Perfect. It looks like everybody's here. So good afternoon and welcome to this last webinar in our current series of Recover and Rise, our digital accelerator. We're joined today by a whole host of people. We've got Gareth Seahiv and Business Hot House who's going to talk to us about funding opportunities and we have got four digital champions here for you to pick their brains and ask about how this brilliant growth support works. So before I introduce those and before we get started, just as I say we're in the last webinar of our current Freedom Works series. We have a short break then and then we go on to series four which is all about growth and expansion and that one's hosted by Always Possible and if you're interested in booking on that, the booking is now live through Eventbrite, same link as previously and you can actually book all of those into your calendar so please do. As normal, we will be recording this session and some lots of interaction and engagement would be wonderful and some Q&As would be great for our panel. So if you've got any questions, anything that you'd like to know, please pop them in the chat and I will endeavour to get them all answered for you as we go along. I'm not going to talk about our funding opportunities because I'm going to let our experts do that and neither am I going to talk about all our growth champions because they can introduce themselves as we go along but here's all the lovely pictures just so you know that there will be with us today or four of them are here with us today. So without further ado, let me get rid of those slides and introduce to you, pass you over to Gareth here who joins us from the Business Hot House, introduce yourself. Welcome Gareth. Excellent, thank you very much Cheryl and always nice to be referred to as an expert whether I fulfil that or not, I don't know but yes, thank you very much. I'm going to share my screen hopefully and see what happens and clearly I then lose everything that's on Zoom. Can you guys see a big slide that says the Business Hot House? Excellent, brilliant. Okay so I'll, as Cheryl said, I'm Gareth Sear and I'm from the University of Chichester and we run a programme called the Business Hot House. The Business Hot House is all about grants, guidance and growth for businesses and pre-start entrepreneurs and now I can't get my slides to advance. I do apologise, that's it. So we've got six strands of support available to businesses so we've got productivity and growth support, access to finance support, monetisation of innovation, leadership and management development, startup support and then we've got the big grant fund so we've got about £2.8 million of grants to distribute to businesses in the Coast Capital Region and that's what I'm going to be talking about now. The whole of the programme is delivered by six expert delivery partners, you can see them all listed there, University of Chichester, I'm the expert, an expert, Sussex Innovation Centre, YTKO, WSX Enterprise, Brighton Hope City Council who manage the grant fund process and the Prince's Trust as well. So a little bit about the grant fund, so we launched the grant fund in March last year so great time to be launching these sort of things as everybody's scrambling around trying to survive in their businesses and things like that so we had a bit of a rocky start to it all but it's certainly picked up now and in this last quarter we've distributed around about £300,000 of grants which brings our total to date is around about £1.6 million that we've given away so there's still a big chunk of money that can be invested into growth projects for businesses. As I said it's managed by Brighton Hope City Council so we've got a team over there that manage all of the process for contractings through Brighton Hope City Council and then the funding comes back out through Brighton Hope City Council. It works on a match fund basis like a lot of these grants, it's a 40% grant with a 60% contribution from the organisation that's applying for the grant so for example if you had a £10,000 website that you wanted to get developed that would help with the growth and development of your business then you can apply for a £4,000 grant towards the costs of that but you have to find the other £6,000 costs and as I say that it must be linked to growth so you need to be demonstrating that growth in your business but we understand and so does H&M Government and me and you but obviously growth has been a little bit challenging over the last 18 months two years for a lot of businesses so we're looking at not just growth based on that but it's you know people that are getting back to a position they were in prior to all the lockdowns. So the grants are available can be for anything in fact I haven't updated my slide as we've just changed some of the rules on it so it can be from £1,500 up to £170,000 so that's based on a thing called Dominimus State Aid so if you've had aid or other coastal capital grants or things like that the maximum you can get across that period is £170,000. Grants can be used for capital equipment or revenue costs and as I said businesses provide 60% of the costs themselves so those capital projects could be for things like plant and machinery we've funded a number of businesses that are making their business processes more efficient by getting in different new more modern machinery such as CNC laves, new milling machines, I think we've had 3D printers, a whole range of different machinery bottling plants, brew lines for breweries, a whole range of different items of plant and machinery can be used for premises improvements does depend a little bit on your lease conditions it can be used for growth consultancy as well so potentially if you want to carry on working with one of the digital champions after you've done your bit with coastal capital you might be able to get a grant towards the costs of that consultancy. So with leadership and management development, software development that probably ties in quite well with this series of programs that we've been running that have been running up to now is and we've also supported a number of businesses we've getting they've reached the point in their growth where they've got to you know you've got to a million one and a half million pound turnover and they kind of need to move away from running their businesses on Excel spreadsheet so we've had a couple of businesses like that who want to get some bespoke software developed whether that's content management, contact management systems, venturi systems, production management systems as well so bespoke software development and other digital platforms that support growth along with specialist IT equipment as well. What it can't be used for are qualifications, retail premises, a lot of the things that you'd expect as well within there such as staff salaries, refinancing, paying debt, buying stock, normal day-to-day business costs so we had someone try to sneak in on their grant projects printer cartridges we're a little bit like no really that is just a normal business cost it's not going to really help the growth of your business statutory legislative requirements we can't fund that we can't fund recruitment costs so one of my favorites is that we can't support nuclear decommissioning so I'm sure everyone who's heard this heard my talk many times it's just a bit like not again Gareth. The process we've simplified the process over the last couple of weeks and I've had that agreed so we do now just required to have an application form filled out but it needs to be a very comprehensive application form it needs to really explain what your growth project is we need to know a lot about your business who's running your business and how the growth project fits overall with your business strategy or your business plan so once the application form has been filled out we will need to get some supplementary information from you such as a cash flow forecast ideally a business plan and a previous sets of accounts so we can look at the viability of the business as well again we do take into account that some businesses have had a challenge in the last couple of years from that we carry out due diligence on the business on the project make sure all the costs are eligible for it all then goes to a panel if the grant is over £5,000 the panel sit every two weeks so you can turn this around very quickly then if the panel agreed to fund it goes to you get a grant contract sent out to you then the grant is paid back to you on 40% on evidence of defriad of your goods and services have been received post then your project and your grant is monitored up until the end of our funding which is September 2023 so that was a very brief overview of all the aspects of the Invest for Grant fund here's a few examples of what we've supported so select my talent they had funding which helped them to develop a new applicant tracking system to make their business much more efficient so these are airline pilots that set up like an airline pilot recruitment business so that was software development that we supported them with Roisin's Kefir Water so we supported her with marketing so she got grant fund to redo her branding and her website so she can create more sales my room outside again this was another marketing project that we supported so this guy's seen obviously over the Covid period a lot growth in his business wanted to capitalize on that so wanted a new workshop a new website and redevelop his branding which you can see there up on his workshop wall and this chap from juice up he again just before the all the lockdowns he started producing glass bottles of returnable glass bottles of fresh juice and he just been doing the juicing from his kitchen from home juicing machines and we supported him with his growth and his investment into a commercial juicing machine so he could basically create a lot more product a lot quicker time so again really supporting the productivity of his business so a little bit of an overview some of the businesses that we've supported some of the projects that we've supported and obviously if you need any more information about it let me know they're all our community spaces that we're putting out all our information on twitter facebook linkedin and if you want to sign up to the email marketing then do let me know that's it from me just in