Christmas Opening Times

Happy Christmas!

StairSteady Christmas office opening times:

21st December-open as normal (9am-5pm)

22nd December-open as normal (9am-5pm)

23rd December-closed

24th December-closed

25th December-closed

26th December-closed

27th December-closed

28th December-emergencies only (answer machine)

29th December-emergencies only (answer machine)

30th December-emergencies only (answer machine)

31st December-emergencies only (answer machine)

1st January-closed

2nd January-closed

3rd January-closed

4th January-open as normal (9am-5pm)

We are not open much over Christmas as our manufacturers and fitters have a well deserved break, however we will have the phone on and answer machine (which we will be checking from the 28th-31st). we will also be checking our emails so you can email on either info@stairsteady.net or stairsteady@hotmail.co.uk

We hope you have a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year!

From Ruth and the StairSteady Team

Well Done Charlotte!

Just a quick post to congratulate my best friend Charlotte who has been voted a student Trustee of Hallam Union.

I am so proud of her (she did an amazing speech and used a quote from Legally Blonde)

What a Star!

PR Personal Training

Why do people always wait till January to get into shape?!

I am a bit of a gym bunny (actually a big gym bunny) i love training and i'm even considering doing a half marathon in April....

...but i have no need to worry about gaining weight over the Christmas period as a friend of mine has started his own personal training company in chesterfield, specialising in personal training and sports first aid.

His prices are really reasonable and even offers a special buddy-buddy rate so you can train with a friend.

To me that sounds like fun and at £30 for the buddy-buddy session its a steal at £15 per person!!!

Check out there website www.physiorooms.co.uk

Newport, Wales

On the 20th November (yes I’m very late writing it but all I can say is I’ve been very busy) I talked at a 6th form conference held by Newport business school. i travelled down after my Look North interview and stayed overnight so I didn’t have to get up mega early.
It was such a quiet journey in, hardly any cars!!! Phil came with me to keep me company- and drive- it was so beautiful, with lovely bridges (its the engineer in me :-))

The students were all very lovely, I even got proposed to!
Some of the questions I got asked were really good and some of them were even considering setting up their own business. I really enjoyed the day and everyone was so friendly. Thank you for such a warm welcome J
Just a note to say thank you to Betina Skovbro for the photos (http://www.skovbro.com/)

London Metro, Daily Mail, Look North.......the List Goes on

After the Women of the Future Award i have been getting alot of really good PR about StairSteady (thank you, every little helps!).
it has been madness in the office (yay!) and we have all been working really hard to answer all your calls and emails.

Thank you... and here is my Look Nort interview

Women of the Future

It may have been over a week since it happened, but the publicity ripples are still going.

On the 12th November it was the Women of the Future Awards, sponsored by Shell.
I took my friend Tanya who nominated me (Thank you Tanya) and it was a really special event.
This amazing night started with a champagne reception where we could network. I met with some of the other girls in my category; Nikki Cusworth from Rolls-Royce, Georgia Groom from ‘angus, thongs and perfect snogging’, Alice Powell the best female racing driver I know and Mishka Rushdie Momen a very talented pianist.
The night started with us all up on stage and a welcome speech from Pinky Lilani OBE-who started the awards with Caspian Publishing. This was followed by a welcome speech by David Cameron (who was sat between Cherie Blair and Tessa Jowells) who promised “I will not let the quest for equality die. Women are more likely to become MPs in Rwanda, Belarus, Burundi and the Seychelles than in the UK. Frankly, that’s a disgrace. That is not progressive. And I will not let this problem rest until I’ve fixed it.”
It was....interesting, but I got a mention so that was exciting!
The special guests were Her Highness Princess Zahra Aga Khan and Cherie Blair who are patrons of Women of the Future. Also in attendance was novelist Salman Rushdie and actress Anna Chancellor (Spooks, Four Weddings and a Funeral) to Her Royal Highness Princess Badiya Bint El Hassan. (who is the loveliest person EVER!!)
A big highlight for me was that Phyllida Lloyd (who directed Mamma Mia) presented an award!!!
The food was lovely (even if I don’t really eat much fish, it was really nice!) and the company was ace!
Alice (and her manager) and Tanya entertained me all night... and I won the ‘Women of the Future’ ‘Young Star’ Award.
Thank you very much Women of the Future, lovely night, amazing award and ALOT of publicity (which always helps when getting a new product on the market :-)).

