Penzance Chamber of Commerce

Brighter Christmas

Plans are going well and Hazel Trembath would like to thank everyone who has helped so far. A lot of work has taken place, a lot has been achieved and a lot more is still to be done! Help is needed putting up the decorations - Sunday 14 November from 8 am, if you can help please call Hazel on 01736-361378.

Pine Factory opens second shop

Penzance Chamber of Commerce members - The Pine Factory (Truro) Ltd - have something special to celebrate with the opening of their second shop in Penzance. Three years ago they opened their first ever shop at 1 Taroveor Road, Penzance, which soon proved successful with clients all over west Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly. Since then they have gone from strength to strength with other outlets in Pool and Truro.

As well as their own range of pine furniture and custom-made items, you can now see three piece suites, dining sets and a wider range of bedroom furniture, giftwear, a large selection of mirrors and now also hand made fitted kitchens. With these new items in mind, when the property at 1 St Clare Street became available it was obvious with the extra floor space and a large window area, it would prove invaluable to the company.

Joy Shaw, who manages both shops along with Sue and Steve said: "It's good to see the top end of Causewayhead fully open - the area has a lovely welcoming atmosphere, with varied shops, pubs and restaurants and even its own market twice weekly. The new shop itself surprises many of our customers who are amazed at its size - especially when they realise it has a separate kitchen and bedroom showrooms as well. We pride ourselves in value for money, solid, well-built furniture, with helpful knowledgeable staff on hand. A good delivery service throughout the SW at a nominal charge with delivery to the docks, free of charge - for those on the Isles of Scilly."

Fitting day

Due to the success of their fitting day last year, Anella of Chapel Street, are holding another bra fitting day. Ladies who wish to have a free bra fitting with professional fitter, Mrs. Edith Bettley of Lejaby are welcome to book an appointment. The fitting day is Saturday November 13th. Space is unfortunately limited so don't delay. Contact Sally Bodinar on 01736-365172 or call into Anella, 63 Chapel Street, Penzance.

What's in your local public library

Hello, I am Sanchia Pascoe the manager of your library in Morrab Road. The library service in Cornwall has gone through some changes recently so I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the variety of services we are now able to provide and the staff available to help you. Pin is our stock officer and is responsible for our book stock, compact disk hire service and video hire service. You can hire a wide range of compact disks from classical music to the Spice Girls for the week at 50 pence. Why not try something different! Our videos range from educational topics that are free to hire to feature films like 'Titanic' that costs £2 for the week. Please come in and let us know what you would like us to have available.

Sally is our community liaison officer, she works closely with local schools arranging visits to the library and introducing children to fiction and all forms of information from encyclopedias to the Internet. Sally also works with the adult community organising events like the recent writers workshop where local author Rosemary Aitken gave tips to budding novelists and 'Coffee with Alan Tichmarsh' which is to be held on 18 October. We would also like to start a readers circle here in the library if you are interested in this or would like the details of all our events and activities ring 01736-363954.

The reference library houses an up-to-date business section with current information about companies, products, grants and the laws affecting your business. There is a useful Internet site for UK documents that includes Acts of Parliament, Bills, Command Papers, and Green Papers thus keeping us up-to-date with the latest laws and statutes. We also keep a constantly updated copy of Citizens' Advice Notes which is invaluable for people who want more information about the law as it affects them. We help students with their projects supplying information from the wide range of reference books available and as we ensure that we have the latest edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Times World Atlas and Science Encyclopedias we can be confident that the information is up to date. The 1999 edition of 'Issues for the Nineties', the UK's first comprehensive reference source addressing contemporary social issues has proved invaluable to students and the collection of 'Project Packs' covering subjects regularly set by local schools has proved an extremely popular resource over the years!

The County Art Collection is also housed in the reference library. This contains a comprehensive collection of books about artists and their work, and has proved to be popular with local artists and students alike, some travel considerable distances to visit the collection. The large number of exhibition catalogues, posters and books about Cornish artists is proving useful to people carrying out research or writing dissertations. The growing number of reference sources on CD-Rom are also proving popular. The collection of books about Cornwall and the locality are well used, particularly the material about family history on microfiche, as are the newspapers on microfilm. There is tremendous interest in the history of our area. Please come in and 'browse'! Our arts information officer is here to help you.

To complement the existing reference library, a suite of 11 PCs has been installed to give the public access to information on CD-Roms and the Internet (a charge is made to use the machines). A study support officer works with the computers and also runs short courses on how to use the facilities. The computers are available for use during library opening hours. They are proving popular for many uses. n E-mail facilities are used to contact friends all over the world.

Remember, venture up the stairs to find out what else your library has to offer. Library opening times: Monday to Friday: 10 am - 6 pm; Saturday: 10 am - 4 pm.

Swedish accountants visit

Penzance Chamber of Commerce were hosts to five Swedish Accountants who were visiting to forge links with UK accountants. The five ladies, who all own accounting practices in and around Stockholm, met with Michael Vickers and David Stephens of Anthony Williams & Co. Chartered Accountants. They were particularly impressed by the Morrab Business Centre which is owned and managed by the practice. This offers easy access to business advisory services and is an innovative concept they would like to develop back home in Sweden. They were given a demonstration of the practice's web-site which they considered to be one of the best they had seen.

Michael Vickers considers the visit to have been extremely enlightening. "The number of local businesses operating in Europe is increasing," he said. "We are now able to offer entrepreneurs access to business services in Sweden, Denmark, France and Germany through the contacts we have made." The group of accountants had a working lunch discussing the differences between the business opportunities in their respective countries. The Swedes were interested in the ease with which limited companies could be set up in this country. David Stephens, explained to them the considerable benefits that were currently available to small businesses who converted them into limited companies. Michael and David would now like to make a return visit to Sweden and to make contact with other accountancy practices throughout Europe. "It will enable us to extend our business advisory services," said David, "trading with Europe will soon be an everyday occurrence for many small businesses in the Penwith area."

New treasurer

The Chamber would like to say thank you to new member John Bastow, manager of the Wharfside Complex, for agreeing to take over as treasurer following the retirement of Mrs. Collins.

Press officer required

Preparing the Chamber of Commerce monthly 'page' in The Cornishman is interesting and rewarding and has been yet another job heaped onto the chairman since the last press officer retired. While this has worked well, it is a pity not to spread the load and so the Chamber hopes a member, or someone interested in local affairs, will volunteer to take over this task. Content is discussed at our monthly meeting on the first Tuesday of each month, copy has to be with The Cornishman by the second Friday and the 'page' appears on the third Thursday of each month. The final decision of what to include and how to include it has always been left entirely to the press officer. Interested? - please contact Chamber Secretary Yvonne Neale on 01736-719222.

October Meeting

The following attended the October meeting: chairman, Dennis Dowrick, S. Bodinar, P. French, Mr. and Mrs. Garrison, W. Greenaway, R. Hilder, D. Kemp, B. Orme, S. Parkryn, D. Peters, H. Phillips, M. Squires and visitor R. Fee. Apologies were received from Mr. and Mrs. Collins, M. Patrick, B. Spiegelhalter, S. Smith, F. Truscott and M. Waters. John Bastow, manager of the Wharfside Shopping Complex was welcomed as a new member and WPC Simms gave a detailed and interesting report on CCTV.

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PENZANCE - THE PLACE TO BE

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