Surrey Entrepreneur Deserves National Recognition

A young entrepreneur, Dean Rhodes-Brandon, who runs his own home business for deaf people called ‘Your Local Cinema’, has entered The Remote Worker Awards and hopes to achieve national recognition if he wins.

Remote Employment, a job site specialising in remote working and home working positions, has launched The Remote Worker Awards in association with BT Business to highlight how home working benefits the British public and their working life.

Dean runs on remote fuel. His whole business is run from a laptop with a mobile broadband USB stick. As Dean is profoundly deaf, and rarely ventures out to meet people face to face, he prefers to correspond almost entirely by email, so being a remote worker suits him perfectly.

Dean’s business, Your Local Cinema, is an information service for people with hearing or sight problems. Winning awards is great for creating awareness for a new business and Dean is hoping a possible win for him will result in local and national media coverage for more people to hear about his service.

Dean has an incredible story about how his own need and desire to watch films blossomed into a budding business, which now serves the needs of thousands of people across the country!

His company 'Your Local Cinema.com' has successfully ensured that the UK now leads the world in the field of cinema access. 'Your Local Cinema .com' is the only cinema listings service of its kind in the world and is sponsored by the UK film industry. The service aims to create awareness of - and increase audience figures for - subtitled and audio described (narrated) cinema releases and shows, for people with hearing or visual problems.

Dean was attracted to The Remote Worker Award Dean because he has never heard about a specific award for remote workers and believes it is great that remote and home workers are now being recognised with this Award.

Being profoundly deaf and having mild cerebral palsy, Dean has overcome adversity to get his business off the ground. He cannot undertake most trades or jobs so he started his business with the aim of persuading the cinema industry to become accessible to people with hearing problems, like himself, and somehow provide on-screen subtitles.
Over the years the industry has spent millions of pounds ensuring that most UK cinemas are now accessible to people like Dean.
Along with a trophy to honour the remote worker of the year, Dean would like to win the fantastic array of prizes to improve his 'home business' as well as the wonderful eco garden office up for grabs in the Vivid Green Award.
Dean works from his garden when the weather is good, his dining table when it's not, his bedroom in the evenings and the library when he is at College. He enjoys the flexibility of working for himself, from wherever he fancies working. Dean is certainly a young man with places to go and films to see. Even though he is at college three days a week, he is clearly not afraid of hard work and long days.
There are nine different award categories in the Remote Worker Awards, which includes a national search to find the most innovative business that demonstrates how remote working and home working has made a beneficial impact on their business and home life. Dean is now in the running to win the The BT Home Business Award.
Paula Wynne, founder of Remote Employment and The Remote Worker Awards, said, "The Home Worker Awards comes at a time when thousands of people across the UK are faced with job losses or reduced hours. The Awards aim to raise awareness of remote and home working as an alternate solution the traditional nine to five office routine. We want to unearth inventive pioneers who champion home working and show the UK why more enterprises should give it a go!"
There are other categories including The Remote Worker Award and The Remote Employer Award.

For your chance to win one of these fantastic awards, enter at www.remoteworkerawards.


Notes:
The Remote Worker Awards will highlight how remote and home working benefits the environment, business productivity and employees' quality of work life.

The Remote Worker Awards will change lives!
Everyone who works remotely or works from home and employers who have remote workers are able to enter. And anybody who wants to work from home can also enter to win a £15k home based franchise of their very own as well as other great prizes, one of them being a Garden Home Office worth £10k! The Open University Skills Award gives someone the chance to train or re-train for a brand new career!

About Your Local Cinema
The cinema industry uses Dean’s service to reach out to people with hearing or sight problems who are interested in going to the cinema. All cinemas with a subtitle & audio description system email my service their listings each week.

Dean sorts them all out, and every week sends out an e-newsletter to more than 60,000 addresses, containing those subtitled and described films, locations and show times. There are around 500 subtitled shows every week, and thousands more audio described shows in more than 300 cinemas nationwide.

Dean’s company is an advocate for the public, and deals with representatives of the cinema/film business on behalf of the public.

It's a member of the film industry's 'Disability Working Group', a collection of representatives from cinema, distribution and technology companies, as well as representatives from the main charities for people with hearing or sight problems. This group meets regularly to review and plan the future of 'accessible' cinema.