so long so much to tell you!

okay so i have been really busy, but in a really good way because i have had alot of people to call and email (and i am still calling and emailing people)

So last time i blogged i had seen Lord Sugar.... well i had the honour of being one of the speakers at the Bring Out the Branson event at the Gateshead Hilton Hotel AND what an event it was!
There were some really inspiring speakers James Murray Wells, founder of glassdirect.co.uk, Chris Taylor, Director of Superkrush Films and the amazing Alexander Amosu, mobile ringtones entrepreneur! It was hosted by Casper Berry who was really good at holding the show together!!

I love my dodgy foot on this one

It was run by the Entrepreneurs Forum they said about the event:
'In recognising the future potential of tomorrow's entrepreneurs in our region, the Entrepreneurs' Forum's annual student conference brings together a range of leading business men and women, as well as our own home-grown talent, to share their learning's and experiences with delegates from the region's Univerisites and Colleges - which for many delegates, could just make the difference to them between success and failure.'

It was an amazing event and everyone was so so lovely and i felt at home as my dad is from Gateshead.
Thank you for inviting me!

How To Buy A StairSteady!

Purchase Guide
This is a simple guide on how to buy a StairSteady:

Step one- which type of StairSteady?
Call us on 08456528804 or email us at info@stairsteady.net to place your order.
• We need to know if you are purchasing a standard or dog leg StairSteady. A dog leg has a 90 degree turn in it. (When it comes to dog legs if it is only two or three steps I recommend a standard with a handrail, if you can manage, as it works out cheaper)
• We will want your details- name, address and telephone number.
• We will ask for 50% of the total cost to be sent by cheque or bank transfer.
Our postal address is 42 Ashley Lane, Killamarsh, Sheffield, S21 1AB.

Step 2- What type of assessment?
The next thing you need to decide is who you wish to carry out the assessment.
The assessment is on the property (not the user) and can be done by the purchaser at no cost. A form will be sent to you should you decide to do this yourself.
We will need some basic information about sizes and placing, but mostly it is about your wall type. The wall is crucial because it means that we know what to bring to fit the StairSteady, but also if the wall is stable enough to hold the weight required. You may need to do some minor investigation to find out what type of wall you, for example a light switch may need to be removed (please do this carefully). (However, should we not be able to fit due to any inaccurate information given or an inaccurate wall survey, then an aborted fit cost will be charged at £50+VAT.)

Alternatively we can arrange for the assessment to be carried out at a cost of £50+VAT.

Step 3- what do I pay?
You send us a cheque for the initial payment (50% of total cost), and we send you an order confirmation with an unique order number, confirming the price and assessment arrangements, (if you want us to carry out the assessment, we will then arrange to send out an assessor).
When we receive your cheque or bank transfer we will call you to confirm it has arrived and then again once it has cleared.

Step 4- How do I arrange fitting?
Once payment has cleared and we have your assessment details we will then arrange for your StairSteady to be fitted. One of our trained StairSteady fitters will contact you to come out and fit your StairSteady at a convenient time to you.

Step 5- what about final payment?
You will pay the outstanding balance on the StairSteady after fitting, by cheque or bank transfer, our postal address is 42 Ashley Lane, Killamarsh, Sheffield, S21 1AB.
Any questions please email info@stairsteady.net or give us a call.

see our new price list on the post made on the 18th April 2010

Bdaily TV

Im on BDaily TV, check it out, i'l do a proper blog on the event when i have a little more time, enjoy!!!
http://bdaily.info/tv/news/06-11-2009/bring-out-the-branson/

Your Fired!

So last week was a busy week, on Wednesday afternoon i went along to Nottingham University to take part in a question and answer session with the one and only Sir Alan.... I mean Lord Sugar.

It was an opportunity to ask the Entrepreneurial Czar his opinions on our businesses, and although I didn’t ask a question I found it very informative. Sir Alan Lord Sugar was very informative and straight talking.