regards to the invest for grant fund if you've got any questions do let me know thanks for my camera as my head was just in the bottom corner we could just see the head for a while i do apologize there's a couple of questions that come up in the chat i don't know whether you can see those or whether you'd like me to read them out for you if you could read them out because i can't see them at the moment okay okay first one oh does our business need to have a minimum turnover to qualify for this grant i would say no not necessarily so we can work with any businesses with any sort of level of turnover but it depends as an element of what size grant you're looking for compared to what size business are you doing and is there the cash in the business to provide the match funding and can you afford to fund the growth in your business so we will take a bit of a view on that one we have supported some early stage entrepreneurs so within the first 12 months are starting up but they've had to provide you know really robust business planning cash flow forecasting but we can tie it all up and go yeah actually this looks like it's going to work okay so best advice there really is to talk to you isn't it and just to have a chat and see absolutely is yeah see where you are is there a minimum i think i think i know the answer to this one is there a minimum number of employees for eligibility or company structure no there's not as long as you've got one that's fine and no no nothing around a business structure so you could be a limited company you could be a sole trader you could be an LLP but there is a maximum number of employees which is 249 so no minimum no minimum that's really good to know um and can you fund vehicles new premises or building extensions uh generally no we can't potentially vehicles depending on what it is and how it works uh but not not premises and not building extensions uh because more often than not it's not the business that is benefiting from it but the freeholder that will be benefiting ultimately from it all so so it's all about driving that business growth isn't it it's all about anything that's going to drive growth in your business yeah and last but not least how much of a fund is there left um in the invest for grants and what's the last date for applications are you yeah so you know that yet yeah yeah we've got 2.8 million pound to give away we've um uh allocated about 1.4 million so we're about halfway through the grant fund we just really pleased to say we just had an extension um confirmed for the contract univerbly confirmed we're waiting for the paperwork to come through so the grant fund will be available through all projects must close by the end of March 2023 so that means you'd have had to have had your funding through from uh Brighton House City Council they've agreed to fund you and you need to be demonstrating that you've achieved your outputs I think the last opportunity for applications will probably be around about this time next year okay brilliant so there's a little time yet so that's because you've got a very yeah as long as your project something that can be turned around relatively quickly okay so we've got about a year yet then so there's lots of lots of available time to take you know to take this up I've got a couple of questions here popping up um on software development um do we need development supplies to be based in the UK or can there be outside the country I know a lot of people are working with development um companies outside the UK so is that is that okay for this grant yeah we've we've uh I think we funded definitely reviewed some uh software developments happen outside the UK you know we understand what it is that cheaper from a cash point of view ultimately how that works out again from what we understand it it can be a bit of a mixed bank but we yes we have funded overseas software development I'm pretty sure we have thank you um um oh a couple more yes we're going to pop a link um to the application form in the chat we can do that Natalie and I can do that for you yeah I'll dig the link that's absolutely important at all and as always these um webinars are going to be available um you know the recording of these webinars will be available and um Vicky asked what about van leases and software as in phone apps and developments uh not van leases I'm afraid but phone apps yes should be as long as they're linked to the growth of your business as you know it's just having a mobile website-ish type thing so um and I see what Andrew's putting could we fund an electric bus for a parish under a community interest company that's an interesting one would have to seek further advice on that um yeah whether it's electric or petrol or diesel or anything wouldn't make any difference it's whether we can fund a bus um a community interest company would be fine to work with yeah yeah because that's a legal body and probably quite good because it has the asset locks and stuff associated with it brilliant absolutely brilliant Gareth I'm going to stop the questions there if that's okay yeah I couldn't answer the chat so please if you've got any more questions for Gareth please pop them in the chat we can come back to them a little bit later on in the webinar um and obviously Gareth is going to be online for us with us um throughout this webinar so as I say we can come back to those um I just wanted to quickly hand over thank you Gareth thank you so much I just wanted to quickly hand over to and Natalie from Freedom Works actually who has brilliant brilliantly behind the scenes in every single one of these webinars so a big shout out for that but also um as you know Freedom Works have actually hosted two of these series um and have actually taken advantage of grant funding themselves so I just thought Nat could quickly talk about what they've been up to over to you Nat thank you very much Cheryl yeah we have been super lucky to have been able to access two of these brilliant grants and work closely with Gareth so I just want to come on for five minutes and tell you a little bit about Freedom Works and the grant funding that we've received and how it's just really helped us especially at the difficult time so I'm Nat um I'm the project manager at Freedom Works Freedom Works is a um co-working space or a collection of co-working spaces across the southeast so we've got eight spaces now and we're growing um and about 3 000 members and during lockdown we were severely impacted so we're a a business that relies on people coming in and making a home from home in our spaces um so when lockdown hits um we weren't forced to close as a business but we were all told not to um we were all told to work from home so overnight it became very quiet for us and then even when restrictions did start to ease a little bit we still had that kind of hesitancy um of people not being sure whether they wanted to come back in or not um we also had to manage a lot of social distancing restrictions i.e. um head counts and numbers that can come into the office and then we also had staff that were self isolating um or the number of staff that were on furlough so these were all challenges that we just weren't prepared for um and had a big impact on the business and it also meant that we had to think differently about the way that we worked in the way that we did things um and on that note like the whole digital adoption really came into play we knew that we had to do things online um somehow but the challenge is how do you do that when revenues really down how do you then start investing into projects um and this is where the business hot house and invest for at the council have been brilliant so i just want to really yeah advocate it really promote it and tell anyone on this call um who is interested to definitely go and check it out so these are a couple of the projects um that we were very lucky to get some funding to help with um the first one was a complete revamp of our website and also our online booking system so previously our website was i guess nothing more than just a nice brochure it didn't have any functionality behind it um but what we knew that we had to do was make all of our products and services available online so that people could access them and buy them online um we also created new products so we started to um really push some virtual products so you could have a virtual office with us if you didn't want to use your home address for example um and we also made all of our products a lot more flexible as well so you could actually just come in and have a desk for a few hours or come in and book a meeting room just for a few hours because people don't want to commit when there's that uncertainty so people weren't signing up for long leases anymore um so this was one brilliant project um that we had support from the business hot house to do and it really helped our sales throughout lockdown and even now the engagement and the number of hits and what people do on our website has really um transformed and also there's a whole back end to this as well that just means that as a team internally we can work much more productively um so that was one project and then the second project that we were lucky to have funding for was another kind of a tech project it was called doorflow um and again this was for this enables people to come in and out of the business um with a kind of a key fob um but you don't need someone to be sat there at a desk letting you in and it also allowed people to come into our offices 24 7 which was wonderful too so for anyone that didn't want to come in when that when it was a busier period during COVID that they could come in in the evening so again it was a product that we didn't use to sell before 24 7 access um but yeah it it has really helped us um and be more productive so to wrap up because um I don't want to take time away from the brilliant digital champions what's stopping you I think having gone through this myself and ungrant funding and those of you on the call I know that you think oh my goodness there's a lot of paperwork that's involved with this it's cumbersome it's technical it isn't as bad as you think and especially not for the smaller grants so for the under 5k grants and Gareth I'm saying this having heard you say that the process has just changed but really it's it isn't as hard as you think so just have