Thank you for registering for Virtual Mondays. We want Virtual Mondays to be great for everyone. In addition to a positive & uplifting networking experience, our Virtual Mondays sponsors offer benefits to all registrations & attendees: Aurora.Enterprises: Aurora believes in supporting micro & small businesses, supporting communities & sponsors Virtual Mondays. If your business is not registered on Aurora, complete the following form: Name Contact Email Enterprise Name Business Charity Non-profit/CIC Club

Not Just Travel have been offering great holidays for a long time, & know the travel industry well. Building on their expertise, contacts, & fantastic offers & discounts, we have partnered with NJT to create a way to help good causes even more. At no extra cost to you, we are working with NJT to earn commission on each holiday we refer. Following the universal Aurora Enterprises model, we are creating donations for charities everywhere. Visit https://Aurora.NotJustTravel.com/ to help support the good causes you believe in.

At this difficult time, we all need to do our bit. Charities are struggling to get enough funds to support their cause. Similarly many small local businesses slowly watch their businesses close. For those able to weather the storm, either with or without receiving government help, the best thing is to prepare for the end of the lockdown. For others, this is a time to share what they do. One company offering those in need is ICE SmartBands, who are giving away medical alert bracelets to help the vulnerable and those on the front line. For other companies, this period is a chance to do what they can, and share what they do. If you know any businesses offering help, or any charities needing help, contact us, so we can help share their journey.   Aurora has a Deals platform (Deals for Donations) to aid local businesses, with a free (no obligation) business & charity directory. Businesses can use the platform to help people know that they exist, know where they are, let them know what they, both during & after this Corona Crisis. For registered charities, it is a chance to help people understand what benefits they bring, and how donations are translated into real life benefits. The key is tangibility. For example, give £10 to 'Save the Penguin', & save 3 penguins. Simple. Relatable. Demonstrable.   If you run a business or charity, register now. It's quick, simple, & easy! Better still, we don't charge a penny! Free advertising. No costs. No obligations!   The portal is designed to offer a wide range of additional benefits to registered businesses & charities. Registration is a simple 3 step process. For full instructions click here Step 1 is to fill out the form. (Step 2 = check your email & verify your email address, + Step 3 = visit the site to complete your charity or business profile). Name Contact Email Organisation Name Charity NGO Club Partner Start the process today! The sooner you register, the sooner you can be seen!

Often people talk about volumes of followers and the importance to your business. In a mission to learn, I discovered the relevance of this, along with several golden rules for one branch of social media. I joined Twitter 10 years ago and never got into it for a number of reasons. This year, I found my old credentials, signed in, and on one a count, I found I had a hundred followers. On an unused account! That was more than my business had! It started me thinking, and playing with a social experiment and surprisingly complex learning curve.   I set up/reactivated a handful of accounts. I gave them each a purpose, changed their profiles, usernames, etc. and I decided on a different way to manage each.   One was set up as a user to comment on news & business commentary One was set up all about pets with regular posts, always replying to people who engaged Another was only about gaining followers, often blatantly Another was simply a regular company feed, used as a control And finally one was just an account for reposting and sharing other people's stuff but nothing new. Not one word!   There were thousands of ways I could have proceeded. My intention for each was to get followers, and not focus on likes, and I learned a lot of rules for what works, and what doesn’t, some obvious, some not so. So my learning curve began over the next few months.   As an experiment it had to be good enough to be of value, but not time consuming. It had to have some rigour, bu didn’t need to be 100% scientific like a PhD study. It had to be easy to modify and evolve, in order that I could rapidly adapt to any key learnings, and test them out.   So I rotated between the accounts, daily. I also refined the bio profiles when felt beneficial, with what I learned or felt worth a try to improve them and the associated engagement.   In other words strategies changed, to seek the humble follower.   It is worth saying that there are different breeds of followers. Some only follow what they clearly share a common interest in. Some only follow others that will follow them. Some only follow famous people. The bottom line is that Twitter users are not the same. Despite being a fairly anonymous platform, everyone uses it in different ways to one another, and to any other social media platform. Learning from others would also be a key part of my experiment.   I used it to keep up to date on news and public opinion. Twitter is a very vocal place! But comments on Twitter are also a good indicator of audience. Some use throw away comments. Some use likes. Some write to the maximum character limit. Some use emojis. And an increasing number use animated GIFs, the short movies that are an expression of amusement, frustration, or other reaction.   Scheduling became important too, but again, it had to be easy. Tweetdeck is a free Twitter scheduling tool (now owned by twitter). Sadly it has its limitations, but was put to good use to avoid my focus being constantly misdirected.   With my experiment set up, I began.