Here are just a few pearls of wisdom:
· Editorial is worth its weight in gold
· Recruit using staff you have, they know people with the skills set you want
· Look at the money weekly be focused
· Never have just one customer
· Play to you strengths (he was very blunt about his own successes and failures)


A few funny sayings from Lord Sugar that I found particularly amusing, useful or interesting:
· Ten to fifteen years ago we lived in a Mickey mouse Disney world with the banks
· At one time anyone with his top button undone, a bottle of Evian and a sheet with ‘.com’ at the top was given 5 million from the banks, that can’t be right!
· This is your wakeup time!
· Deal with it!
· Play the game in this moment
· Can we get to the question!
· Show me the Money!
· I Literally wouldn’t give up your day job! (to a guy setting up a business)
It ended up being like the apprentice meets dragons den, I found it a very interesting insight into business but especially Lord Sugar, and I left wondering how a man so down to earth had ever been persuaded to do a TV show.

Helping Will at Sheffield Uni

Last night I had the pleasure of being asked to come along to Sheffield University and help my friend Will, from Speakeasy for Schools, teach some of the students about business and being an entrepreneur. It was a lot of fun and the topics we covered were Networking and Negotiation. Very important topics!
I met some really nice and talented people and contacts... its all about the Networking! :)

12 Hour Cardio Marathon

On Saturday the 24th October, me and my brother, my boyfriend and my dad took place in a team 12 hour cardio marathon (a charity event for the South Yorkshire Community Fund), the aim was that in teams of four or more, you completed 12hours on either a spin bike or treadmill, for 12hours there must always be one of your team members on your piece of equipment!

The challenge started at 7am and we would finish at 7pm, it had been organised by a friend of mine called Becky and she did a wonderful job! There were four teams on sin bikes and one treadmill team, each group slit the time differently, 1 hour slits, half an hour splits, my team opted for 20min splits. This meant we had 20min on the bike and an hour to recover, the 20min on the bike was 20min sprinting as the other aim was to do as many KM as possible in the 12 hours! As a team we managed 405KM in 12 hours and all the teams on the bikes managed 1624KM- that’s from junction 30 on the m1 all the way to Villanova Marconi in Italy!

When we weren’t on the bikes we had snacks provided and we watched films (some were very appropriate such as ‘Run Fat Boy Run’). It was a tiring day and at times quite painful as anyone who regularly rides a bike will know, getting back on the saddle is the hardest bit! But it was a good laugh and Becky organised it really well!

Let’s hope we raised a lot of money for the South Yorkshire Community Fund!

Be Good Be Beautiful!

On Wednesday 21st we had our second Be Good Be Beautiful night, this is an event that we put on once a year to promote fairtrade fashion, makeup, jewellery and anything that would appeal to a female audience looking to be more ethical. It is held at my church, but we set u the hall to have a cafe feel with little stalls around the side.

This year we had, a Tradecraft stall, Bodyshop, Exclusive Roots jewellery, Ethical Girl clothing, Banana Bobs fruit and veg boxes, a selection of ethical books, Tradecraft and Tearfund jewellery, a meadowhall map with fairtrade shops marked, and a ethical lookbook for autumn and winter.

It was a lovely night, with a chilled atmosphere and lots of chocolate!!!
Also we have just signed u for the 90 kg Rice Challenge as a circuit, The challenge, to sell 90 kilos of fairly traded Malawian Kilombero rice, represents a great way to make tangible the impact we can have on Developing World producers by buying fairly traded products.
If a Malawian rice farmer sells 90kilos of rice at a fair price he/she makes enough money to send one of their children to high school for a year. Only 1 in 3 children can currently afford to go to high school in Malawi and as education is a vital tool in overcoming poverty, any increase in this statistic is extremely valuable.
This is an ongoing challenge and on the night we sold about 20bags, but we are hoping to continue this and maybe do an event or meal especially for it!
......Also a big thanks to the men, who sent the night in the kitchen doing drinks!

Now its time to start organising the next one!