It began with a campaign, with a petition to the cinema industry. Dean trialed it in his school, which had a dozen deaf students and the petition got over a thousand names from that school alone. So he launched a website to publicise the petition nationally and over the next year or so got many, many thousands of names. Eventually Dean took the petition to the UK Film Council, who spend millions of pounds annually on film- related projects, and persuaded them to seriously investigate the 'cinema access' issue.

They looked into the matter and after more than three years of campaigning for better access, and actually working with the film industry, his company was hired by the film industry to be the 'marketing arm' of cinema access. The main cinema companies and film distributors, as well as a few technology companies and the UK Film Council now sponsor his service.
For more information please contact:

PAULA WYNNE
Remote Worker Awards
Office: 0844 800 8355
Mobile: 077 8986 2746
Skype: 'remoteemployment'
Email: paula@remoteworkerawards.com
Web: www.remoteworkerawards.com

Dean’s contact: subtitles@yourlocalcinema.com
Dean’s website: http://www.yourlocalcinema.com

Businesswoman Wins Another Award

Last Thursday ten business women and ten of the UK’s leading businesswomen joined in the celebration when the winner of the FreshIdeas Events Mentor Competition was announced at a ceremony hosted by HSBC in London.

Karen Darby and Paula Wynne were stunned to find out that they had been chosen as the most successful mentoring couple from the very strong group of contestants, all of whom who had successful partnerships with their mentors.

Karen Darby, CEO of Call Britannia and Paula Wynne, co-founder of Remote Employment and the Remote Worker Awards, and Jackie Brennan, Director of FreshIdeas Events and organiser of the Mentor Competition, are available to share their mentoring experience with the millions of small business owners across the UK.

The eager entrepreneurs who entered the competition six months ago, have been mentored by the ‘cream’ of the UK’s entrepreneurial business women, fondly known as the MAD 'Make A Difference' Woman.

Karen Darby, founder of SimplySwitch, Karen Hanton of tobtable.co.uk and Jo Haigh, Author and Head of Corporate Finance of MGR who has bought and sold over 300 companies in the last 20 years, and Polly Gowers, Founder of Everyclick.com, a search engine that gives half of its revenue to charity, shared their experience with the large audience.

From the 10 businesswomen mentees, Paula impressed the judges with her passion and enthusiasm to succeed and for the innovative Remote Employment concept. Paula is Director and Co-founder of Remote Employment, an online web service dedicated to connecting employers with job seekers who work remotely or work from home, and has seen substantial expansion to her business with Karen’s help and guidance.

Paula said: “I am thrilled to win this prestigious award! I feel so privileged to have been a part of this competition. Working with Karen has been an incredible experience for me and my business!”

Karen Darby kicked off the evening with a talk about mentoring and how it can help a business grow. She finished by saying that she enjoyed learning from Paula’s experiences and because it was such a ‘buzz’ she was now mentoring other business owners.

The successful mentoring 'couple' shared their journey with delightful stories of Karen fishing frogs out of her garden pond to add intrigue to Paula’s stand at an Olympia exhibition, and Paula wearing brightly coloured guest slippers while Karen served chocolate crepes and vanilla ice cream during their meetings at Karen’s home.

Along with lots of fun and laughter, the audience also heard about inspirational moments, determination, business ‘savvy’ and revenue growth. After meetings with Karen and her whirlwind of lateral thinking, Paula invariably dashed off firing all guns, buttons, and cylinders to create new marketplace activities.

One of the initiatives Karen and Paula have worked on is launching The Remote Worker Awards, which highlights how remote working benefits business mobility, and if offering life changing prizes such as a home based franchise worth £15k, an Open University study grant and five business start up kits.

During the evening incredible stories emerged about how this mentoring experience has not only changed the Mentee’s businesses, but also changed the way the experienced and gifted Mentors do business.

Paula and Karen were presented with prizes from HSBC and Business Link in London, who have supported the innovative competition.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Fran Currie, Chief Operating Officer at Business Link in London congratulated the participants on their achievements. She said: “Congratulations to all of the participants for their hard work and perseverance. These women learned from the best in the fields and I am highly impressed with the quality of all the entrepreneurs.”

