All Odds
Highly Commended
Jane Davis & Niall Gibney – The Reader Organisation, Liverpool
Jane’s journey from runaway glue-sniffer to founder-director of a business with a turnover of £1.3m is hard to imagine. After many new schools, false starts and next to no qualifications, Jane returned to education at 19 as a single mother and achieved a First Class degree and a PhD. The one constant in her life had been books – she turned to them when life was tough and sought solace. It seemed natural therefore to help others do the same – and so The Reader Organisation was born. Jane was awarded an MBE this summer for her services to reader development.
Niall Gibney joined the organisation on a six-month Future Job Fund placement but Jane was struck by his potential and persuaded a philanthropic investor to support a three-year contract. Niall spent much of his childhood in care after his mother died when he was one and his father when he was seven. He suffered abuse, became involved in taking and dealing drugs and spent time living in complete poverty. With no role models around him, Niall struggled to stick at anything until he found TRO.
Jane and Niall now want to offer other young people in desperate situations the kind of chance they’ve both had to make a new start in life.
Kerrie Griffin-Rogers – The Interior Co, Whitchurch
Kerrie Griffin-Rogers faced a bleak future when her husband left her and their two children. By selling her furniture to buy food, then hand painting cards and selling those, she amassed enough stock to start attending craft fairs. Tragically this stock was wiped out in a fire and once again she was left with nothing.
Kerrie started again, taught herself IT skills and began to build on her artwork, holding her first exhibition this summer. Kerrie’s aim is to develop her own brand of clothing and a coordinating jewellery range, with people working for the business on a party plan basis.
Brian McManus –The Dee-Tex Project, Saltney, Flintshire
Brian McManus is an ex offender who spent a substantial part of his life in prison. Despite this he has managed to turn his life around, has married, had three children and has developed an organisation employing over 20 people and achieving massive social benefits. The Dee-Tex Project promotes textile recycling as the core service to provide benefits to the local community including volunteer, training and employment opportunities – as well as diverting textiles from possible landfill.
