Up and Under Highly Commended

Our active involvement in the Community has been recognised with The Up and Under Group being Highly Commended in the 2013 North West Building Stronger Communities Impact Award in the Annual  Business in the Community Awards.  This follows the Corporate Social Responsibility Award which they won earlier in the year in the High Sheriff’s Awards for Enterprise.

Read more here Link

Stephen Howard, Business in the Community’s Chief Executive said: “The Responsible Business Awards shine the spotlight on an aspect of business that very rarely gets much public recognition – and that is its ability and willingness to truly transform lives, communities and society for the better. I congratulate The Up and Under Group, which recognises that it is part of a movement of companies creating value by living their values. We hope their example will inspire many more businesses to put responsible behaviour at the heart of how they do business.”

Our commitment to making a positive difference is founded on the work we do in physical asset management, providing inspection and maintenance of bridges, buildings, towers and underground structures also the work of our Interiors Division which creates beautiful office interiors and Entrainment our very hands on safety and management training company.  

Without you - our customers - supporting these activities and the commitment of our team the other Good Stuff couldn't happen.

Thanks!

Awards Again and Further Foundation Activity

We have been notified that we have been shortlisted for a Local Impact Award in the Business in the Community Awards 2013 for the North West.

We are delighted that our efforts are being recognised in these prestigious awards.

We will have to wait to see if we have won when the results are announced at a prestigious ceremony in Manchester on 13th June.

And just to keep us busy we will be taking 13 young carers away for a weekend in Anglesey.  These youngsters are really impressive people.  With ages ranging from 8 up to 16 they care for ill or disabled parents or siblings.  We hope that they all really enjoy their weekend break.

High Sheriff's Awards - Video

This video was prepared for the Awards dinner and was shown prior to us receiving our prize, we love it, see what you think ;o

What a week!

Earlier in the week we were runner up in the Sentinel Business awards in the Training Excellence category, but last night things got a lot better with The Up and under Group winning the ‘Mornflake Oats Award for Innovation’ at the High Sheriff’s Awards for Enterprise.

Making it even sweeter the certificate was accompanied by a cheque that just about equaled our annual turnover in our first year of operation, 25 years ago, in 1987!


In other news Rob Hughes completed the Cheshire Cat Cyclosportive on Sunday (102 miles) and made it up Mow Cop killer mile.

No surrender! Rob rides up the Killer Mile

Tom Hutchinson representing Up and Under DH race team came 3rd in category in the 2011-2012 Winter series round 4 at Cannock Chase.
http://www.rootsandrain.com/race928/2012-mar-25-2011-12-the-winter-series-4-cannock-chase/

All in all a pretty good week

Training Award Runner Up

Yesterday we were announced as a runner up in the Sentinel Business Awards at the Kings Hall in Stoke. These awards recognise business success in Staffordshire and S Cheshire.

We were the runner up in the Training Excellence Award, recognising the effort and investment we make in training out team members.  We were obviously disappointed not to win, but we were beaten by a company 10 time our size who had built a £1million training centre for their staff in the past year so I guess if was a reasonable decision.

On the plus side you can be comforted that the staff working on your jobs get a range of essential safety training (eg all our team members get the opportunity to do first aid training every year - not every 3 as prescribed) plus a wide variety of technical education. 

In the past two years all of the Directors have undergone a thorough leadership programme with MMU, 5 of our team members have had one to one high level coaching, many of our technical team have completed NVQs from level 3 up to level 6 in relevant disciplines, our admin team are completing accountancy and personnel management qualifications, all of our directors have completed or are in the process of undertaking NEBOSH General Certificates and we are currently sponsoring two team members on degree programmes.

This is the edited highlights of the training commitment we have made to our 30 strong team, if you want to know more please contact either Simon or Andy via http://www.upandundergroup.com/

If you would like to have our team look at your training needs please contact our training company Entrainment for essential safety, management and technical training. 