a look um and have a read through um before making any assumptions and also know that when Gareth was saying you know about the business model and the cash flow there's templates that the hot house um provide for these as well so you know if you haven't got a business case for example or you haven't got those kind of cash flow forecasts there's some support out out there to to get all of those things done and in place um the process like Gareth said is really quick actually we were approved really quickly so you don't have to sit on your hands for months waiting whether you know whether this is going to happen and then also once the work is done the the payment of the funds for us was really quick too so thank you for that um and then to end on what are the two things that you can do to just get the ball rolling so the first one is have a look at the application form and you'll see that it isn't that bad um and the way to get the application form is to to email invest for at brightonandhove.gov.uk and then the second thing you can do is join a webinar and that one is already ticked because you're here today um but if not there's some brilliant webinars that Gareth has done on Facebook um and on LinkedIn if you did want to kind of recap on on some of the basics of it so that's it done for me in a nutshell um but yeah highly recommended and thank you everyone brilliant thanks thanks Nat thanks Nat thank you so much and thank you for all your hard work behind the scenes as well very welcome from me um so um any questions from that obviously pop them in the chat and I can see that Gareth is is gaily answering questions as we go along so thank you for that this is all going to get very confusing I think in about 20 minutes time with lots of questions coming in um I'd like to hand over to our digital champions I can see that I've got well Lisa Kerr in the room who's going to be talking on behalf of Coaster Capital and as a digital champion uh Malcolm Duffett who's here I've got Andrew Kerry Beddle who is also here thank you I've got Susan Winchester Susan where are you and I've got Rob Lawrence here as well so we've got these wonderful people in the room they're all going to chat about um some case studies and some things that they've worked on give you some ideas as to how you might be able to use this brilliant days worth of support and then we're going to open it up to you guys and just take questions from the floor so I will hand over to you Lisa and I will be very quiet for the next 20 20 30 minutes and let you get on with it brilliant thank you lovely thank you Cheryl okay can everyone see the screen Bill thank you um also like to add my thanks to uh to you and to Nap for doing great hosting of series one and this series and your lovely smiley face every time we come on to these sessions Cheryl so thank you and Gareth yes nuclear decommissioning makes me smile every time you say it um okay so today I am um presenting as Cheryl said as a Coaster Capital digital champion um and also I am presenting just to introduce the Coaster Capital Grays Hub as well so usually we'd have the very lovely Karen Tyrrell who is one of the Grays Relationship Associates um but she unfortunately wasn't available today so I am covering her section as well as digital champions so a little bit about the Grays Hub itself provides free impartial government funded advice support investment strategic leadership to help drive sustainable business success and economic growth in West Sussex Greater Brighton and East Surrey that is a lot of big long words so as someone who's worked with the Grays Hub quite a lot um I would just say that there are absolutely brilliant team of people who are here to support our local small and growing businesses in whatever way they can and they're all so friendly um so helpful and they will just point you in the right direction so I am such a huge advocate of Coaster Capital and things they can do to help people link there to the website these slides will also be sent out afterwards this program as Cheryl mentioned we're coming to the end of series three so I won't go through all of these slides um but just to say that Coaster Capital is supporting all of these webinars through the series of the digital champions what do digital champions offer free digital support so we can't say this often enough you can have up to eight hours of free support fully funded by Coaster Capital as long as you have attended any one of the online workshops in this series so just one out of the four series of webinars so including today if you're on this one today you qualify and you can get up to eight hours of free specialist support you can use any one of the seven strong team of champions most of us are actually on the call today so please please just ask any questions you have about it and as it says here each digital champion offers a different blend of skills so we have most of us here today and I'll let everyone chat for themselves but at a very high level this is the seven of us so ask Andrew about websites and CRMs speak to me if you're looking at digital tech for productivity and processes Malcolm everything e-commerce Rachel who's not here today is our SEO expert we've got Rob online today he'll talk about digital transformation Roya is not here today but she uses digital growth and Susan who is here today if you're after digitally focused product and service initiatives the important thing is how do you access the digital champion support and again this can look like it's quite a lot of paperwork to be done using the contact form give all these details you then get a follow-up you get a digital review again we just wanted to let you know that this is a really quick process and where it says on the forms and on here you need to say what area of expertise you require for this program you can just put you need digital champion support so you don't have to be specific about what that support might be the growth relationship associates will give you a ring they will follow up with you and they will help signpost you to the right support they will help you understand which digital champion can help you out the best and similarly you can contact any one of us and we will also help you so even though we're all consultants for Coast to Capital we work as one big team and we all know each other we know our strengths and we know each other's strengths and we will always point you to the right digital champion because that's what we're all here for we're here to help businesses so don't be afraid to email pick up the phone to any one of us and just tell us what you're thinking and we will let you know if we are the right person to help you or if we're not which of the others is the right person the contact form is on the Coast to Capital website there's the link there it literally has a few details about your business and just to note that you need digital champion support and then the digital review again that is very very quick I've just put a slide in here to show you the outcome of this so this is just an online questionnaire it's 20 multi-choice question so it will take you just a few minutes and it's just an extra help to see how you're doing across these different digital areas and it's not you don't have to get it's not 100 you don't have to get this right you can't fail this test it's just something to help us as champions understand the areas where you might need that extra bit of help and advice just to give a quick overview of one of the days that I'm doing so each of the champions who's online today is going to give you a quick overview now of how they can help but in terms of what kind of days they are providing for people so I am delivering one for example where we are going to be looking at all of the different systems that a company already has in place because they are creating a whole load of data from all of these systems but they don't know how to pull that together into something they can use so we're going to be looking at kind of data visualization and how you can use that we're going to be talking about a possible move from the Google sleep to Microsoft 365 so that might be something that you're considering or even whether you should take one of those in the first place and we're also going to talk about how to manage change so if you do go for a tech change within the business how do you manage that with your staff with your customers and what the kind of steps involved in moving from one system to the other so that's just one of the things that I cover so that'd be a quick example and now I'm going to stop the screen share and I'm going to open it up to our other digital champions so we've got Rob Malcolm and Susan are each going to give you just a little bit of background and then I can see we've also got Andrew online and then it's just open to questions so in the chat box or just pop your microphone on and ask us. Thanks Lisa. I think I was nominated as coming in after you so hi everyone and thanks for introducing the digital champion program Lisa. My name's Malcolm as you've seen on the slide e-commerce is my specialty I've spent 20 odd years now in digital and web and e-commerce and mostly for direct-to-consumer product-based businesses whether you're selling products directly to consumers via online retail or even online subscription and I've also worked client size I've looked after the channel for brands selling products to consumers and built teams and revenues online. My work with the digital champion program and Coaster Capital over the last year or so has seen me work with a number of different size businesses actually from kind of micro solo printer startups to kind of up towards medium-sized businesses with small and growing digital teams looking to push on even further. I guess the couple of examples I can give you is currently almost at the end of delivering one set of support for a business that's actually been on the series of Recovery and Rise webinars and they are in the kind of micro startup solo printer phase so for them I've been helping them understand if you like the approach to e-commerce how to present the brand their products and the messaging online in their new website. I've helped them plan out if you like the structure of a new e-commerce website where they can best present their products. I've also been giving them advice on best