At the October 24th, join us at the Business Acceleration seminar and networking event, working with a range of businesses and charities across Beds, Bucks, and Herts, attendees will learn how to use a range of free tools online to aid the success of their business.   We have 2 sessions on the day. The first session starts at 9:30am, and the second session starts at 2pm. Please make sure that you book your place, using the contact details on the attached flyer.   We are proud to be included as a co-host for the event, in conjunction with the Full Circle Group, a socially responsible business, focused on helping businesses make the most out of available web technology, as well get to see a real recording studio at the Video News Factory, who operate a broadcast studio for a number of clients, in and around Milton Keynes, as well as across the UK. To reserve a place for the event, please contact Adam at Info@FullCircleWebsiteDesign.co.uk  Places are limited, so please do reserve your place by email !     While you are here..... Want to Create a Page for your Business or Charity, Free, with No Obligation on our Website? Our collective mission is to create a 'virtuous circle', by helping small businesses to become more successful, and thereby helping create more affluence in the local area, further creating opportunities for success with partnering charities. To register your business, charity, club, or non-profit organisation on the website, simply complete your details in the form directly below, verify your email, and then log in to add the information to complete your free listing.   Name Contact Email Organisation Name Charity NGO Club Partner   But please DO remember, after verifying your email address, to log back in again to complete your listing!!! (Please select NGO if you are a non-profit organisation not registered as a Charity)   We also ask that you share this post with other businesses and charities, to help others benefit from what Aurora can offer.   To Like us on Social Media, please visit Social.Aurora.Enterprises To Review us on Google, please visit g.page/aurora-enterprises/review   Event preparation: In order to help businesses explain what they do best, we suggest that you prepare a 1 page summary of your business. ( This document may help for helping tell others what you are good at, and how others you can best help others: https://portal.aurora.enterprises/link/intro ) We also ask that you bring 3 things: A Pen and Paper, for taking notes, for leaving feedback, and for writing down names Some ideas of what you can offer for free to other attendees. Helping others, and exchanging skills is a great way to build advocates.  A couple of specially priced offers to attendees that will allow them to sample your services in a more digestible manner. You might also benefit from bringing: Your imagination, creativity, and open mind Your business cards, or contact information, to help others be able to contact you more easily A determination to make the most of this seminar and networking slot There are normally plenty of parking spaces A roller-banner, if you have one, so that people can become more familiar with what you do   Who are Aurora? Below is a high level reminder of what Aurora is proud to offer: A free businesses and charities website directory, helping businesses promote what they offers, and raising awareness of the missions each charity is working to benefit A free directory of businesses (B2B and B2C) who wish to promote themselves to a wider audience A free charities directory, helping people appreciate the benefits that donations can bring (e.g. for every £100, the charity promises to save 3 penguins, or in a differnt promise, with a target of £200,000, they promise to buy a portable MRI scanning machine, with 5 years servicing included). We are helping charities to identify realistic promises that they can make, and keep! A (low cost) ‘no-sale, no fee’ shopping platform where you can promote any special deals (we manage the end to end process, and you get paid for providing your deal) A ‘giving’ platform with half of our sales fee being given back to your customer for them to donation to the causes they believe in, supporting what is truly important to them An ideal platform for companies to attractive deals, or offer end of line stock clearances with very low sales overheads   A range of specially manufactured life saving smart wearables (providing key ‘ICE’ medical or contact information through any NFC enabled smartphone – and no special app!): Medical alert smart-bracelets, bands, pet-tags, keyfobs, sew-on tags, stickers, cards, sew on buttons, watch bands, and custom products For anyone with a medical ailment, including dementia sufferers – with details of medication, allergies, and carer/contact details For pets – ideal for pets that might get lost, have medical conditions, or are with someone who may themselves need assistance For sports people, such as runners, cyclists, triathletes, scuba divers, and sailors, carrying key medical, contact, or insurance information For safety equipment (e.g. from life jackets to high visibility jackets) Highly flexible products, with a range of extra uses, from asset tagging and auditing, to museums, exhibitions, events, festivals, and more   Consultancy services for companies and charities: Project management (supported by over 25 years of managing projects from just a few thousand to £330 million budget) Hands-on business coaching services + offering a ‘business handy-man’ service, taking on the things you don’t know, don’t like, or don’t have skills, patience, or time for, leveraging decades of cross-industry experience at a wide range of companies Helping charities to identify untapped revenue streams, without resorting to guilt and emotional pressure that is damaging the industry Training – A range of our own courses (including CPD courses), as well as delivering custom training, effectively tailored for your staff’s needs Corporate training events, networking, and joint ventures

