The Chamber

A record number of bands have applied to perform at the UK’s biggest free urban youth festival, organisers have revealed.

 A total of 145 bands from across the country responded to a search to find the nation’s best unsigned acts to perform live at HUB 2008.

And after an intensive judging process involving industry professionals, the Liverpool Culture Company has announced the 13 acts that will perform in front of more than 20,000 people at Otterspool Park over Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18.

Spanning a range of musical styles – including funk, pop, indie, and rock – the bands are:

• Signified (Aigburth) 

• Connecting Flight (Litherland)

• Hades Chariot (Walton)

• Metro Manila Aide (Mossley Hill)

• Gorbachov (city centre)

• The Buizniez (Kent)

• Vacancy in 305 (Garston)

• Tied Up (city centre)

• Crash Ambers Party (Crosby)

• Sensorites (Walton)

• Elevators (Leeds)

• Foeism (Wavertree)

• Killaflaw (Mossley Hill)

South Liverpool act Metro Manila Aide will be taking part in HUB for the fifth time this year. Band member Paul McBride said “It’s important to have a festival for the people of Liverpool with the backing of the city. HUB always combines music, dance and art in equal portions and when the sun comes out it’s great to rock out on the massive stage.”

Successful artists will be joining confirmed headliner Shlomo, one of the world’s finest human beatboxers, who will perform a special one hour set using only his voice on Sunday. Young Kof, Sona Family & Outthebox, Lazy Habits and BabyGravy complete the line-up.

Susan Whitehead, event organiser from the Liverpool Culture Company, said: “The number, quality and variety of applications was phenomenal – be it indie, funk, rock, soul, hip-hop and metal. Our judges were blown away. It just shows how far HUB’s reputation as one of the best urban youth festivals in the country is travelling.

‘’We had a really hard time getting it to this shortlist but it means the line-up at HUB this year is definitely the best we’ve ever had. I’m sure festival-goers will love the bands and the improvements we’ve made for 2008.’’

The HUB festival, now in its sixth year, was established by Liverpool Culture Company during the city’s successful bid for European Capital of Culture. It celebrates a vibrant mix of urban art, music and extreme sports including skateboarding, BMX, in-line skating, breakdancing and body popping. The event is FREE and will run from 11am-6pm on both days.

So, we’ve not lifted a story from Lifehacker for a while. To make up for it, here’s a handy list of alternative software applications you can run on your machine. They replace, and often surpass, the more familiar names you may be familiar with. They say:

“It may be the year 2008, but a whole lot of sucktacular software still rears its ugly head on PC’s everywhere, even when better-behaved options are freely available. Whether it’s molasses-slow bloatware, shameless adware, anemic default apps, or “Your trial period has expired!” nagware, it’s time to replace stinky Windows software with its superior (but lesser-known) alternative.”

The list includes alternatives to:

• Adobe
• AOL instant messenger
• Internet Explorer
• Quick Time
• Norton Anti Virus
• Media players / downloaders like Limewire, iTunes and Quick Time

Read the full list of applications on Lifehacker here.

The Times have approached the British Chambers of Commerce to try to find the views of businesses about the service offered by Royal Mail and to see if businesses are now using private suppliers.

The survey will take no more than five minutes to fill in and will be available until May 2nd. 

Hurry - it’s your last chance to book on NEBOSH as limited places are left. This seminar starts on 28th April – 2nd May then the 19th May – 23rd May and the exam date is 6th June 2008.

Forthcoming Seminars May 2008

Excel Introduction - 1st May  - 2 Days  - Liverpool  - £300
First Aid Awareness at Work - 6th May  - 4 Days  - Liverpool - £240
Word Introduction - 6th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £300
Excel Advanced - 8th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £330
Access Advanced - 12th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £330
Cold Canvassing for Appointments - 15th May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £160
Core Leadership Programme - 3 Days - Liverpool - £160
High Performance Leadership - 15th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £995
First Aid Refresher - 15th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £150
Equality and Diversity for Staff - 15th May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £185
IOSH Working Safely - 16th May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £165
PowerPoint Introduction - 19th May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £150
Project Introduction - 19th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £330
First Aid Awareness - 20th May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £85
Access Introduction - 22nd May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £300
Equality Opportunities Training Programme for Managers - 22nd May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £185
Successful Selling - 23rd May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £199
Project Advanced - 26th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £390
Maximum Achievement - 28th May - 2 Days - Liverpool - £995
Employment Disciplinary & Grievance Procedures - 28th May - Half Day - Liverpool - £105
IOSH Working Safely - 30th May - 1 Day - Liverpool - £165
Core Leadership Programme - 29th May - 3 Days - Liverpool - £160

Prices do not include VAT.

Also don’t miss out on our Leadership Foundation Programme which we are running on 3rd to 5th June 2008.

