That bio-fuel was supplied by James Hygate of Green Fuels a Vistage member

The Prince of Wales has ordered the nine carriage train for a five-day, 1300-mile “green tour” of Britain, which started in Glasgow yesterday. His trip is aimed at promoting environmentally friendly lifestyles and ethical modes of transport and he has boasted that the train will run on biofuels.

Charles is going to be criss-crossing the country on his five-day jaunt. It started in Glasgow, before travelling to cities and towns including Edinburgh, Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham.

The Green Party said: “We admire Prince Charles’s passion for the sustainability agenda.

“His support for progressive projects such as cutting fuel bills by installing solar panels is laudable.

“But when people are facing cuts in public services, the idea of a private train costing £90,000 more than ordinary first class tickets might seem a bit insensitive.”

Green Fuels of Gloucestershire, who supply the biodiesel for the train, claim its carbon footprint was “significantly” smaller than if it ran on fossil fuels.

In the past year, the train was used on 19 occasions, covering an average of 751 miles, at a cost of £1million.

A spokesman for Clarence House said: “The prince has not done a tour like this across Britain before. It is not practical to use scheduled trains in such a busy programme which has 10 locations in five days. On this occasion the Royal train was the best solution.”

He pointed out that the train would also be used for business meetings and as a working office, and emphasised the train’s footprint would be lower as it was powered by waste cooking oil.

Watch the video clip to see James

Matthew Bent MD of Bents Garden & Home discusses his Vistage membership and how it supports and benefits his business.

Located on the outskirts of Cheshire, Bents is more than just a garden centre. Passion, experience and an understanding of exclusive living have earned the family-run business a reputation for quality, experience and innovation.

Established in 1937, they’ve always remained focused on providing a fantastic service in relaxing surroundings. And by travelling the world to find exclusive, innovative and quality products they have also evolved into an award-winning lifestyle destination.

To find out how Vistage can benefit your business go to our website

Love them or hate them, banks often play a vital role in the helping their clients maintain and grow their businesses. 

Vistage Speaker Roger Martin-Fagg’s recent forecast is that the UK is in for a “rocky economic ride” through 2011.  Prompted by this to think about cash and banking isssues, Vistage Chair Dr Alex Kent invited Lloyds TSB Relationship Managers Dan Batchelor and Rebecca Kingdon-Saxby to meet with his members at their August group meeting.  The objective was to consider how banks and their clients can build stronger, mutually beneficial relationships a challenging economic environment.

We discovered that there are several areas of common ground.  For example the characteristics of a good business include a clear vision and strategy supported with business plans and key performance measures.  These are also the characteristics of a good business client for a bank such as Lloyds TSB.

However it seems that the strongest business relationships are perhaps only really formed when banks put the client squarely at the centre of the relationship.  We heard from Dan about one example where cash transfers from retail outlets to the client’s bank normally took 3 days to reach their account.  Using their knowledge and partners, Lloyds TSB succeeded in crediting the client’s account on the day of the transfer, resulting in better cash flow and cheaper credit facilities.

 Alex’s conclusion from the meeting is that a banking relationship is not just about securing the cheapest source of finance.  A good relationship between banks and their clients could help uncover other areas of significant untapped value.

Google has launched Think a platform for sharing industry viewpoints to “help you navigate in the business landscape”.

Thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for finding this resource.

“The channel is basically a library of bite-sized videos of remarkable people speaking about what they think on topics such as marketing, digital, business strategy and consumer behaviour,” according to the O2 blog.

The video consists of CEOs, mostly from the UK and across Europe (not US) responding to specific questions like: “How does innovation affect the practice of management?”

You can search by industry, theme, company or interviewee.

As well as videos, and perhaps more immediately useful, are some practical Google search tools all in one place. They are, according to Google, “a list of free tools, blogs and websites that can help you reveal opportunity and achieve your business goals.”

These include: “Insights for Search, spot useful search trends to help map your next steps; YouTube Insights, receive insight on who is watching what so you can target your ads accordingly and Google Internet Stats, bringing together the latest industry facts and insights – perfect for your pitches and presentations.”

Roger Brownlie for Vistage

Congratulations and best wishes for Annie from the membership services team who is gettting married on Saturday!

Take a look at the Vistage staff skydive which unfortunately didn’t go ahead due to cloudy skies. Not to be defeated they plan to return to the Cornish coast in the next few months to take to the skies again.

Read our interview with chair Charles Llewellyn discussing the challenges and rewards he faces as a Vistage chair and his top tips on exit strategies.

To find out how Vistage could benefit you and your business go to our website

July was a great month for our Open Day programme with over 200 members, guests and colleagues enjoying sessions at The Barn, Berkeley and Old Trafford. Peter Knight and Jeff Grout presented well received sessions which gave all attendees food for thought and ideas they could implement in their businesses straight away.

 Dave Abraham CEO of Signify wrote to tell us that they used techniques from the HEMP session the very afternoon they returned to their offices in a marketing meeting to great success. So if you want to see how Vistage could benefit you and your business, why not book for an upcoming Open Day

Victoria Cotton, Trevor Cleal and Sinead Donohoe are all taking to the skies this Friday for  tandem skydives. Trevor thought that jumping from an aeroplane at 10,000 feet would be a great way to celebrate his 30th birthday!

 They are winging it down to Cornwall on Thursday night and all here at Vistage HQ wish them well. Victoria will be jumping for charity so if you want to sponsor her feel free to do so, by clicking here!  

Check the blog next week for photographic and video evidence.

Congratulations to Vistage members Jonathan Eddy and Bob Smith of B Hepworth & Co Ltd on their inclusion  in the Sunday Times International Track 100 League Table.

B Hepworth & Co Ltd were ranked 26th in the first annual International Track 100 league table supplement, published in The Sunday Times on 11 July 2010, with title sponsor HSBC.

 The league table ranked companies’ international sales growth over the last 2 years. The UK Midlands-based company manufactures windscreen wiper systems for trains and ships, such as the cruise liner QE2 and her latest sister ship, Queen Victoria, and Hepworth are very proud to have supplied over 1500 systems to Bombardier for the entire Electrostar fleet, and fit wiper systems to Delhi’s new fleet of 40 Metro trains, a bespoke order that required the British company’s specialised manufacturing skills.  Export growth has been driven by the acquisition of its main British competitor in 2004, which enabled it to rationalise its product range and consolidate overseas distributors, thus simplifying its route to market. Hepworth manufactures in Britain and exports to 54 countries, including China and America; overseas sales have grown 96% a year, from £2.6m in 2007 to £10m in 2009, with Hepworth’s ranking in the league table as 6th largest exporter to China.

 Jonathan Eddy, CEO, stated “this is a fantastic achievement and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved for their hard work and dedication. We have a great team of people here and we look forward to the next stage in our improvement plan to further enhance the growth of the business”.