What gets you out of bed in the morning? Want a side business that saves lives, helps lost pets be re-united with their owners, promotes worthwhile charities, and helps your local business community? Become an agent. Not only can you earn money from every product you sell, but you can also help make a real difference in an incredible number of ways, wherever in the world you are !  At ICE SmartBands.com, we have created a range of life saving innovative products, and we want to work with people who can see our potential and believe in uor mission to make a positive difference. Could that be you? We are growing quickly, and gaining a fantastic following of celebs and influencers too! The opportunity is open to ANYONE who is willing to 'do'.   "The universe will only 'provide', if YOU put in the 'energy' to do", so the rest is down to you.   Location and language are not an issue either. Our products and platform (and business model) work globally, despite our main base in the UK. ICE SmartBands work in conjunction with the Aurora platform (this website) for a range of added benefits, above and beyond simply providing life saving medical, contact, and location information. The amount you make is a reflection of the sales you make, and not the hours you put in. With great returns on all sales, what's stopping you? So if helping save lives and making a difference is the sort of thing that you want to might get to jump out of bed, rather than simply roll out, please contact me us to get to know more.   For more information on signing up as an ICE SmartBands reseller, visit https://portal.aurora.enterprises/blog/jobs_at_aurora/be-an-aurora-reseller

Anyone who has seen the film of the same name, released at the start of the Millenium, may well be familiar with the term 'Pay It Forward', and it hard to say anything negative about the concept. In summary, a kind act of one person is rewarded by the receiver doing an act of kindness for two different people (usually strangers), who each in turn do the same, forming a 'virtuous pyramid' of uni-directional acts of kindness. Some of these acts may be simple, and others may be life changing (as in the theme of the film), but where did such an amazing idea come from? Over 100 years ago, an author by the name of Lily Hardy Hammond coined the phrase of the age-old concept, but the popularity went 'mainstream' with the success of the film about the principle, and the random acts of kindness of audience members turned this concept into reality. Originally in the USA, and now globally, there is even now a 'Pay it forward' day, taking place on April 28th. Put it in your diaries, as no doubt Aurora will be planning to celebrate!   In a seminar recently, we talked about a fictitious but legendary lady called 'Gina the cupcake maker' who had taken her passion and transformed it into a business. We talked about how, despite being so good at what she did best, still never made it in business. Her futile efforts to become an expert in everything else but her passion, in order to keep her business afloat, left poor Gina to be over-worked, under-paid, and spending less time making cupcakes than she did when it was a mere hobby. Our participatory audience keenly contributed with not only to what Gina could have done differently to have stood a chance, but also with what they could have each done to help her, asking for nothing in return. Paying it forward is not just about the perpetuation of random acts of kindness for strangers, but instead more about helping people out of holes they can't escape by themselves. We at Aurora has create a scheme, for homeless charities, where a homeless person can carry a special card, not asking for money, but instead asking to 'connect', allowing people to learn about them, how they got where they are, how they will get out of the hole, and how people can make a real difference, without even contributing financially. (contact us for more information).   Pay It Forward may be a great concept, but everything has a cost. As with all great things, there are always the 'piranhas' looking to take advantage of good natured giving individuals, who leave themselves vulnerable to being taken advantage of. Giving is not just a financial donation, but an emotional one, and vulnerability often ahs its greatest effect at the emotional level. Also, with many people looking at ways of pretending to have a problem, simply to scam others, this leaves the kind natured people as vulnerable. Recently, I heard of a lady going to a petrol station in the late afternoon, claiming to be stuck wthout her purse, and not being able to get to collect her children from school unless someone could 'lend' her the money. Even with her registration number, a working mobile phone number, and other 'reassurances' that this person was genuine, that was the last they saw of her, never being paid back. Kind people, and apparently lots of them, had all paid for her petrol, to help get her out of that 'hole', only to be scammed. Those generous givers may have lost the money for the petrol, but their greater loss is an emotional one, and their trust in humanity.