practice for SEO and marketing channels and perhaps where to be looking at and I've also helped them build an annual marketing plan to help guide them in their own thought processes when they're looking at doing activity to bring traffic to their website. Earlier this year I was working with a slightly bigger business who had just employed a for the first time like an e-commerce digital marketing manager into the business to sort of take over what throughout Covid has been an increase in online sales and the business realised that they needed to kind of upskill internally so they brought somebody in to manage the whole channel look after marketing or digital marketing activity as well as looking after a new website so my role for that business was providing support to the the person that's coming into that role helping them set sort of KPIs and understand channel objectives for for growth in that channel looking at resourcing the team looking at internal structures who was there what skill sets already existed what they may potentially need in the future as that business grew and then a third day of support that I've given was really quite down at tactical level for for one business reasonably mature in in many ways in terms of their offline and kind of retail offering and their online offering was also reasonably kind of mature and having recently gone through a bit of a redesign so they wanted specific help in two channels one was SEO search engine optimisation having just replatformed for a brand new website and the other was looking at the performance of their email marketing activity so they wanted to understand what was working what types of content was working you know repeat levels and repeat buying levels so it's quite you know performance related and very specific down to a couple of channels so I think certainly from my perspective and I believe you know certainly some of the other digital champions will will also mirror this is that we're able to work at you know quite broad high strategic level and planning with a lot of businesses but also I think we've all between it's got a lot of kind of day-to-day experience and certainly some of us can offer kind of you know day-to-day tact tactical advice for opportunities for growth for your online business so yeah that's me I'm available to for the rest of the session for any questions that you've got on e-commerce or digital marketing later on in the session great thanks Malcolm okay Rob do you like to come in next hello right I'm just going to share my screen right hello everybody my name is Rob Lorenz and my company is called Kaizen Digital and what we aim to do is help businesses and organizations of all types really get fit for digital business so I am the principal consultant I work as a consultant I work as a coach my specialties are marketing e-commerce and digital transformation I'm also author of a book called get fit for digital business which the objective of that book really was to help us for me leaders get their heads around the many moving parts of digital and and and really get their periscope up step back and think about actually what strategy do we need to have to make the most of digital going forward to really survive and thrive in the digital age versus getting lost in a sort of tactical before we've decided what we should be doing so I really work with SMEs leaders to do three things in simple terms help them understand where they are now in terms of their current digital business capability help them identify the digital opportunities and perhaps threats in their market and work with them to develop a digital strategy and a implementation plan because without execution it's not much use to seize those opportunities and counter those threats so a little bit about my background I've been in business for as you can tell by looking at me for about 35 years as a general manager and marketing director and so on but about 20 years ago I specialized in in digital because I was working in the travel industry and actually the student travel industry the students were the first to embrace digital and travel was the first industry to really get disrupted by digital so I started pretty early well over 20 years ago after that I set up around a full service digital agency in London and we did everything we did schools and schools of website development website design SEO paid search affiliate marketing so pretty much social social media you name it analytics we covered it and you know that's really been the story of what I've been doing and then my latest full-time job was seven years as e-commerce director at 2e travel plc looking after a portfolio of 100 104 actually SME businesses around the UK and internationally and I was on the board there driving digital transformation and and helping those business leaders you know really get their businesses fit for the digital age which led me into my consultancy business and I started this about seven or eight years ago uh in that time I worked with the National Gallery uh so I was the communications director there with a brief to drive digital transformation on an interim basis um a digital development plan for the National Army Museum working with clients at the moment such as ARC that's that strange looking orb you can see on the right hand side which you go 60 meters into the area in Bristol when um just got planning permission um so that's something exciting but actually mainly I'm working with with SMEs um and just going to give you a quick example of one of the clients that I'm working with under the digital champion umbrella um solopreneur B2B marketing services obviously not going to say who it is but um we're going to pack into that eight hours you know a good review of the products and services and the business model as it relates to digital and the profitability of those various approaches to market we're going to identify some market opportunities perhaps that have been missed we're going to identify the potential for turning some of the great experience and knowledge that the client has into digital training products and you know what software and you know how you actually go about making that happen we're going to look at sales and marketing identify ways to sharpen up the website pitch and proposition we're going to undertake a high level content marketing review and I'm going to make some proposals we're going to discuss strategies and tactics to reduce the length of the sales cycle which you know we know for a lot of SMEs it's a real bugbearer in how long it actually takes to convert and and what strategies we can use through digital to shorten that period and then we're going to explore any marketing potential with other other organizations um and if this is not enough we're also going to have a quick high high look at some software as a service marketing tools because I think we've identified for this client that if they use a very low cost um but highly effective online system they can solve their lack of CRM the difficulties they have with email marketing the difficulties they have with analytics and website landing pages and so on and solve that through one application so that they can develop their sales funnel and get more prospects and turn more of those prospects into customers so just to finish off um yes work with mainly SMEs and really you know again I'm trying to help business leaders get their organizations fit for digital business and create a healthier company that's more productive and generally healthier so that's me well thanks Rob and then lastly we're just going to hear briefly from um Susan who is also going to tell you about how we can help you get these digital champion days and how we can give some value to your business and then we will open up to all of your questions so good afternoon everyone I'm Susan Winchester I'm a marketing business strategy professional I've been working in business um for about 15 20 years um with a number of years experience how do I work um well I've got a number of examples um I have worked with the say a telecom company and a digital company in uh in southwest London and they had like three products and one two of which were going to be obsolete and one and I I basically looked at their external factors in terms of what they needed to do um in terms of what the trends are where the market's going I kind of understand where they're looking at and I also looked internally in terms of um their processes their systems their channels what they were where they were currently going and I basically um look at what we can do and and sort of like try and bridge the gap between their capability and then what we can do to drive them forward in the external market so that's kind of like how I work in terms of it's a lot of analysis base it's a lot of trying to understand and work out where the business is currently at and asking sort of like those difficult questions basically getting under the bonnet of that company understanding where the leadership is understanding where their value where their value proposition is to really understand how you can then bridge the gap in in in the using digital platforms to drive that forward um I would you know it could well mean that you know I spend four hours with you and just work out and go through those steps and look at those look at those both those external factors coupled with the internal factors to look at them where the gaps are and it might well mean that I then bring Lisa in to look at the processes because that might be a gap that's missing and that's kind of how I work mine's quite exploratory to try and understand uh to understand basically your business and where you're operating and where your what what your golden nuggets are and how we can um how we can basically position them so that you could get more growth and drive that forward and that's kind of me in a nutshell well thanks Susan um so we're going to open the floor um to any questions that you've got now um I thought if I may Cheryl I will ask you to read through them because you're fantastic at keeping track of what's going on in them I could say if you like but uh I've been concentrating on the screen um but if I can I think maybe if we could start by just saying you know how does the the digital champion process work you know in reality how do we go through those steps um and Andrew