Sponsered Walk

Yesterday I did a walk with my mum for Portage.
Portage is Portage is a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with additional support needs and their families.
The first such scheme was developed in Portage, Wisconsin, USA in the early 1970's to meet the needs of the young children living in rural communities. Since its introduction in the UK, the success of the approach has lead to an increasing number of services being developed nationally. There are now 140 services registered with the National Portage Association in Britain.
The aim of Portage is to support the development of young children's play, communication and relationships and to encourage full participation in day to day life within the family and beyond the home. Portage services are committed to securing inclusion in the wider community for all children and families in their own right. Support offered through Portage is based on the principle that parents are the key figures in the care and development of their child and Portage aims to help parents to be confident in this role whatever their child's needs may be.
In order to do this the Portage Home Visitor works alongside parents offering practical help and ideas to:
make learning fun for all the family;
encourage a child's interests;
and address problematic situations.
In Rotherham the Portage workers salaries are funded, but other outreach activities aren’t. So yesterday I did a sponsored walk around the children’s centre in Rotherham with my Mum, it was a really nice day (apart from the weather was horrible, very wet!). We managed and hopefully we will have raised a lot of money for the service. We walked about 11miles, I never realised that Rotherham was that hilly!!!!

Micheal McIntyre Was Amazing!

You can probably tell by the title that i was ver impressed by Mr McIntyre! he was so so funny, Loved Him! i would recommened going to see him, his show was adapted to the audienceand at times he went off his 'set' list of jokes, but this made his so much better and well worth the money!

Michael McIntyre

I am very excited tonight to be seeing Micheal McIntyre! I am going with my boyfriend and we are both very excited, I will give you a full update tomorrow.

Women of the Future Award

I am very privileged to have been shortlisted for a ‘Women of the Future’ Award (thank you very much Tanya Budd for nominating me!). I am in the Young Stars category and last Friday I went down to London to be ‘judged’. This was not as scary as it sounds, more of an interview. My category is really nice as we all come from different industries and we are all there for different reasons there is Mazeda Begum who is a student (unfortunately I didn’t get to meet her) but I did have the pleasure of meeting Nikki Cusworth a young engineer for Rolls-Royce, Georgia Groom who is an actress (some of you will know her from Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging), Alice Powell a racing-driver who races with Manor and last but not least Mishka Rushdie Momen a pianist.
It was so nice to meet everyone and we all found we had a lot in common (some of even lived quite close to each other). Luckily for us we have all achieved great things in our chosen area, so the judges have a hard job. It is a lot nice that in other categories there are friends that I met at the Management Today events (we were all on the 35 women under 35 list together) were also up for awards.
It was especially nice to see Laura Stevenson of Sadler’s Wells and Jade Tong of DTZ who are also up for awards, good luck everyone!

For more infocheck out the Women of the Future website http://womenofthefuture.co.uk

Keeping this up to date

Ok, so i have had this blog a while now and have only done one post so i am going to try and do some more blogging. I am going to blog about whats going on in my life, its very hectic at the moment, but i will try and keep this up! :)

Role Model

I recently became a Speakeasy4School ambassador, talking in schools for programmes that encourage young people to be successful. I decided to become an ambassador after overhearing a young girl on the tram tell her mother she wanted to be a topless model, and her mother responded with 'well at least you'll be famous and have money'. It is statements like this that make me realise how few positive female role models we have. Looking in magazines and on TV there are so many young women selling themselves short. There is so much potential in young people but all they get shown is that to make money you don’t need to be clever or work hard, you just need to look good, or prance around in your underwear... or worse in nothing. This is so frustrating for me because there are so many successful women who set an example, but there is so little media attention on them. Women like Amanda Jones, who co-founded Red Button is a great example of this, she is an amazing business women, and a brilliant role model! I was shocked when I asked some students for a list of successful business people and they could not think of one woman, when I mentioned Anita Roddick they looked at me as if I had gone mad. Why do young people know of Alan Sugar and Peter Jones but do not know one of the world’s greatest activists for ethical business and human rights. Anyone can have a pretty face but it takes real guts to do something worthwhile. There are a lot of sacrifices that have to be made, but I always think, after so many people sacrificed so much and fought so hard for women’s rights why should we not be a force to be reckoned with. Women lost their lives so we can do have the opportunity to do so much in our lives, surely that should make you want to succeed in life and be someone that is remembered in a positive way- why when it seems like we have won so much should we suddenly stop fighting. There is still so much we can do.