Seasons Greetings

The executive of ideasUK would love to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

A big thank you to all our members who have taken part in the Idea of the Year Award as well as those who have attended our networking meetings and annual conference.

2009 has been a great year and 2010 promises to be just as good if not better!

Our offices in Cardiff will be closed from Wednesday 23th December to Monday 4th Janaury 2010. If you do send anything via e-mail during this time it will be dealt with when we return.

Regards

Andy Beddows,
Chairman

Conference Charity Raffle 2009

Each year, ideasUK holds a charity raffle at its annual awards dinner. This year we the beneficiary for the money raised was Macmillan Cancer Support.

Every year 1 in 3 people are touched in some way by cancer whether that be directly or through a friend or family.

Macmillan are a source of support, helping with all the things that people affected by cancer want and need. It's not only patients who live with cancer, so Macmillan also help carers, families and communities. Macmillan guide people through the system, supporting them every step of the way. They fund nurses and other specialist health care professionals and build cancer care centres. But Macmillan give so much more than medical help.

People need practical support at home, so Macmillan provide anything from some precious time off for a carer, to a lift to hospital. People need emotional support, so they listen, advise and share information though their cancer support specialists, website and trained professionals.

People need financial help to cope with the extra costs cancer can bring, so Macmillan give benefits advice, and grants for anything from heating bills to travel costs. Together they listen, they learn, they act to help people live with cancer.

This year we raised £640.00 through the raffle and Jorn Lovstrom, Vice Chairman or ideasUK is seen here presenting the cheque.

A big thank you to all the organisations who donated a prize this year, without your help we would not be able to support a charity each year.

Yet Another Award for ideasUK Chairman

ideasUK Chairman, Andy Beddows had one more reason to celebrate at the recent ideasUK Conference.

The executive committee had been planning and scheming throughout the conference in preparation for hijacking Andy at the end of the awards ceremony and presenting him with the first ever ideasUK Lifetime achievement award.

After all the awards had taken place, Graham Holt took to the stage and the look of confusion on Andy's face was plain for all to see. After all, Andy had developed the awards night format with the MC for the evening and everything was supposed to be finished.

The look however, turned from confusion to embarrassment has Graham began to explain about the lifetime achievement award and gave a little background to the work that Andy does behind closed doors to ensure ideasUK maintains its position as the worlds leading organisation for Employee Driven Innovation.

After the award was presented it was time for Andy to say a few words and fighting back the tears he managed to thank everyone involved but a special and heartfelt thanks went out to his wife Judith who has supported all the work he has done with ideasUK over the past 10 years.

Speaking after the award, Graham commented ' There is no one more deserving of this award than Andy, he consistently shows that ideasUK flows though is veins and works tirelessly for the association.'

This is the second award that has been presented to Andy this year, during the Ideas Arabia conference in May he was presented with the first International Achievement Award from the Dubai Quality Group.

As a committee, we would like to thank Andy for all his hard work and just mention the fact although he has been given this award, we do expect more of the same in future...........

Conference Feedback

Every now and then you read something that really makes you sit up and take notice.

I would like to share with you some feedback from our recent conference by one of the Idea of the Year Finalists.

I was lucky enough to attend the Ideas UK Conference in Chester, an annual event which brings together organisations from across the world to celebrate innovation, share ideas and reflect upon our experiences as an innovative organisation in challenging times.

Setting off from Bristol at 6.00am full of anticipation, everything was on track until the train grinded to a halt outside Hereford. After an hour, we were advised an incident had closed the line ahead and we would be reverting back to Hereford. It now seemed unlikely we would make the 11.00am start and when confirmed that a coach would be taking us to Shrewsbury (over one and half hours away) so we could reconnect to the rail network I did start to worry. However, a quick call to the organisers soon settled my nerves and at 1.30pm we finally arrived! After a quick change and lunch with Liz Parker (Innovation and Investment Team, LBG) we went straight into a keynote seminar run by Richard Mound, IBM Global Business Services, who talked about innovation and social networking. One of the key messages I took from this was the importance of encouraging colleagues from across the business to get involved in process improvement, whether they’ve been in the company 10 days or 10 years.

Next it was time for my interview with the Ideas UK judges – my idea to streamline payment transfers from closed business accounts to Customer Debt Management was implemented back last year and nominated for an award by the LBG Innovation and Investment Team and then shortlisted by the Ideas UK judges. 10 minutes later, I emerged from the room having felt like I’d done another competency based interview, but I had the International networking supper to look forward to, so no time for dwelling on my performance. We met with representatives from across the world, sharing best practise on idea and information gathering and retired late into the night having been well fed.

The following day we attended two more seminars, one which was run by Andrea Kelly (President of Harris County Hospital, USA) who reinforced the message that we need to listen to our customers and colleagues to unlock the true potential of innovation. The presentation ceremony kicked off after lunch, where certificates were issued for commended and highly commended ideas and finalists were invited to take to the stage for photos. Both myself and Tim Hiscocks (Commercial, Direct Channels – also a finalist in the competition) had our photos taken and then went to get ready for the evening awards ceremony. Entering the dining room at 7.00pm we immediately felt like stars thanks to the Hollywood theme and could not wait for proceedings to begin. Both myself and Tim were entered into the Financial Services category (improving an organisations financial efficiency) and when our names were displayed as finalists we felt really excited. However, the winning entry came from Cyprus Communications so we both congratulated each other on getting to the final and celebrated with some drinks.

However, there were three more awards to present before dinner, including the Private Sector Trophy (for the idea considered to be the best overall from the private sector). There were no finalists for this category and when my name was called out as the winner I couldn’t have been more surprised! After a shaky walk up to the stage I was presented with my certificate and trophy and had my picture taken with the Chairman of Ideas UK, Andy Beddows. As the winning organisation, Lloyds Banking Group also received a trophy and we celebrated our achievement well into the night! Trying to fit two trophies into my case was hard work the following day but they’ve now taken pride of place on my desk as a reminder that innovation can be achieved through the simplest of mediums and make a big impact on customer service.

Special thanks to those who helped make this happen, and of course Liz Parker for nominating me!

Lucy Hardy
Assistant Manager - SBLU


Innovation can touch the hearts of every employee in your organisation. Lucy enjoyed her time at the conference and took a lot away that can be shared within her business unit.

Our 2010 conference will take place in the Holland House Hotel Cardiff on the 10/11 November 2010. Bookings are now being taken so contact us today for more details!!