you've not said anything yet so I wonder if you might want to just answer that one and then I can scroll I can scroll through and see what the questions we've had thank you yeah thank you Lisa um so so very briefly it's um it's a pretty straightforward process as Lisa said um you do that very quick little questionnaire um you can have a simple brief that simply says I'd like to launch a new product how can technology help me I'd like to build a new website you know how can I do it but there's that eight hours available so in terms of how it actually works I'll give you a couple of examples um as business owners you might want uh two or three online zoom sessions uh and they may be just to bounce ideas backwards and forwards um as to how you want your project to run and that's really what we're here for is help and guidance um you might also want a face-to-face meeting so what you could do for example um if you've got a website project is then we would come along to your office um we'd have kind of like the usual flip charts and things and we'd say okay what do you want messaging to be how do you want to develop your website has it got to be mobile friendly has it got to communicate products or services and we'd simply take it like that and then we can follow either with zoom calls again or a further visit or simply by writing you kind of an outline as to what we think you should do but it's a pretty straightforward process and and very friendly and very much designed for one-to-one with business owners so it's a personal approach and it's completely free well thanks Andrew Lisa can I interject I've actually got a couple of questions that have come in Derek to me please do yes I was definitely scrolling up here oh that's okay that's right that's okay first and foremost can I as a business owner not me but one split my eight hours of support between you lovely digital champions so could I do four hours of Malcolm four hours of Lisa or two with Susie and two with Andrew and you know how does that work um so in general it would be one day um with one person um but I can go back and ask what the possibilities would be I don't think we'd be able to split days kind of going I'll have an hour each with seven people just because of the logistics of all of that um but if if there are two completely separate areas um then I will go back and ask on that one and just confirm for you but Malcolm yeah I I understand from the program but it will issue we will double check it but I understand if there are two very completely different kind of objectives of the business with with the kind of marry up with a digital champions expertise then I believe you can apply for a second full day but in terms of um the the eight hour packages though those are kind of like a digital world support package per champion those eight hours that you get with a champion that would be up to you and the champion to decide how best to deliver it and what's easiest you know for you so the the one that I've just recently been working on in fact this afternoon will be my last of four two hour zoom sessions with this particular business over the last sort of three weeks so we've actually split that eight hours up into four two hour chunks um and then between each session they've been able to go away do something and then come back with something for the next session or we just move on to the next topic it may be I mean again other day support a days of support that I've done have been like a half an hour kind of all in sort of workshop in in half a day maybe on site in person with one or the team of people that I'm working with and then the follow on work maybe that stuff that I'm doing remotely and or then going back to project you know present or show or to work with them so it's about what I think working with your digital champion to you know what works best for you and also your time scales and for the needs of your yeah for your requirements well thanks Malcolm and just seeing um I can see Vicky you've asked a similar follow-up question of can you get a discount for two um well you can get a fabulous discount because they're all fully funded by Coast to Capital they're entirely free so um if if they did agree to do the second day then that would also be funded um if you want to get additional time yourself as Gareth mentioned it is possible to get one of the invest for grants to cover this kind of work so if you wanted to kind of do a package of work with one of us then that would be obviously can't guarantee you have to the application process but growth consultancy and leadership and management development are two of the areas that are covered are eligible for the invest for grants which would give you 40% off or 40% funded by the lovely people that invest for as well. So I like the fact that you can take your eight hours and you can split it across because as a small business owner myself the thought of finding eight hours in one here makes me kind of scream and run to the hills um unless um as I said to you previously you're going to come around my house at midnight and we're going to do midnight through till eight o'clock so the fact that you can split it I think is wonderful and that was another question actually can you can you take advantage of you know digital champions and an invest for grant um at the same time because that is just a fabulous offer isn't it I feel like you know those tele shopper programs I feel like one of those but that's brilliant isn't it I'm going to offer you all a new hoover for 20 quid in a minute fantastic how long is this open for Lisa because or any of the digital champions because we know we've got another series after Christmas running with Always Possible um how long have people got to apply because they may find that when they follow the next series there's something else they want to do or something else that sparks their interest. Yes certainly so the program is open throughout the Recover and Drive series so certainly we'll run into the new year um and you can ask at any point for any support so even if it's something that's going to be covered in series four that you think you need support for you don't have to wait for that webinar to have happened to come and get the support so the support is available now it's been available since the program started um and it's available until the program ends um beyond that that would be four posts capital to decide so they allocate the funding to the program so if there's any funding left over at the end then it might be that we can expand that program um to a longer time scale that's something to just look out for the announcements but certainly available to the end of January um and yes you definitely can split up the eight hours in time scales um quickly over zoom I don't think anyone could stand eight hours over zoom so two hours lost or I tend to do half day slots two of them but that works really well it gives you chance to consider things between the sessions as well so I actually find it more productive for everyone Andrew you have a hand up there sorry yeah no it's it's quite strange because um recently joined West Sussex as a councillor but um so I've had some conversations about the links between Coastal Capital and West Sussex so there's a couple of points I think on timing in that obviously with the growth champions um you wouldn't particularly want your your eight hours to go on over sort of four to six months but I think it's fair to say for example one project I did which was developing a website helping them to um there was a first zoom session which is talking about the messaging and the kind of elevator pitch for the business the second one was talking about the the uh the media and then the content and then the third one was we've developed our website what do you think and that did take over three months but coming back to Lisa's point about how long the programme is going to run and I have a conversations within West Sussex and certainly they're looking to run a second programme on this it's yet to be agreed on funding um but therefore that does mean that it may well extend beyond March and and I'd be amazed if Coastal Capital didn't also extend it as well in terms of growth champion support because that's what we're here for at the end of the day Brill thanks thanks Andrew um I can see a question in the chat box so rattling for reason probably she's only got six minutes left here um Vicky you said you're really excited now how long does it take to set up um not long at all so the team at Coastal Capital Ryan Karen and us they are fantastic they turn things around really quickly so get the form in um if you submit the forms on the website and you want to drop any of us an email to say you've done it we can check that they are picked up quickly um and then you just agree the scope of support with the champion um fill out that dna six digital profile which as I said is five minutes it's 20 tick the box and get the answer um and then we just both sign a form to say that you can have the day and and you get on with it so they can be turned around within a couple of days um and I saw another question up here about do champions refer yeah so do champions refer to each other if you ask the wrong one for support absolutely yes so um as I mentioned you know we all work as a big team we're all here as part of Coastal Capital and supporting the Coastal Capital digital champion program we're not here you know to promote our own businesses we're here to make sure that you get the best support for your business so if you came to me and said you wanted to help with marketing after all the expert marketers here had stopped rolling around the floor laughing they would all know full well that I would say actually let's pass you on to someone who knows a whole lot more about that than I do and similarly if you wanted to learn how to use Trello they would all point you towards me you know we work together we work as a team so do not be concerned at all about who you contact whether it's the team at Coastal Capital or whether you reach out to one of us directly we will absolutely help you and similarly if you just don't have a clue what you need so where you said uh Rory said based on what you think you need if you don't even know what you think you need that's absolutely fine so just tell us that put that on the forms