Pointing to recent research conducted by Business Link in London, Ms Currie said that many women entrepreneurs continue to face barriers to developing and growing their business. “Business Link in London was delighted to support this worthwhile programme. It is vital in the current climate that London’s women entrepreneurs are encouraged by other established businesses and organisations to develop and succeed in their own business ventures.”

Jackie Brennan, Director of FreshIdeas Events said: “The awards evening is a fitting celebration of the entrepreneurs’ achievements. We are pleased to have matched such bright entrepreneurs with some of London’s leading businesswomen. This scheme has required hard work from all of these women, and the positive outcome from this mentoring programme is extremely promising for the UK’s small business community.”

Along with her daily business, Paula is a SEEDA Women's Enterprise Ambassador and talks to women around the UK about the exciting new remote working culture. Her personal experience and proof of her determination and persistence is inspirational. Paula’s passion and enthusiasm for knowledge, new experiences, and business focus motivates other women’s belief in their business and renews their confidence.

For more details, go online www.freshideasevents.com or browse www.remoteemployment.com. For a chance to win one of the life changing prizes on offer, check out www.remoteworkerawards.com.

Remote Worker Awards Highlighted At Launch of SHEplc

A group of enterprising business women gathered at one of Berkshire’s premier hotels on the 1st of May to join in the re-launch of SHEplc, a dynamic network of businesswomen.

Mary Flavelle, founder of SHEplc, formed SHEplc in 2005,when she worked at the Chamber of Commerce. Hundreds of ladies have attended over the years and many have gone on to fantastic heights with their businesses, yet when Mary left the Chamber nearly three years ago the networking eventually events faded.

Mary’s belief and faith that one day she would own SHEplc came to pass when the Chamber handed it back to her with their blessing. Mary’s first guest speaker to launch the new and very exciting SHEplc, was Paula Wynne, founder of Remote Employment, Remote Employment, a job site specialising in flexible, remote and home working.

Paula was introduced as an Entrepreneur, Internet Female Hero, SEEDA Woman’s Ambassador, Businesswomen, Mum, Freelancer, Writer and PR Hound Dog!

Paula shared her journey of setting up Remote Employment soon after a shoulder operation left her with a dislocated collarbone and subsequent operations to reconstruct her shoulder with metal plates. Consumed with pain and discomfort as well as suffering from sleepless nights, Paula’s determination and persistence to succeed pulled her through.

During this very difficult time, Paula’s passion for the concept of remote working and home working launched the online website with lots of attention and Paula’s infectious enthusiasm has seen the company receive two business awards in a short space of time.

Paula invited all of Mary’s guests to enter The Remote Worker Awards, which aims to raise awareness for remote and home working as an alternative solution to redundancy and the traditional nine to five office routine.

The awards has nine different categories and award winners will walk away with a prestigious trophy and will enjoy up to £50k in prizes, including a Penthouse Garden Office worth £10k, a Home Based Franchise worth £15k, interior design, business starter kits, a mobile laptop and a fabulous luxury weekend at a von Essen Hotel.

Paula is used to talking to groups of women about being a PR Hound for their business along with other topics on marketing and business advice, and many of the SHEplc guests found her recent experience inspiring.

One such guest, Christine Chalklin, Astrologer and Life Coach, later thanked Paula for giving her business journey a ‘personal touch’. Christine has the fascinating task of giving chart readings to businesses who want a celestial map for navigating their business path.

Mary’s guests included Tessa Harris, editor of Berkshire Life, Carla Delaney, Editor of Business Monthly and Debra Aspinall, Editor of Vive Magazine. Mary said: “It was very exciting and exhilarating to launch my dream for SHEplc at Cliveden House. We had a wonderful group of ladies who enjoyed every minute of networking and sharing their business success with each other. We want to see more ladies joining us every month and share in the SHE experience!”

For more information about SHEplc and Mary’s fantastic business networking, get onto www.sheplc.com and get networking.

Or for more information or any other enquiry about working from home or working remotely, call 0844 800 8355 or browse www.remoteemployment.com. To have a chance to win one of the fabulous prizes, enter the Remote Worker Awards at www.remoteworkerawards.com.