At the October 4th at the Bedfordshire small business marketing through technology seminar, working with a range of businesses and charities across Beds, Bucks, and Herts, attendees will learn how to use a range of free tools online to aid the success of their business. We are proud to be included as a co-host for the event, in conjunction with Full Circle Website Design, a socially responsible business, focused on helping businesses make the most out of available web technology, as well as the Kings Arms Outreach Charity, working to offer assistance to those caught in the rough sleeping and homeless trap. Our collective mission is to create a 'virtuous circle', by helping small businesses to become more successful, and thereby helping create more affluence in the local area, further creating opportunities for success with partnering charities. To register your business, charity, club, or non-profit organisation on the website, simply complete your details in the form directly below, verify your email, and log in to complete the missing information for your free listing. Name Contact Email Organisation Name Charity NGO Club Partner But please DO remember after verifying your email address to then log in to complete your listing!!!   We also ask that you share our mission with other businesses and charities, and help others to benefit from what Aurora has to offer This document may help to create a framework for helping tell others what you are good at, and how others can help make what you do reach more people: https://portal.aurora.enterprises/link/intro  Below is a high level reminder of what Aurora is proud to offer: A free businesses and charities website directory, helping businesses promote what they offers, and raising awareness of the missions each charity is working to benefit A free directory of businesses (B2B and B2C) who wish to promote themselves to a wider audience A free charities directory, helping people appreciate the benefits that donations can bring (e.g. for every £100, the charity promises to save 3 penguins, or in a differnt promise, with a target of £200,000, they promise to buy a portable MRI scanning machine, with 5 years servicing included). We are helping charities to identify realistic promises that they can make, and keep! A (low cost) ‘no-sale, no fee’ shopping platform where you can promote any special deals (we manage the end to end process, and you get paid for providing your deal) A ‘giving’ platform with half of our sales fee being given back to your customer for them to donation to the causes they believe in, supporting what is truly important to them An ideal platform for companies to attractive deals, or offer end of line stock clearances with very low sales overheads   A range of specially manufactured life saving smart wearables (providing key ‘ICE’ medical or contact information through any NFC enabled smartphone – and no special app!): Medical alert smart-bracelets, bands, pet-tags, keyfobs, sew-on tags, stickers, cards, sew on buttons, watch bands, and custom products For anyone with a medical ailment, including dementia sufferers – with details of medication, allergies, and carer/contact details For pets – ideal for pets that might get lost, have medical conditions, or are with someone who may themselves need assistance For sports people, such as runners, cyclists, triathletes, scuba divers, and sailors, carrying key medical, contact, or insurance information For safety equipment (e.g. from life jackets to high visibility jackets) Highly flexible products, with a range of extra uses, from asset tagging and auditing, to museums, exhibitions, events, festivals, and more   Consultancy services for companies and charities: Project management (supported by over 25 years of managing projects from just a few thousand to £330 million budget) Hands-on business coaching services + offering a ‘business handy-man’ service, taking on the things you don’t know, don’t like, or don’t have skills, patience, or time for, leveraging decades of cross-industry experience at a wide range of companies Helping charities to identify untapped revenue streams, without resorting to guilt and emotional pressure that is damaging the industry Training – A range of our own courses (including CPD courses), as well as delivering custom training, effectively tailored for your staff’s needs Corporate training events, networking, and joint ventures   

To be illustrate better what we do, think about the tale of Gina, the cupcake maker.   One fine Monday morning, Gina went to work, bringing with her the product of an enjoyable Sunday afternoon, spent making specially decorated cupcakes, each like a piece of art.   And each person that tried one melted on the spot, telling Gina just how wonderful they tasted, enhanced by how wonderful they looked. Gina didn't just like making cupcakes. She loved making them. "If I could make these every day for work, I'd be a happy woman", she said. Encouraged by this thought, and the overwhelming feedback she has received, she made a decision, and "Gina's Cupcakes" was born.   And so she strolled confidently into her boss's office, politely handed in her resignation, and began to plan her new life, setting off for new working pastures, with great enthusiasm and positivity.   Ideas flow through her head of what her business will be called, what cupcakes she will sell, and in her mind, she plays and replays how she imagines her future will be, right down to conversations with cake shops and cafes, who she hopes will sell her wares.   On her way home, she stocks up on ingredients, and sets up a social media page to begin to let the world know of her new business. Friends and family rally together to help her sell her first few batches. With such great success, she can't imagine why she didn't do it sooner.   