Four more back business event

AS the deadline for entries draws near — Friday the 13th will be unlucky for some if the nominations forms arrive late — sponsors are clamouring to support the inaugural One Oldham Chronicle Business Awards.

Four more have joined the list of 23 companies and organisations which are backing the borough’s biggest business bash since the heyday of the 300-plus Chamber of Commerce dinners of the early 1990s.

The new sponsors are Ferranti Technologies Ltd, from Waterhead; Trinity Mirror Colour Print, Hollinwood; Unity Partnership, the organisation which works with Oldham Council to deliver services; and The Oldham College.

Negotiations are ongoing with several other organisations to ensure that the gala awards dinner at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday, April 3, is one of the most memorable evenings Oldham has ever seen.

Groundwork Oldham, which is supplying table decorations, is working with an Oldham school to grow plants and flowers for the table decorations.

Oldham Rugby League Club has joined its Boundary Park colleagues Athletic in offering a table for eight guests in the sponsors’ lounge at a home game as a category prize.

Initial judging is due to start next week once all the entry forms have been collated and organised into voting sections of the weekend.

As the Chronicle went to press, the steering committee was confident that around 50 nominations for the eight categories would be achieved, which June Smith, Oldham Council’s principal regeneration support officer, described as a “healthy reflection of Oldham’s business community.”

She added: “When we first came up with this idea, we knew there were many successful and innovative companies and business people in Oldham.

“We know we are in a recessionary period, and no-one is pretending otherwise, but lots of people are working extremely hard in trying circumstances to ensure that the borough keeps working and those people deserve to be recognised.

“Here at the council, we are delighted the awards have been so well supported, not just by the depth of entries but by the level of sponsorship.”