we can do a digital champion day you know we'll work with you to figure out which of us might be the best to help but you could have that eight hours just to help you brainstorm what it is that you need so that you don't go off and look at the right thing so the brilliant thing about this scheme is it's completely flexible we will completely tailor it to support you and we will absolutely do the very best we can to get you the right support yeah thanks Lisa I think the takeaways from this session actually are please don't be afraid it seems to be quite a lot of stigma about grants funding business support listen advice especially when it's labeled up as free it tends to send you to the hills for some reason it's a catch as if there's something you know that they have to sign something and seal it and you know blood and everything but there really isn't with this and I think if you are interested just a five-minute call with Coaster Capital or one of the digital champions or with Gareth will put your mind at ease so much I have learned so much over the last couple of months and I've got all sorts of boxes ticked to get all sorts of support and funding now so I just wanted to really wrap up unless anybody's got any further burning questions um last chance oh one one coming um from Mark how can I support this proposition with my own skills agile scrum trello lean kit myra confluence startup scrum ways of working coaching um from Mark Lisa do you want to have a go at that one um could you just clarify what you mean by that Mark do you mean how can you get the best out of today hi hi Lisa hi you you notice that um you sit around you'd be able to find um champion support in terms of trello yeah so I was just thinking you know how could I um support some of the work around the region in terms of um agile coaching so I've seen other people look at software development for funding so just to um help this proposition in terms of my skill set so um sounds like you need to be a digital champion mark yeah so so for this program um there are the seven of us for digital champions um but as Andrew said Mark I'm sure there will be future programs so you can certainly look out for the tenders um to become a digital champion um and if you're interested in becoming a growth champion for caster capital in general which is a slightly different service um just get in touch with the team at caster capital so they're always happy to hear from people who want to join the wider growth champion program which provides support thank you player thank you very much what a fantastic service thank you we all aim to do a great job for all of you and caster capital are just brilliant in their support so I couldn't agree more the service that they give to everyone is fantastic and we are all delighted to be part of it as is the team at the hot house so gareth and the team there also brilliantly helpful on the grant brilliant thank you so much nat you're waving at me is this something you want to jump in with no you're not waiting sorry that that was supposed to be a little clap oh thank you I think that's enough I've got that sort of end of series feeling you know we're sort of a bit over excited today but just um to wrap up yes we are going to be obviously sending out this recording hopefully you've got all the links and all the information and all the contact details if you haven't then please get in touch with either Natalie or myself always Lisa um and we can give you those details all with gareth um all it remains to say is thank you on behalf of freedom works for coming along to this webinar for the last seven sessions and thank you to Lisa to Malcolm to gareth to to Nat to Rob to Susie to Andrew today for for your time and your expertise and um it's been lovely working with you all so we shall see you no doubt in january thank you well thank you everyone and I see you all bye now everyone thank you bye bye now bye bye


You know, we had a lot of research done by a lady called Lorna Wing who theorized that autistic people lack empathy Going further there was a study Few studies that Simon Baron Cohen has done which looked into two main factors in empathy Cognitive and adaptive empathy Cognitive you can see and perceive emotions in other people Adaptive you have an appropriate emotional response and just to get it out of the way autistic people Quite low in cognitive inherently we can't work on it, but inherently it's quite low Adaptive pretty normal


Welcome to digital asset news to get top stories and cryptocurrency and digital assets and bring them out of bite-sized pieces Let me tell you what's going on in the crypto market and 30 seconds or less first up Dogecoin is going to the absolute moon It is now the number five position in market cap and is up to almost an all-time high of 46 cents Unfortunately, it is dropping a little bit and is now down to number eight went from 46 cents to 36 cents And there's three big takeaways today First of all the market is irrational second of all a lot of people are gonna lose a lot of money and third of all If you're gonna sell anything of your alts only sell 80% for these moon shots like dogecoin just did on top of that We talk about how Turkey has banned cryptocurrency and digital assets Which is surprising as its national currency the lira has dropped almost 13% And the real question is how much control are they losing in the country of Turkey to find out the entire video? Just click right here, and we'll talk all about it


Hey everybody, it's Brett with Summit Auto, and it is December 11th, 2023, and I'm gonna be doing the afternoon version of the Monday morning lot walk and just had a bunch of stuff come in this morning. Had to get it all organized and everything before we could actually do the walk here. So we got a bunch of Ram 2500 Laramie night editions in, so we're gonna check those out. I got a couple I have to find So we're gonna still just walk this service row real quick, you know. So this is a Chevy that we're working on. This is a Ram that's out of service, a Compass that just got out of service, a Wrangler that's in service. This Durango just got priced today. This one's gonna be 36.9, I believe. It's a 2021 Stingray. This was in a previous lot walk. Here is a Chevy high country that I just did a video on last week. That thing turned out fantastic. Looks really good. There's the Wrangler 4x8 Rubicon X that I just did a video on this morning. That thing's really good looking. We got a bunch of sold vehicles here as you can see. Now this is one of the ones that we got in over the weekend. This is a 2019 Ram 2500 Big Horn Level A night edition. It has 37,000 miles and it is billet silver metallic. It's got a couple little dings and stuff on it, but for the most part really a nice truck. This is a Ram 2500 that we have sold as well. How's everybody's months going?  Here's a mega cab that we got in. It's got like 150,000 miles on it. Just put the paperwork into the shop today. So that's going to be going in and this one's got to go to our body shop. This one is wholesale. This one is wholesale. This one is wholesale. This one's in service. That one I believe just got out of service. That traverse back there. Wholesale, wholesale, wholesale. This one is wholesale. We're waiting on title or something on that one. Anyways, I got a GMC somewhere. There it is. Yeah, so let me know how everybody's months are going. Definitely picked up a little bit today, which is good. We need a strong day every day for the rest of the month here to make this thing okay. This is a 2014 GMC Sierra 1500 Crew Cab Short Box SL E1 Z71 in Bronze Alloy Metallic. Pretty nice truck at 63,000 miles on it. Lower rockers got a little bit of love they need. So not sure if we're going to keep that one, but here's everything that we got in and basically I've got a 2022 mega cab right here. All these vehicles are going to be listed in the description below or with a link to our website for all the options and we'll have pictures up of everything tomorrow, but this is a 2022 Ram 2500 mega cab Laramie level a night edition mega cab with only 6,000 miles that thing's really nice couple little dings in the box, but other than that very very nice. This is a 2023 Ram 2500 crew cab short box Laramie level a night edition Cummins diesel and that's got the new hood on it. So it looks pretty good. That one has 29,000 miles. This is a 2023 Chevy Silverado 2500 crew cab short box LT1 Z71 North sky blue with the black wheels that one's got 17,000 miles on it. That thing is in really nice condition and this truck right here is stock number 14335 Z This is a 2022 Ram 2500 Laramie level a night edition like I told you we got Just about everything that came in was a Laramie night edition That's granite crystal. That's a really nice truck couple little dings, but nothing too bad this Chevy's in really nice shape like I said and Like that color with the black wheels and everything this one was really well kept really clean on the inside when it came in And then this is another 2022 Laramie level a night edition this one has 10,000 miles, but it is a long box. So really nice truck there and That's it. That's all we got in over the weekend It was kind of a slow weekend for us as far as inventory goes We got a pro master there that one is sold. I've got a ram that I'm going to do video on tonight I've got a Acura RDX that I've got a video to do tonight I have no idea what this is customer vehicle just got pulled there or something. I don't know And then I've got a ram night edition 3500 that I got video tonight. So we got three to video and Those will be coming up later tonight, but everything else. Like I said is Impressive so if everybody is having a good month and Keep strong and we'll get them all sold here in just a little bit and Happy holidays to everybody. We'll do it again next week though and go to the website right there for all of our inventory and Have a great day


