Author Archives: John

Maple Sunscreening: external louvres, eco-friendly and ethical architectural solutions

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When it comes to assessing the environmental impact of your business; as well as thinking about costs of heating and air conditioning, one consideration that many organisations often forget is the way that shade and sunlight are used outside the building. The environmental and financial implications of keeping a building hot or cool can be significant. In fact, it can be one of an organisation’s single biggest expenses. Add in the costs of protecting it from degradation caused by the elements, and it becomes clear that traditional bricks and mortar, and straightforward solutions like central heating or air conditioning aren’€™t adequate: more subtle strategies are required. Since 1983, Maple Sunscreening has offered a way of turning the elements from foe to friend, by harnessing them to your advantage.

Intelligently-placed products like brise soleils, glass louvres and other external louvres can help you make the most out of the natural heating and cooling that the weather offers, by ordering shade and sunlight intelligently. A well-placed glass louvre can improve airflow and rain defence simultaneously; on the other hand, an opaque external louvre on a roof can improve the rain-resistance of a building while masking ugly rooftop plant, for a better appearance. And a brise soleil is a perfect tool for strategically creating shaded zones around the outside of your building, to keep rooms at a desirable temperature and prevent them from baking in the sun!

Placing external louvres and other structures optimally can be a tricky business, and the technical complexity of the undertaking can often seem daunting. But Maple Sunscreening have the expertise and the wherewithal to make it a breeze!

Maple Sunscreening know that selecting, designing and installing the right external louvre or brise soleil can be highly technically demanding. But their service is organised in such a way as to provide the maximum local, personalised assistance as possible. Maple Sunscreening is divided into regional offices, and it handles its clients on a regional basis, to make sure that you are given the maximum support from start to finish. Maple Sunscreening offers a rounded package of support, with dedicated teams who can help you every step of the way, from conceiving and designing the product your building needs, to producing it in their own workshop, to installing it. An ethical company, they are dedicated to explaining every stage in the process honestly and straightforwardly their aim is to do business while maximising the energy efficiency of buildings in the UK, not to bamboozle clients into ordering unnecessary works.

Please visit https://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

Coach Hire London is Closer Than You Think

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With the summer coming to an end, now is the best time to explore England’s €˜green and pleasant land€™. And minibus hire is an enchanting way to travel, with the scenic routes and unexpected discoveries that the UK’s roads have to offer.

Whilst driving is a slower way to get from A to B than other options such as flying or high-speed rail, there is an undeniable appeal to driving across country. Luxury travel is almost always very expensive by rail or air, and economy tickets mean overcrowding, noise and bustle, whether it’s a run-down train carriage or sitting next to a crying baby on board an airplane. But luxury coach hire is inexpensive and peaceful, giving a smooth and tranquil journey – no crying babies!

And minibus hire isn’€™t just for country getaways. Britain boasts some of the most dynamic and diverse cities in the world, from bustling London to Brighton by the sea or the stunning architecture of Edinburgh’€™s streets. Each UK city is entirely individual, and there’€™s something new to discover in each one of them. There’€™s so much to explore in the UK, and with coach hire London residents can whisk themselves off to anywhere they want to go, whether it’€™s a Valentine’€™s city break in Bath or Cambridge or a remote country exploration to the beautiful Canvey Island or the Kent Downs.

Londoners travelling to commemorate a special event are one of the most popular groups to opt for the easy and inexpensive coach hire London providers can offer. Weddings, anniversaries and birthdays often mean extensive families coming together. Families often hire entire venues for celebrations, yet travel in many cars. But with luxury coach hire, the whole family can travel en masse, enjoying the journey as much as the destination.

With the rise in popularity of fine dining recently, people love to travel long distances to visit Michelin starred restaurants. By grabbing a group of like-minded friends, food-lovers can fantasise about the restaurant of their dreams without worrying about car sharing. Or for large groups, luxury coach hire is a wonderful option which means that there’s no need to draw lots for the tiring responsibility of designated driver.

Our Britain is worth discovering, and whether it’s a longing for the Yorkshire Dales, a pint of Guinness in Dublin, or an wander through the New Forest, minibus hire allows travellers to discover the most picturesque route possible, all in the peace and quiet of luxury travel.

Please visit https://www.goldenboy.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Shops for sale in North London – Benefit Career-minded Entrepreneurs

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When it comes to setting up a business, location is something that all enterprising individuals must bear in mind: regardless of the kind of service or product being developed, its influence will be almost completely reliant on the predilections of the client at its point of sale. An exaggerated illustration of the importance of place in relation to business might point out that situating a night club in the vicinity of a retirement home in Kent would be neither a sensible nor a lucrative move.

