‘General’ Archive

Janine Pattison scoops Garden Awards

Janine Pattison Garden Design, based in Bournemouth, received two awards at the BALI National Landscape Awards 2011 held in London recently. The Awards, which are run annually by the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI), pay tribute to landscape designers who have demonstrated exceptionally high standards of professionalism and skill. Janine Pattison Garden Design won [...]

Why does Sara work with a Mentor?

Sara Hudston, who runs Watershed PR an award winning public relations agency based in Bridport, has been working with a Dormen Mentor for over 6 months. She wrote about her experiences of being mentored as follows: Why use a business mentor? Is your business in serious trouble? Need to be told what to do? If you say [...]

Honeybuns wins ‘Outstanding’ Award

Honeybuns, one of Dormen's clients in West Dorset, won the prestigious Harmsworth Award at the recent 'Taste of Dorset' Awards ceremony, held at the Exchange in Sturminster Newton. The award, for an outstanding contribution to food in Dorset, was sponsored by the Blackmore Vale Magazine. The four finalist for the award were Claire Burnet, the chocolate [...]

Dormen joins MentorsMe.co.uk Network

Dormen has become one of the first business mentoring organisations in the country to be part of the new national mentoring network – www.mentorsme.co.uk – which was launched on 4 July 2011. The new network and web portal have been set up by the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) and are designed to make it easy [...]

Spanish Group learns about Dormen

Dormen were asked to meet a small Spanish team from Cadiz, who were researching business mentoring and being hosted in the UK by Exeter University. The team is working on a European Social Funded programme, The Athenea Project, looking at existing mentoring projects in South West England and in Denmark with a view to developing a mentoring [...]

Minister congratulates Dormen

Vivian Dunn, Dormen’s Programme Manager, has recently received a letter from the Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade, expressing his support for the Dorset mentoring programme (Dormen). Referring to the event held on 22 October 2010 to mark the Dormen’s [...]

Dormen celebrates 5th Anniversary

An event to mark Dormen’s 5th Anniversary was held on 21 October 2010 in Blandford Forum. It was attended by about 100 people, many of whom who have been involved with the organisation since it started in the autumn of 2005, including mentors and clients as well as representatives of the various partner organisations that [...]

LinkedIn Group for Dormen Clients

In order to enable Dormen clients to make contact and network with each other, a special LinkedIn group has been created. In they have not already done so, clients need to join LinkedIn first, and then click on www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3306001 in order to apply to join the group. Dormen has been using a LinkedIn group for mentors [...]

Bournemouth MPs support Dormen

We have recently held meetings with Tobias Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth East, and Conor Burns, MP for Bournemouth West, to brief them on the existence and role of Dormen – Dorset Business Mentoring. Both were very supportive of the concept of experienced volunteer mentors working with small businesses, and interested to hear of the way [...]

Dormen joins National Mentoring Pilot

DorMen, the Dorset Business Mentoring programme, has just become one of only three national mentoring pilots supported by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. In 2006 the Government, responding to the views of business, decided to simplify business support and cut the number of publicly funded business support schemes from 3,000 to 30. At [...]