Bondholder D2N2, the Local Enterprise Partnership, is putting its support behind the PPE4NHS campaign and asking businesses across the region to donate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to the fight against Coronavirus.

In addition to widely reported shortages of PPE within the NHS, the care and charity sectors are also finding it difficult to source adequate items of PPE in order to safeguard vulnerable members of society.

Marketing Derby has launched its new Talking Business LIVE webinars for the Bondholder community to keep in contact and share advice during the Coronavirus pandemic. Over the past two weeks over 150 people have joined Managing Director, John Forkin, on-line to hear from a panel of Bondholder experts talking about responses to the pandemic including funding and support available to businesses, communication style and tone, and mental wellbeing.

Bondholder Derby City Council has named Paul Simpson as its new Chief Executive.

Paul has been Acting Chief Executive at the Council, having been appointed as its Strategic Director of Corporate Resources in August 2019. Originally from Derby, he began his career at Derby City Council, as a Trainee Accounting Technician in 1991.

Bondholder D2N2 - the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) - has announced a Redeployment Triage Service for businesses and employees affected by Coronavirus redundancies.

The Service, to be administered by Futures - the National Careers Service provider for the East Midlands - will match those recently made redundant with new work in sectors experiencing a surge in employment demand such as food retail, care and distribution.

In response to COVID-19, Bondholder the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, as a partnership of health and social care employers, is further developing its temporary and volunteer workforce with willing, suitably skilled and experienced people, so that they can work either on the frontline or in another capacity.

Vehicle leasing specialists Motion Vehicles have joined forces with specialist child exploitation charity Safe and Sound to support its work across Derbyshire.

Motion Vehicles, based in Hilton, has pledged support for the charity in a number of ways including donating vehicles at the end of their life through the national ‘Giveacar’ scheme; working with partners and members of the public locally who want to do the same; as well as donating to the charity in return for referrals to them for vehicle leasing agreements.

Here at Marketing Derby, as with all SMEs, we are doing our best to navigate the unprecedented challenges posed by Covid-19.

We will continue to operate over the coming weeks and months but there will be some fundamental changes to our activity.

We are following advice on reducing contact and social distancing whenever possible in order to protect our team, business colleagues, Bondholders and the wider community.

The East Midlands 2020 Business Masters Awards, celebrating the achievements of the region’s most innovative, ambitious and successful companies, crowned Bondholders Frontline Recruitment, Morley Hayes, Pattonair, Ward and

Marketing Derby has launched a new magazine to showcase the creativity and success of business in Derby and Derbyshire.

Innovate brings together stories aimed at three key markets, Bondholders, businesses and investors.

As the full impact of the Coronavirus affects us all, we understand that everyone in our sector is facing serious challenges, both immediate and in the coming weeks. We are working hard to ensure that you have support in place, both now, and once this crisis is over, so that we can all survive and then start to rebuild and recover as quickly as possible once we are able to welcome visitors to this wonderful part of the country.