For more details please contact the Chamber Professional Development on 0151 224 1883

At last you can use your Liveone20 cards in the suburbs. Two of Woolton’s most high profile restaurants are offering two meals for the price of one.

The offer is for two people and covers the two main courses from the restaurant menu with cheapest option free between the following times:

Lunch
Sunday - Friday, 12.30pm - 2.30pm

Evening
Sunday - Thursday, 6pm - 7pm

Negresco Deco is set in the leafy suburbs of Woolton Village and offers an altogether Francophile ambiance and piano bar with a laid back but glamorous atmosphere - evocative of the jazz age bars in the restaurants of the 1920s.

Casa del Cocodrilo is housed in the landmark site of the former Famous Elephant public house. As its moniker suggests, Casa del Cocodrilo adopts a Latin inspired theme, yet unmistakable influences from the USA’s deep south, such as Louisiana and the Bayou.

Casa del Crocodilo 0151 709 7097

Negresco Deco 0151 709 7097

Liverpool’s new Jury’s Inn hotel, next to Liverpool’s Arena and convention centre,  opened on Friday.

It provides superior budget three star accommodation, located at Kings Waterfront, adjacent to the Albert Dock. To celebrate its opening, Jurys is offering a special opening rate of rooms from £69 (subject to availability).

It boasts 310 spacious and comfortable bedrooms, 10 conference rooms that can accommodate between 5 & 100 delegates.

The Innfusion restaurant seats 210 and will, be serving tasty food all day and is also available for private events. II Barista ‘All day’ coffee bar is the ideal place for an informal meeting or snack. Inntro Bar can also be hired for events and holds 100 buffet and 80 sit down.

For booking, conference and menu information call June Doyle on 0151 244 3800.

Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC)

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Come along to a free seminar briefing on the implementation of the Driver CPC held by  RTITB and Voss.

Whether you operate one vehicle or 100 the CPC will affect your business. The Driver CPC will impact on almost 1,000,000 drivers; will require 3,000,000 training hours annually (freight only) and will require the training of more than 1,000 new instructors.

By any measure the CPC is a major challenge for the industry. We do hope you will be able to set aside time and attend this important FREE event.

Topics covered include:

• EU DIRECTIVE 2003/59/EC - Driver Certificate of Professional Competence: Mandatory Driver Training
• The Driver CPC in detail – who, what, when and where
• The opportunities and challenges the Directive presents
• The type of training options available
• The type of training infrastructure that will be required
• Options available for minimising cost and maximising benefits

There will also be the opportunity to see a demonstration of the RTITB’s new desktop, portable, in-house training system called Digit-ALL that can be used for training individuals or groups of drivers.

The free seminar takes place on Wednesday, 21 May between 10.30 - 12.30 followed by a buffet lunch at LACE Conference Centre, Croxteth Drive, Sefton Park, Liverpool L17 1AA.

To book your place please call Voss Training on 0151 650 6600.

Wirral TV, the new online community-focused website is now up and running.

Launched from a unique partnership of Community Trusts the new social enterprise has big ambitions to serve the information needs in the form of short films of the entire population of the Wirral. The new website Wirraltv.net has a broad ‘church’ of content from social and community issues such as dog fouling to ASBO’s to lighter content such as film festivals, music festivals, sport and horoscopes. There will be a short film for everyone no matter what age you are, gender or ethnicity.

Check out Wirral TV here.

Sponsorship opportunities are also available for local companies.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is encouraging UK businesses to enter this year’s Chamber Awards, for the chance to win £50,000 courtesy of the RBS Group. Now in its fifth year, the Chamber Awards 2008 sets out to identify outstanding business achievement within the UK business community.

There are eight different categories of Awards and companies can enter as many as they wish. The categories comprise;

Most Promising New Business
Award for Innovation Through Technology
The Green Award
Entrepreneur of The Year
Achievement in International Business
Award for Excellence in People Development
Business of the Year
Award for Excellence in Customer service

The top prize of £50,000 (donated by the RBS Group) will be awarded to the company that the judges agree should win the overall Award for Outstanding Business Achievement and will be announced along with the national winners at the Gala Dinner and Award Ceremony on 27th November 2008 at the Natural History Museum in London.

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The pilot slurs to you “I fly better when I’m drunk” as he passes your seat, staggering into the cockpit before take-off. You’d do something about that right?

But what if you couldn’t tell if he was drunk? The same lack of understanding threatens every small business.

“Myths About IT” is a series of articles written in plain English. They are ideal for any small business owner who is concerned about their business, but wants to know fast whether they have a problem.

The first in the series will give you exactly the information you need to tell if your business is safe from an IT disaster. Within a few minutes you will know.

More importantly, it gives you a series of questions you can ask of either your in-house IT expert, or the company who looks after your IT. If they pass the test, you can sleep at night!

Get the full article on the Multilsolutions website here