This Is Guernsey

By Tom Edwards

THE Awards For Achievement are so respected that companies are using their judging criteria as a business model, according to Deputy Stuart Falla.

The Commerce and Employment minister was reflecting on the event that took place in front of 780 guests.

‘It’s there to act as a stimulant within the business community, to inspire people to get up onto the stage,’ he said.

‘I know that people pick up forms with the intention of entering the next year.

‘It’s about training, a sense of community involvement and an eco-friendly ethos, among many other things.

‘Rather like the changes to housing licences, the awards are something we have implemented to encourage the kind of companies that we want to see in Guernsey.’

His opinion was echoed by the department’s marketing manager, Chris Elliott, who said that entering for an award gave people the opportunity to analyse how their business works.

‘If they look at it and think, ﾓWell, perhaps we don’t have much of a training story to tellﾔ, then perhaps they should focus on that more,’ he said.

‘Several people have told me that the process of taking a long hard look at themselves was very beneficial.’

Family-run Meadow Court Farm was named as NatWest Best Small Business and the Commerce and Employment Guernsey Business of the Year.

Mines Awareness Trust took home the BWCI Best Medium Business award and Deutsche Bank won the Healthspan Best Large Business award.

The evening is the biggest black-tie occasion of the Guernsey calendar and is organised each year by CMA Events.

The huge projection screen that was mounted behind the stage had previously been used at the Brit Awards.

Chief executive Alex Bridle said Beau Sejour wasn’t big enough to accommodate everyone who wanted a ticket.

‘I had at least another 120 people begging me for somewhere to sit which is frustrating, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is Guernsey and there are always going to be issues with scale,’ she said.

‘This year we had 31 businesses enter and it keeps going up year after year. It’s amazing to consider we started 22 years ago at the St Pierre Park Hotel with just 100 people in the audience.

‘We pay a lot of attention to detail because we want to create a sense that this could be an event taking place in any of the great conference venues in the world, such as London, Hong Kong or Dubai.’

The Awards For Achievement started life in 1985 as the Guernsey Awards For Industry.

The small, medium and large business categories were introduced in 2004 as a way of ensuring financial services companies didn’t dominate.

‘For a small island, Guernsey is an extremely dynamic, vibrant place,’ said Deputy Falla.

‘I would like to see someone like Ozannes enter as they would do just as good a job as Meadow Court Farm of sending out the message that Guernsey isn’t all about the finance industry.

‘But we must remember that we do banking here and I would hate to get to the point where we excluded businesses from entering just because they happened to be in finance.’