North London, however, provides a somewhat brighter range of business opportunities as its population is noticeably mixed in terms of age, ranging from students to well-off families. And, while these consumer groups tend to be computer savvy and comfortable with buying from internet-based companies, they are also surprisingly appreciative of commercial regeneration that helps prevent their high streets from becoming ghost towns. This is why shops to rent in north London or shops for sale in north london can be very beneficial investments. Indeed, especially where restaurants, hairdressers and other service industries are concerned, commercial property London will likely never be killed off by our growing infatuation with the online.

With this in mind, the entrepreneurial possibilities in the non-digitized world seem rather more promising than the bleak economic forecasts would have us believe. There may even be additional money to be earned in combining the benefits of an online business with those of physical premises – offering some products online and other services on a shop floor, for example.

There is therefore no need to be deterred by the volume of bad press surrounding the lack of bank loans for small businesses at present. Other sources of funding are available and in the current climate of unpredictability where the public sector is losing funds and pensions are looking unpromising it may be a good moment to try and go it alone; to establish something that is not reliant upon the state. Shops to rent in north London remain a career opportunity for anyone with determination, imagination, numerical and social skills. And shops for sale in north london will benefit those able to pay a lump sum for their floor space and turn business ambitions into life-long plans. Commercial property London is just replete with possibilities: whether your dream is to set up an art gallery that necessitates floor space, storage space and office space, or a new coffee house requiring room for tables and chairs, real premises may allow these dreams to be achieved.

Please visit https://www.claridges-commercial.co.uk

Phono preamp investments bringing music to the ears of vinyl lovers

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Everyone is aware that our music-listening conventions have changed quite dramatically in the space of two generations or less: while today’s hits are increasingly downloaded and saved digitally, all but the very youthful among us recollect CDs and cassettes emerging as the musical format that promised to supersede the record. However, quite unusually for the domain of technological progress, older manners of listening to music have been gradually creeping back into fashion and coexisting with the new. Of course, for those who remained faithful to vinyl even at the dawn of the CD and later the download, the reaffirmed popularity of records will seem late emerging. Indeed, vinyl addicts stand proud of their beautiful retro collections while many of us who were instantly swayed by the easy transportability of CD and Mp3 files now lament not investing in the sizeable vinyl formats whose extraordinary album art and sheer tactility and warm audio represent more enduring pleasures. And, although such converts have been pleased by the recent reappearance of records for purchase online and in music stores, just one problem remains: how to listen to vinyl through modern speakers ill-adapted to the turntable’s needs? The answer lies in the phono stage, also known as a phono preamp or a phono amp.

The reason for investing in a phono stage is quite straightforward to understand: vinyl, as played on a turntable, requires amplification one step further than the digital files and compact discs most modern speakers have been designed to play. Without the phono stage, those of us who have only recently converted to record buying will feel deceived by our initially exciting yet ultimately nigh on inaudible acquisitions. In sum, the phono stage (or phono preamp or phono amp if you prefer) is fundamental to anyone enthused by vinyl for its sound quality rather than its status as a decorative object. And presumably most of us fall into the former camp!

What remains to be considered is the level of investment one is prepared to make in what is essentially a luxury pursuit: with music so readily accessible on our computers, listening to vinyl is a contrastingly slow activity to be savoured and one that can transform private moments of relaxation or low-key soirées with friends into memorable events. With this potential in mind it is advisable to seek the best phono stage you can budget for: other phono amps and phono preamp products just won’t provide the quality that everyone’s ears deserve.

Please visit http://www.whestaudio.co.uk/

Brise soleil: their functions and importance

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Every budding architect or builder should be familiar with certain key terms, and anybody who wants his or her designs to be amongst the top buildings of today certainly needs to know his brise-soleil from his glass louvres.  One need not be confused by the sophisticatedly confusing sounding French names – these structures are really fairly simple, and as soon as you get your head around them they are likely to be extremely useful.  This article aims to give a succinct explanation of these important architectural terms, so that next time external louvres come up in conversation with a builder or architect, you will know what they mean.

The term ‘brise soleil’ is from the French, meaning ‘sun breaker’.  The term refers to a variety of permanent sun-shading techniques, and the beauty of the technique is the range of architectural strategies that come under this umbrella.  They span from basic patterned walls to the stunning mechanical, pattern-creating devices of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.  In its classic form, this sun breaker exists as a horizontal projection extending from the sun-side façade of a building.  Façades with a large amount of glass can be in danger of overheating during the summer, and installing a brise-soleil is a very effective way of stopping this from happening.  The structure can be further adapted by incorporating louvres, which prevent high-angle summer sun falling on the façade, and allow low angle winter sun to provide passive solar heating.