Making a video

When we came into work last Thursdaay we were unsure as to what would be expected of us.  We were going to be making a 3-5 minute video for the Cheshire High Sheriff's Awards ceremony.  We have done a fair bit of TV news slots, but this did not prepare us for the 6 hours of filming required to get the dialogue and scenes finished for this professional quality piece.  It was a real 'lights, camera, action' event..... and they do shout 'Action!'

Andy gets a grilling

Proper Hollywood, where's the catering trailer?

The video will centre around Innovation at Up and Under from the early involvement in the introduction of rope access to the uk scene - yes we were in right at the start - to the adaptation of existing products and technologies to solving clients problems.

Rope access, especially its use on bridges, was part of the early years of the Up and Under Story.  At the outset rope access was focussed on high rise buildings and offshore structures.  It was the combination of engineering competence and access skills, then as well as today, that made Up and Under rope (and confined spaces) teams obvious choices for technical bridge inspection, testing and investigation projects.

After basic rope access we concentrated on the use of materials borrowed from other industries and successfully utilised in the asset management sphere.

Strengthened and adapted lighting trusses from the film and stage industries have been developed and used by Up and Under over the years to successfully complete a range of projects covering bridges, buildings and even cliff faces; taking trusses from rock and roll to stabilised rock!

The final part of the film concentrated on our capability to provided a variety of maintenance activities on structures over flat or slow moving water using sectional pontoons originally developed for military activities.  These are available to provide stable platforms for inspection towers or repair/construction activities; all without causing interferance to the structure above.

These innovations have saved our clients literally hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years.  Every day we provide solutions to your problems with value, safety and efficiancy at the heart of every decision.

That was the subject of the video.  It will be shown at the Awards Dinner at Chester University on the 29th March and hopefully we will bring home an award, if we are a runner up it will still be testament to our performance over 25 yers and will not lessen our commitment to solve your problems. If you've not worked with Up and Under before, call us, we'll surprise you. 

Recognising Excellence

The Up and Under Group are pleased to announce that they have been selected as a finalist in the Sentinel Business Awards 2011.The award we have been shortlisted for is the Training Excellence award in recognition of the efforts we put into the development of our team.

This award nomination follows our double success in the S Cheshire business awards as Employer of the Year 2010 and 2011.  Since receiving the second of these two awards we have been encouraging best practice amongst other employers by a variety of means including 1 to 1 meetings with business owners and last week we hosted a lunch for all of the Award nominees in the Emplyer of the Year category.  Obviously with a meeting of this type there are many common experiences and opportunities for exchange of ideas.

The winners of the Sentinel Awards will be announced on the 27th March at a gala dinner at the Kings Hall in Stoke.  Whatever the outcome we are already reaping the rewards of our investment in the people that make Up and Under special.

Up and Under in the Media - Again

Following our winning the S Cheshire Employer of the year award we seem to keep getting our faces in publications so for completion here is the latest, the S Cheshire Chamber of Commerce Mag.

Don't we look smart ;o)

Employer of the Year 2010 .... and now 2011

Up and Under Group were proud to receive the Employer of the Year Award for an unprecedented second year in succession at the South Cheshire Chamber of Commerce's Business Awards.  The judges were very complimentary about our commitment to the development of our team at all levels.  They recognised that we had taken even more steps to create opportunities following our award in 2010.

This award, sponsored and judged by Manchester Metropolitan University, represents a huge vote of confidence in the whole team at Up and Under.  We would like to thank also our clients without whom this would be meaningless, our supporters at MMU and Goldman Sachs, our advisors, the trustees of the Up and Under Foundation for their hard work and most of all the people who form the team that is Up and Under.


Two happy ex- Crewe Grammar School pupils
Andy Fewtrell (UU) and Rick Carter (CTC Physio)

2012 will no doubt provide its fair share of challenges and now one of them is to look to see how we can improve and compete for this award for a third time.