Then she considers formally starting the company, opening a bank account, creating a website, starting various social media pages on multiple platforms for "Gina's Cupcakes", and then starts to track her income, her costs, working out where to advertise, what to advertise, and how to advertise. She photographs some of the cupcakes she had made, and begins working on a flyer. She goes out, door to door at businesses around town, handling each rejection, thinking about stories of Eddison and Colonel Sanders, and just how many rejections they each received before they finally struck big.   Motivated to continue, she makes the odd sale, or possible future connection, creating a new spark, and after a long day on her feet, as she hits the sofa day, she totals up her profits, looking at the left-over cupcakes and spent ingredients. Realising she has taken far less than minimum wage, and with more waste than sales, she plans her next day, hoping for more sales of her delightful creations.   For weeks, day after day, she goes out to convince people why her buying her cupcakes is the best option. Struggling to make the high volume sales she predicted, after a while, she stops making cupcakes to take around, and simply takes around photographs of her works of art, leaving her dream of days spent baking, firmly behind, wearing out her favourite shoes as she pounds the pavements of her local town.   After a few hard and demanding weeks, she meets one of her friends, an old work colleague. "How is it going", he asks, wondering if her new business has been rewarding. "Honestly," Gina says, "it's exhausting. I've been around every place in town, got to meet some truly great people, and even sold quite a few cupcakes, but it's not the life I imagined. Instead of 40 hours a week doing what I have a passion for, baking, I'm spending 4, with another 40 hours on administration, sales, marketing, book-keeping, dealing with advertisers, website technical staff, suppliers, and many more people besides, and all of them are exhausting me, asking me questions I never even thought of, often forcing me to make decisions which I am not sure are even the right ones. And I'm not yet breaking even, let alone earning a salary from this."   Two months later, Gina, with a diet of mainly left over cupcakes, finally gave in, dis-heartened, albeit glad she had tried. "Gina's Cupcakes" was no more. Her passion of cupcake making was something she now had little interest in again, filled with the painful memories of it not becoming the future she had dreamed of. It had been one of the hardest times of her life. And on each working day, unfulfilled by not making enough sales, or finding shops willing to retail her sweet treats, from this point on, she often wondered where she had gone wrong.   If only she had spoken to us.   At Aurora, we specialise in helping any business to deal with any problem, large or small. Complex to simple. Whether helping someone like Gina make her business work, and help her to spend 40 hours a week on cupcakes, be profitable, and help increase her income, taking away all that day to day administration, or whether we are helping one of our many large corporate clients to deliver complex regulatory, technology, or transformation projects and programmes, Aurora is here to help.   Effectiveness - Efficiency means doing more with less. Effectiveness means only doing the smartest things (and doing them efficiently). We focus on making sure that you don't waste valuable effort of what you don't need to, and focus on what will bring the biggest return, to finance or reputation. Direction - We don't tell you what to do. Among us are many trained coaches, but unlike many 'business coaches', we don't just add to your to do list, and charge you for the privilege. We work out where your effort is best spent, and take away anything that you agree needs progressing beyond your skills or time availability.  Cost - Unlike many businesses, we work with you on an affordable and agreeable way to engage us. With some clients, we consider risk and reward; if you don't earn, we don't earn. With some, we charge a flat fee. With others, we find a model that takes the best of all worlds, to make sure that you are happy, getting a great return on investment. Flexibility - Flexibility is our middle name. With a range of specialists, working across many industries, businesses, and company sectors, we know that one size does not fit all. We pride ourselves on our flexibility to meet your needs. Time saving - If you're spending only 4 hours on your passion, while losing 40 hours a week on everything else, it's perhaps not how you really wanted your time to be spent. At Aurora, we aim to help you spend more of the time doing what you do best, and take away your 'to-do list' that you simply don't want to do. And by using our skills, experience, and intellectual property, we can often do your '40 hours', refined into just a few, saving everyone on time, money, effort, and overwhelm. This makes us a very cost effective addition to your business. Time is our most valuable asset. Don't waste it. Planning - We know you can't afford to have us around unless we are adding clear value. We have a strong value that states we find ways to help you, the client become self sufficient, so you only use us when you know we'll be of the most help. Sometimes, that means helping you to plan a roadmap for your company, and help you to plan how to achieve it. We can be as much, or as little involved as you wish.      Focus on what you do best. Leave the rest to us.