Glass is one of the most useful and multifunctional building products there is.  It can be used fora variety of purposes, from creating striking glass façades to elegant internal screen solutions.  Glass louvres are used to control solar heat gain within buildings, and have traditionally been tinted to create the desired effect.  More elaborate finishes are available, too.  Ceramic frits, for example, involve baking a type of paint onto the glass.  These type of finishes create a more adventurous appearance while reflecting the sun’s heat and helping to maintain a comfortable interior temperature.  Currently, glass louvres are taking on a more active role in buildings than ever before, with light redirection and photovoltaic systems allowing for various different functions.  These louvres can offer building owners and specifiers realistic solutions in terms of creating environmentally friendly buildings by reducing the need for air conditioning while providing renewable energy sources as well as shading.

Basic external louvres, on the other hand, are usually mounted in the vertical, with a row of horizontal blades shaped and positioned to minimise the ingress of water.  With relatively simple functions such as providing shade from the sun, brise-soleil, glass louvres and the like should not provoke confusion.  Once you know what they are and how they work, it should be fairly easy to assess which solution would be right for your project.

Please visit http://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Duplicate payments are potentially a source of waste

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Accounts can be a complex process, which in terms of the bottom line means they can be a costly business. There aren’t many firms that don’t have some kind of mistake in their books at the end of the year. That can have different consequences, some of them major. On the one hand, it might just mean the figures don’t quite add up, little more than a frustration to an accountant somewhere. On the other, it could result in a substantial loss of cash for your organisation, or a problem with the Inland Revenue. An accounts payable audit can help you smoothe out many of the glitches in your accounts, enabling you to locate issues such as duplicate payments and other types of overpayment. This is all possible using specialist recovery audit software, which checks your accounts and finds sources of mistakes. The results can be shocking, particularly for larger organisations, and can represent a significant saving. In fact, the software could easily pay for itself the first time you use it.

Audit software is versatile enough to check for not only problems that happen due to negligence or accident – simple human error – but also more sinister cases, such as fraud, when a client deliberately overcharges you or keeps funds that you have paid by mistake. (In fact, the Inland Revenue uses this kind of software to check returns, using the information to identify possible occurrences of fraud.) That’s important, because if your client list is long or complicated, there may well be opportunities to exploit that, costing you even more money. Running the software will flag up suspicious entries, enabling you to regain funds that you never should have paid in the first place. That’s got to be a good thing in difficult times, when every little extra could mean the difference between balancing the books and wondering about ‘efficiencies’ – usually meaning layoffs – or even worse.

If you’re in need of convincing, start with the (not unreasonable) principle that errors could account for 1 percent of turnover, perhaps more. What does that equal in cash terms, and is it worth pursuing – apart from any other concerns such as tax returns and catching fraudsters? For most companies, the answer will be a clear ‘yes’ – recovery audit software is inherently worthwhile. duplicate payments and other overpayments can be hugely and unnecessarily expensive, so an accounts payable audit is often highly illuminating.

Please visit http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/ for further information about this topic.

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Care home manager jobs vacancies are higher than searchers

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It’s not an easy task to source quality candidates to fill care home manager jobs. If you think about it, home manager jobs require a complex and potentially conflicting range of skills, combining an understanding of the clinical and caring aspects of the nursing and care professions, along with the commercial sense of any other business manager. Many nursing home manager jobs are filled by candidates who lean to one side of this divide or the other; lacking either the clinical understanding needed to manage nursing staff well or the commercial experience needed to run a profitable business. In an ideal world, a care home would be run by someone with hands-on experience of the nursing profession together with the business acumen required of anyone heading up a successful commercial organisation. It is indeed a tough ask – so what is the answer?

As in many other sectors of the healthcare industry, it is becoming increasingly common to involve recruitment agencies when looking for new managers, but can an agency really understand the uniquely complex needs of the home manager’s role? And, given this is an industry with a lack of well-qualified staff and a fairly high level of burn-out, is it enough just to look at those currently seeking employment?

One recruitment consultancy in this field, About Care, has taken the brave step of directly employing both qualified care home managers and experienced RGNs within its organisation to provide a deeper understanding of the needs of those looking to fill nursing home manager jobs. This means that its service is driven by staff with direct experience of the sector, not mere consultants who can only see from the outside in. It’s a smart move, especially in this particular field, and has served them well.