Cheshire Business Awards 2011

Friday night was both frustrating and rewarding;  frustrating in that we didn't win Employer of the Year and rewarding in that we were identified as one of the three best employers in the county.

This is testament to the efforts of everyone at the Up and Under Group.  I think we should all be very proud of our success.

Below are a few comments from the organisers, sponsors and presenters:

Friday night began with an introduction from Rob Irvine, publishing director Trinity Mirror North Wales and Cheshire, who described the awards as growing in importance every year.

“It was a tough but rewarding job for the judges to draw up a shortlist and pick the winners,” he said.

“The awards represent the pick of the crop of Cheshire talent who are helping to get Britain back on track.

“Tonight you will hear examples of people who have launched start up companies, developed small businesses into bigger organisations, done sterling work in their communities and helped staff to reach their full potential.”


Returning as host for the occasion was Granada and ITN news presenter Lucy Meacock, a former Chester Chronicle journalist with a life long commitment to Cheshire and its business community.

Paying tribute to the businesses represented at the event, she said: “You create the jobs so that people can enjoy the opportunity to stay in this wonderful county and start their careers here.”

Cheshire Business Awards

The shortlists for these awards have now been released and we are happy to report that the Up and Under Group are one of three shortlisted in the Employer of the Year category.  So we are officially one of the best three employers in Cheshire, this is fantastic recognition of the efforts we make in creating a stimulating and rewarding working environment.

The awards are now in their 8th year and have attracted interest from the companies ranging from the smallest start-ups to some of the nations largest employers. 

The icing on the cake would be to win the award which will be announced at a Gala Dinner at Chester Racecourse on 16th September.  It would be a fitting step up from the S Chesire Award we received in 2010.

 Our real challenge is to continue getting better whatever the award outcome.

ICE NW Civil Engineering Awards

In 2011 we will be sponsoring these awards. As a company we feel it is important to support stuff: charity, young people, profesional development and sporting endeavour are just some of our interests.

The Civil Engineering industry has an important and exciting history in the North West, but also today it contributes to the health, wealth and pleasure of all of our society, a fact often lost in our celebrity centred world.

Well tomorrow many of the hard working people who ensure that we have safe drinking water, roads, airports, sports stadia, shopping centres, hospitals, power and many other essentials of our modern life will recieve their recognition and we are proud to be supporting this event.

Good luck to all of the finalists from the Up and Under Group.

Rope Access inspection in Manchester

South Cheshire Business Awards

The Up and Under Group

So we were chuffed and why not, this award is given to the organisation judged to be the best employer in S Cheshire and we were chosen.  Thanks to everyone who made this possible.

I think the smiles say it all.  This is a reward for a lot of hard work that goes in throughout the year.  Yesterday Andy was on the winner's show at redshift radio featuring Up and Under, ILX group and the S Cheshire Chamber.  You can hear the show on Redshift's listen  again feature

Photography www.ashforddalyphotography.com/

Up and Under Group Sponsor awards

The Up and Under Group will be an associate sponsor of the ICE NW Awards which will take place on 4th February in Chester.

MD Andy Fewtrell will be bringing along a the rally car that has carried him to success in a number of desert rallies.  The company which helps youngster have adventurous experiences they would otherwise be denied due to lack of funds will be selling snowballs to put on their car which will be competing in the Arctic 4x4 Rally starting  12th Feb in Stockholm, Sweden.  If you want to support the charity efforts you can at Just giving

South Cheshire Business Awards

The Up and Under Group were recently nominated as Best Employer in the South Cheshire Business Awards. It was a tense wait for the result, but in the end we were beaten by St John Ambulance, and after Simon's recent racing injury we couldn't really complain. The important thing is that the real judges think we are the best - our staff!

The photograph shows Richard, Andy and Simon in their normal working clothes. The Ladies have have gone to more of an effort ;o)