Welcome back to another Photoshop tutorial. In this one, I'm going to show you how to get rid of a very heavy-duty double chin. This looks like Honey Boo Boo's mom, I believe, and we've managed to get rid of her double chin just like this, so there it's gone. How did I do it? It's quite complicated. Well, it's not complicated, but there's a number of steps, so I'm going to show you step-by-step how to do it. All right, here is a fresh copy of the image, and we're about to begin. The first step, go over to your left side here, and we're going to grab the pen tool. We're going to draw basically a selection around her chin, so I'm just going to click on there, and then I just drag it to make sure that I got her nicely done here. So I've got that. I'm going to go down to right about here, down to the crease of her neck, over to here, over to about here.  It doesn't have to be perfect. We just want a selection that gets most of the neck here, and we're going to leave the rest. With that done, we're now going to right-click on it. So right-click, and you can now go make selection. We're going to add a feathered radius of about four pixels. You can do it, maybe even, yeah, four pixels is fine, but anywhere between four and five works best. Click on OK. So now we've made that selection. The next step is you want to hold down Command key on a Mac, Control key if you're on a PC, and the J, and what it does is it creates copy. So copy from layer. Command J twice, or Control J twice, and we've created two new layers or two new copies of just the selection. Now I'm going to go back to my Move tool, and I'm going to go ahead and hold down the Alt or the Option key and move my little hand here so that's right between these two lines, and that's going to create a clipping mask. So we've got a clipping mask, and we've got these two layer copies. Now, on this top copy, making sure you're selected on the top one, you want to go to Image, actually, you know what?  We're going to warp the top copy, and then we're going to do some painting after that. So basically, the general gist is if it's an easy transformation, you just pull this middle piece up like that, and you can see the chin is basically disappearing as it's supposed to. However, because we're using a difficult double chin, it's not working on the edges. So we're going to go ahead and pull the edges up a little bit, bit by bit by bit, and this might have to actually come down a bit. Again, this is not going to be perfect, but that's OK, because I'm going to show you how to get the hard parts done. So this is getting a little wonky here. So let's go ahead and go to about there. Maybe we'll just keep it there, actually, and then we'll just pull this part in. So we're basically just pulling in little bits and pieces. This side here is a little bit trickier, as you can tell. So we're going to have to go with something like that. And then I'm going to hit Enter. And again, this is not perfect. It's not supposed to be perfect. However, we got rid of the main double chin underneath the center. And then we're going to have to paint a little bit on the right side to show you how to get the rest done. OK, good. So we've gone from let's go. Where are we? We're here. This is where we started. Honey Boo Boo. It's Mom. OK, come on, Curtis. We started there. Add that in. Add that in. On our way. The next step is we're going to create a new layer on top of this. And now we're getting out the paintbrush. And we're going to get rid of some of these issues using the paintbrush. Now, when I grab the paintbrush, I'm going to grab a soft round brush. I'm going to go ahead and increase the size. Let's see. Yeah, something like that. We're going to increase the size to a bigger size to start. And then we're going to do some fine tuning at the end. OK, good. So we've got a bigger size brush. And you're going to notice very, very clearly that I have a flow of 10%. This is not standard. You're going to probably be have 100%, 100%. Drop your flow down to 10%. And there's a good reason why, because we're going to be doing some delicate work here. So now I've got the brush selected. I'm going to hold down the Alt or the Option key. And what you can do now, I'm going to work on this side here, is I can just paint over top of the creases here. So I'm going to go ahead and just held down the Alt or the Option key. And then I left click on it. And that selects the color.  As you can see, I'm going to not try to take too long with this. But I'm just basically trying to smudge in some colors here and get rid of some of this crease. Now, again, this is not supposed to be perfect. I'm trying to do this quickly so you don't hit the Disconnect button. But I'm basically cutting out some of these creases. And I'm going to try and remove some of this coloring that just doesn't look quite right to me. So something like that may be to start. Now I'm going to go ahead and reduce the size of my brush by holding one of the left bracket keys. And I'm going to click on some of this redder color here. And I'm just going to go ahead and add some of that in around the cheek here. So I'm basically just sort of adding, maybe that's a bit too much, adding some color to the cheek just to make it look so that it wasn't like it's not like painted over. We don't want to have that painted look. We want it to have that natural look. And this may be here. This could use a little bit of color in this area, too. So I'm just slowly clicking on this, adding a little bit of pink in just to make it look like it's a natural as opposed to painted. Now you'll see here that this is what we've painted on this top layer. Here's the start. Click, click, click, double chin's gone. That's how you do it inside Photoshop the right way. Thanks for watching.


Well, hello and welcome to Issues and Answers, live on the National Television Network, NTN. We are here today from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labor to focus on an issue which, if left unchecked, can shock the entire nation. My name is Shannon LeBorn, the Communications Officer at the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labor. Electrical safety is our topic for discussion and my guest, Mr. Shane Jha, the Acting Chief Electrical Engineer. Mr. Jha, thanks for joining us today on the program. Hello, good morning. Thank you very much, Mr. LeBorn. First of all, we want to discuss the roles and functions of your department, the electrical department of the ministry. So tell us what is the mandate of your team and what is it that you do? Okay. First of all, I'm going to start by explaining to you what exactly is the electrical department. The electrical department basically forms part of the Ministry of Infrastructure. We basically have two offices, the main one being at Union castries and we also have an auxiliary office at the infrastructure building in Vufort, that's in Latuni. The electrical department basically is headed by the Chief Electrical Engineer, deputized, who is in turn deputized by the electrical engineer. We have a reception staff and also an inspection staff. What is it that the electrical engineer, the electrical department does? The electrical department basically has four functions and basically has, among other things, right, four functions. And I'm going to elaborate on all four of them briefly. First of all, we issue new licenses to electricians, to individuals that want to become electricians. So basically that is usually done via an exam that is issued every day. Secondly, when you see there is a structural fire or a fatal electrical accident, like the one we recently had at La Cleary, right? The electrical department is supposed to investigate these incidents. Thirdly, we issue basically, we're the ones that deal basically with the street lighting program.  And fourthly and possibly what you can be considered most importantly, we carry out electrical inspections, testing and certification of new, existing and temporary installations. Right. I think that the last point is maybe what drives the most business to your department, not what drives the most citizens' interest to the work of your department. That function of obtaining an electrical connection, citizens have to go through your office. Share with us what is that procedure like. Okay. You see, when someone is starting the construction process, and a lot of people do not know that, but as soon as they are about to start the construction process, we should be informed. Right. That is usually done via what is called from D, from new installations and from C for existing installations that they are gridding. Right. So therefore that's the first thing that is done. And that is, so therefore the client or whether it is the stick holder, right, will hire the electrician and that electrician must be certified. That is very important. There are lots of electricians out there, right, but the electrician has to be certified. So therefore that person will have an ID saying that they are an electrician and they have a number. Right. If they have doubts, obviously they can call the electrical department and we can verify that for them. And after that from D, right, the person goes along, then the installation is basically constructed. Things, wires and so on. Sorry. Wires are installed, fixtures are installed, right. And then at the end of that process, right, that is assuming that it's not a very long fees, right. If it's a construction, if it's a facility like a hotel or something like that, that takes a very long period of time, right. What we do periodically, usually every two weeks or every month, right, we go, we visit the site to see if everything is growing according to plan, right. Then, right, at the end of the installation process, the electrician will now apply to us. They apply it to us and within a period of, they paid one of the fees that are required, right. And within a period of, let's say five days, right, the inspectors go to that installation, they carry out the inspections, they test in, right. We collect the results, we return to the office, we analyze it, we do the necessary recording, right. And then the certificate, the final certificate is drawn up and afterwards that is signed by the chief electrical engineer, right. So therefore the entire process basically takes about eight days. A number of steps is the aim ready to ensure safety at the end of the day. The key there is ensuring safety, right, that's the key, right. As a matter of fact, that's the whole purpose of the electrical department. Ensuring that facilities out there, electrical installations out there are safe. And I need to repeat something. It doesn't matter if it, that should be for new installations and existing installations that are being upgraded. Right, right. I'm sure we'll discuss