Another important element to their approach, and one essential in any industry where there are more openings than suitably qualified and experienced candidates, is to approach existing managers with excellent track records and qualifications and present them with available care home manager jobs, giving them the opportunity to progress their careers in another care or nursing home. The big advantage of this approach is that it tends to avoid organisations being forced to fill home manager jobs from a field consisting only of those desperate to leave their current role (for whatever reason). Although it must be stressed that not every job-seeker is an imperfect candidate, the traditional methods of recruitment for nursing home manager jobs can limit the options for a home determined to find the very best person for the job – which is why a break from the more usual methods can really pay dividends.

Please visit http://www.aboutcare.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Powerpoint design is a necessary skill for great presentations

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PowerPoint presentations are the normal means of communicating messages in a wide range of business contexts. They are used as sales presentations, business pitches to potential clients, suppliers or partners, or internal performance evaluations, to name merely a few of these contexts. In any case it is fair to say that PowerPoint is an absolutely key business tool, and it follows that a company with an excellent grasp of quality powerpoint design holds a valuable edge over competitors who do not. This applies to all contexts of business where PowerPoint is an essential tool.

To make top quality presentations you will require several ingredients. Most obviously, you need an excellent grasp of the software and its capabilities. This means having a thorough understanding each of the functions available in the program. If we’re honest we’ve all come across an obstacle and had to consult a forum, asking “how do you do such and such in PowerPoint”. It takes time, with no guarantee that an adequate answer will be found.

Beyond an awareness and a proficiency in the workings of the program, you need the ability to integrate its functionality with the overall message that you are trying to convey. This requires something more than only computer skills: it requires skill, forethought, even creativity. This is as important as the message you are trying to get across. When a job is not done methodically it is in danger of coming apart at the seams, and PowerPoint presentations are no different. Many an excellent idea has come unstuck in the world of business specifically because of weaknesses in the presentation.

Imagine, for instance, that you are trying to motivate your employees, perhaps by showing statistics of the previous year’s achievements, or by sharing with them your goals for the year ahead. If you cannot provide the information or data in an inspiring way, a large portion of your PowerPoint presentations will be lost in distraction resulting from uninspired presentation. Similarly, your sales presentations to potential clients need to be eye-catching and concise; there is no room for irrelevant information. Sometimes the people you pitch to have to watch more than ten pitches in a day: this can be very boring, and you must not leave it to a tired audience to filter through poor powerpoint design to find out that your ideas are worth listening to.

Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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School clothes for stressed-out Mums

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If you went to a school with a uniform, and most of us in this country did, then you will remember the annual torture of shopping for school clothes for the new year. Twenty years ago and more, before supermarkets sold basic school uniforms and before the rise of the internet, children and teenagers, already melancholy about the end of the long summer holidays, were dragged kicking and screaming into either one of the larger department stores or into a local outfitters to be subjected to hours of trying on too-big clothing. And that was before you repeated the whole terrible exercise with shoes! Thankfully, a London schoolwear supplier, Uniform4kids, has transformed the whole shopping experience for both mothers and school children, meaning that both can now savour the last moments of summer while all the school uniform items needed are ordered on-line and sent to the door.

Many of the traditional disadvantages of shopping for school uniforms have now been removed, and it’s a huge boon for the suppliers as well as the purchasers. In the “bad old days”, both average-sized kids and those needing more unusual sizes missed out with traditional shops running out of the normal sizes and often failing to stock the larger or more petite options for a specific school. This doesn’t have to be an obstacle with on-line purchasing as the on-line suppliers can keep all the uniforms needed in large warehousing complexes out of town and can have huge stocks of the items common to several schools in the vicinity – the grey trousers, the navy pinafore dresses and the ubiquitous plimsolls. Parking issues are entirely avoided, let alone the threat of having to make a return visit if an item wasn’t in stock.

These on-line stores are particularly popular with schools with many distinctive uniform items. An increasing number of schools are returning to the blazer, shirt and tie combination and are moving away from the more casual school sweatshirts popular for the last couple of decades, asserting that smart clothing leads to better behaviour and a more serious learning environment.

National organisations are also in on the game with Brownie, Cub, Scout and Guide uniforms available from the on-line suppliers, as well as generic dance and sports equipment. It really is the ultimate one-stop shopping experience.

Although catching on outside the capital, it makes sense that London schoolwear suppliers have pushed the on-line supply model first. With so many schools in a relatively dense area and the ongoing issues of parking to shop in the capital, it’s no wonder parents see buying school clothes by the traditional method as an experience they can easily forgo. It may not be long before going into a traditional outfitters to buy school uniforms becomes just a painful memory of the past. But for those rare parents who used to enjoy taking their children uniform shopping, all is not lost. You still have to buy the shoes!

Please visit http://www.uniform4kids.com/