In the wake of the United passenger dragging incident, and that of a first class full fare passenger being told to vacate a plane or be handcuffed, eventually to be allowed to sit in economy, attention to bad customer service highlights what all of us at Aurora have been saying for years. A company is as good as its ability to deal with problems, not its ability to deliver a service when everything works. Any fool can sit by while things go right. The value is shown with how issues are handled when things go wrong.   And with an estimated 95% of people sharing bad experiences, can you really afford that?   If an inconvenienced customer is made happier than one who hadn't had the inconvenience at all, surely that is a reward in its own right, and perhaps everyone would want to be inconvenienced! And when relaying their experience, especially in the world of social media viral communication, how well do you think this message will be spread through word of mouth, the most powerful marketing on the planet?     Of course the inconvenience may have a cost, but a happy, loyal and vocal customer is priceless.   Sure, the processes must be designed to work right in the first place, and to avoid obvious and common problems where possible, seamlessly, and ideally without any client awareness if possible, but the process needs to be designed so that any exceptions from the rule(s) are flagged for attention, and where any customer inconvenience is swiftly and unquestionably replaced with an experience that makes the customer glad to have had the 'negative' experience.   Words like empowerment are often overused, and underdone, but it's not about making staff have to jump through hoops "above their pay grade" either. Compensation can take place in a variety of forms, and understanding what ways to compensate a customer so they feel valued is quite simply the first stepping stone of the strive towards perfect customer care.     Designing a service is all about understanding the needs and wants of the stakeholders in the process, establishing the essentials, and identifying what can go wrong.   Murphy's Law (If something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible time) should be a stark reminder to us all to prepare for the worst, and be very happy when that doesn't happen. But when it does, to be so ready for it, that you're almost grateful for the opportunity.   Designing perfect customer care is one of our goals at Aurora. Any business large or small has obligations. All companies provide something, even just peace of mind, and each requires something in order to provide their products or services to their customers. By evaluating what can go wrong, we can integrate identify how and where 'things can go wrong', and introduce measures to deal with them. Often using automated steps for the common issues, and adding bespoke ones as and when deemed cost effective versus the associated risk value.   Often, the biggest obstacle is perceived to be cost. Yet why spend a fortune preparing for every eventuality, when you can simply have a rewarding exception handling process for when deviations occur, that if designed right can work out more cost effective than preparing for every possible loophole, especially if the customer sings you praises for how you handle the exceptions.   And isn't being prepared, and eliminating the risk to reputation or revenue, an essential insurance policy for your business?   If you want to design the perfect customer care solution, contact us, so we can discuss how to make your company, department, product or service delivery smoother, and more rewarding all round.

Add your Enterprises to our Business or Charitable directory! Having a great business or charity is of no benefit, if no-one knows you exist! Listing & promoting your enterprise on Aurora - free, with no obligations, & no pressure, and help your community learn who you are & what you do.  Registration is just 3 easy steps! In Step 3, you'll then complete the details to add your enterprise.List Your Enterprise for Free, Now! STEP 1: Start by completing the form: Name Contact Email Enterprise Name Business Charity Non-profit/CIC Club                           After clicking submit, please check your email. If the email has not arrived within a few minutes, please also check your junk folder. Top tip: If you are a cause (Charity, non-profit or club) with products to sell, such as merchandise, please tick both the box marked 'business' and relevant cause. This gives you a listing in each, offering you the best of both worlds!