that in further detail shortly. But you spoke about the inspectors who are attached to your department. Who are they, how can persons identify that these are legitimate officers of the department? And what are some of the daily operations of those team members? Okay. The electrical inspectors, the electrical inspectors can easily be identified because they carry an ID. So therefore when they reach whatever installation it is, the client, the installation owner, right, can ask to see that ID. Right. What it is that they do, usually they go to the installation, they go to the installation, right. And the first thing that they do, they carry out what is called a visual inspection. A visual inspection basically will entail, right, ensuring that there is a ground outside. That is, that different fixtures are not broken, right. Basically ensuring that the installation is complete. That is what they call the inspection fees. Okay. Afterwards, right, they're going to do what is called testing. Now the testing phase involves, right, the use of the equipment that they carry around, right, in that little yellow box, right. And they will usually carry out most of the inspections from the electrical panel, right. They carry out what they call installation readings to ensure that all wires during the installation process, they're still intact, right. Also, they carry out what is called continuity readings to ensure that this cable leaving this point on the panel is truly as the design sees, right, going to that point, right. And also what they do, they also ensure that the necessary, how can I describe that, electrical breakers, right. They are over the correct reading, right. Right. Up to standard. Up to standard, yeah. Absolutely. It's definitely an expert operation, expert task, the work of those electrical inspectors and definitely the work of the electrical department. We hear from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labor. We focus in on electrical safety and the operations of the electrical department. We're due for our very first break on issues and answers live on the National Television Network. We'll be back in a moment. Pamela, I noticed that you built your retaining wall on my property. You'll have to give me my land back or compensate me for that. My contractor isn't dumb. I trust that he will not build anything on your property. Where is your proof? Let's go to court. This situation does not require you to go to court. Looks like we have to go through mediation here. Mediation is a way people resolve conflicts like this. Someone, a third party, comes to speak to both parties. This person is called the mediator. The mediator is impartial. He or she makes sure that communication between both parties is effective and efficient. So, the mediator is a judge? No, the mediator is not a judge. Mediators, unlike judges, do not decide cases or impose settlements. Let me get a mediator to handle this retaining wall and that kitchen. Kitchen? Yes. Your kitchen also falls on my land. Let me call the mediator. Welcome back to the program. On the first segment, we gave you an introduction to the rules and functions of the electrical department. The key priority, as explained by the acting chief electrical engineer, Mr. Sheen, is to ensure safety throughout the Lenten berth of St. Lucia. Electrical inspection and permits for mass crowd events. Another very important function of your team. We headed into the carnival season where we have many mass crowd events and I'm sure you want to alert members of the public and promote us in particular that they have to follow what is enshrined in law and get electrical inspections and permits for those events. First of all, why is this important? Absolutely. And I'm especially coming into the carnival and jazz season. We know for a fact that we are going to have a lot of mass crowd events. Usually these are going to involve open field events where stands are going to be installed. But as with any event like that, they are going to be electrical equipment because obviously the loudspeakers have to be powered up. A lot of these events are held at night. So therefore you require some level of illumination which involves obviously the installation of lighting, the means of switching obviously and some occasions you have vendors that are selling stuff. So therefore they require power to, whether it is to warm up the food so that they can sell and so on and so forth. Now what has happened in the past?  These installations are going to be constructed and afterwards, because they do not require a new connection from the new select, they will not come up to us. Because you see what they usually do, because the energy, the electricity that will power up these events are already existing. Basically it's almost like an extension. They basically take the power from an existing facility and power up the event. Now this is not just illegal, it is also unsafe. Because what procedure they are supposed to follow? The electrician or whoever is constructing these, putting up these points for these mass events, first of all they are supposed to construct them and then they are supposed to follow the correct procedure which involves applying to us and then we send out our team there, our electrical inspection team, we go out there, we do the necessary inspections and ensure that it is safe which is basically what we should all be concerned about and then which we are supposed to issue a certificate to them and all this is supposed to happen before the show starts, before. Right. You almost opened a can of worms and it's maybe important that we are here today to put the information out there so people know what the procedure is and know what they should do so we don't find ourselves in a situation where we have a mass crowd fatality. Absolutely. And let me elaborate on something. This is particularly important because you see in some occasions some of these mass crowd events are close to water and some of the procedures that, for example, some of the points, some of the fixtures that are normally installed do not meet that standard at all. So therefore it's all these things that we are there to verify. What is the legislative backing that you have to deal with this issue? You see, the electrical department basically, we don't just go out there and carry out inspections, right? We do it by law. We get our mandate, basically our legal mandate comes from what is called the Electricity Supply Act and the Electricity Supply Act basically you can describe it as that part of the legislation that deals with generation and transmission and distribution of electrical energy. Right, so there is a law. There is a law, absolutely. There is a law.  Absolutely, we have to. I'm going to assume that on many occasions these things happen because people are not away. And therefore this program we are having right now it is very important in informing the public as to what they have to do, right? Some of the papers, the certificates that they are supposed to have worked in when they are going to have an event like this, of this nature. Absolutely and we look forward to the support of the event promoters and even patrons to ensure that the various procedures are followed so that the people at the bars coming into the venue and at these shows are safe throughout the duration. As we conclude the discussion we just wanted to focus quickly on illegal extensions of established connections. You have a number of domestic and even commercial enterprises looking to extend on existing connections. Absolutely. And there is a procedure where we can support them. This is like the illegal extension of electrical energy into mass power defense, right? This also happens with existing structures also. For example, let's take for instance that, I don't know if you recall earlier when I mentioned that one of our functions basically is to test and inspect not only new installations but upgrades to existing installations. So what will happen on most occasions that because the electricity is there already and they do not require a new certificate so that Lucille gives them a connection out of stakeholders or clients, what they will basically do to hide an electrician and extend on an existing structure. Now, a lot of things can happen, right? And I'm going to explain why it is important to bring the Ministry of Infrastructure and the electrical department into play when something like that happens. You see on some occasions, simply by extending existing installations, right? You've changed a lot of things, right? You've increased on the mood. And let's say for instance on some occasions the mood panel is not changed or the main breaker, the main isolate is not changed or some other breakers are not changed. So basically what you've done is to add more load, basically. But the origin, where the electrical energy is coming from, the breakers and so on that has not been changed at all, you see? So therefore that is the reason and automatically this solution will become unsafe. So though it was safe initially, now that it has been upgraded or tampered with, right? It has now become unsafe, right? So it's for all these reasons that the electrical department has to become involved when existing structures have been upgraded. Absolutely. Mr. Shea and I want to thank you for first of all accepting our invitation to be here on this program and secondly for giving off all that valuable information to members of the public who we now believe are more educated on the various procedures that they should follow. These issues I'm sure you would agree can shock the entire country if left unchecked. We do not want to leave them unchecked. This is why we have begun the discussion and we are here today on issues and answers live on the National Television Network. My guest today was Mr. Shea and Jean, the acting chief electrical engineer in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labor. This was just the first peek into the work of the electrical department. We will be sure to catch up again and discuss exactly what has been done by Mr. Shea and his team to ensure safety procedures and allow for safety throughout the length and breadth of St. Lucian to avoid electrical mishaps. My name is Jean and I'm on behalf of the entire team of the National Television Network. Thank you so much for joining us.