In my role I set the direction of the strategy for the business, and I make sure that we deliver upon the exciting future vision for CATCH. I support the customer on all levels, I support the member companies, wider stakeholders such as the local authorities, supply chain customers and national organisations to ensure we deliver for the industry and the Humber and Yorkshire region.

I absolutely love working with such an incredible team because it’s amazing to see such energy and enthusiasm every single day, and because of this I come into work every day with a smile on my face. It’s amazing to see the impact CATCH has on key issues within the region such as developing key industrial skills and clean growth.

Developing CATCH’s vison in 10 years it is critical we create a legacy capability from the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan activity that supports the road map to net zero industrial emissions! I also want to strengthen our industry led skills capability.

What will I be doing in 10-years’ time? I hope to be sat on a beach retired. If I could give my past self some advice, I would tell myself to research this fantastic company called CATCH, I knew nothing about CATCH 10 years ago and would have benefited greatly from doing so and taking on board the unique offer, and the truly ‘employer-led’ approach to supporting industry.

Meet Matt Robinson, HR business partner at Thornton & Ross – our newest network chair! Here he shares his thought on current challenges facing HR professionals and how being a member of the network has already benefitted their business.

Please tell us a little about yourself:
I’m Matt Robinson – HR Business Partner at Thornton & Ross. We are one of the UK’s fastest-growing, leading producers of household pharmaceutical products, and own some of the country’s most loved brands such as Covonia®, Hedrin®, Cetraben® as well as the leading disinfectant Zoflora®. I’ve been a proud member of the T&R team for the last 12 months and currently look after the central services HR team. Before T&R I spent 13 years with Asda in various roles in stores and in the home office.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing HR professionals?
The last 18 months have been challenging for many reasons and will impact HR professionals for a long time to come. The first challenge we are already facing is flexible working, closely followed by employee turnover either through redundancy and restructures linked to the pandemic, and now as the labour market reopens and new opportunities become available. Thirdly, I see the recruitment and attraction of talent to be a big challenge in the next few years. Salary costs are likely to increase and the labour market could become a much more competitive market.

How can the group help to address these challenges?
The group is a great tool for us all to voice our opinions, share our stories, and support each other in our decision making with the aim of supporting and growing business across Yorkshire and the Humber. Already we have seen positive and constructive discussions taking place in the last 12 months that have improved employee benefits across many of our members.

How has the HR Yorkshire group benefitted your organisation so far?
We have been able to review and benchmark our current employee benefits with other businesses. Usually, this is done to gain a competitive advantage, but with the support of the other group members, we have been able to align ourselves with other great companies across Yorkshire and the Humber as well as help us think outside the box with different initiatives.

How should I get involved?
Contact Lisa Buck at CATCH – lisa.buck@catchuk.org

CATCH are pleased to announce that we are sponsoring Immingham Town’s Joseph Winship for the 2021/22 season.

CATCH are pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring Immingham Town’s versatile left back Joseph Winship for the 2021/22 season. Joseph and Immingham Town fully expect to be winning the league this season! We are thrilled to support him on his journey with Immingham Town.

Joseph has said that he is “delighted to be working with CATCH and I am extremely grateful for this opportunity CATCH has afforded me”.

Our COO James Mcintosh had this to say “We at CATCH are delighted to sponsor Joseph Winship for the new season. We are keen to support the local community and when the opportunity came up to be a player sponsor we didn’t want to miss out. We are hopeful that this is the start of a good relationship with Immingham Town and are encouraged by the good start to the season that they have had!”

CATCH were overjoyed to see Joseph named Man of the Match in Immingham Town’s game against Nunsthorpe Tavern and can’t was part of the team that beat Brigg Town Development 3-2 last night.

We can’t wait to see Joseph and Immingham town throughout the rest of the season!

Hull City Council in partnership with and on behalf of the Hull and East Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and CATCH are seeking consultancy and specialist capability support for the delivery of part of our Phase 2 Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) decarbonisation of industrial clusters: Cluster Plans project.

The Phase 2 project builds on feasibility work undertaken in Phase 1 that included a baseline emissions assessment, technology options appraisal and methodology assessment, resulting in a final report outlining the findings and proposed criteria for delivering the Humber Industrial Cluster Plan (HICP) in Phase 2.

The plan will provide a blueprint for clean growth to drive a green recovery in the Humber. A phased approach will prioritise near-term deliverable investments that will see quick results, significantly reducing the Humber’s emissions by 2030, mapping out how CCS and hydrogen infrastructure can be scaled up over time, and identifying the full range of interventions required to achieve net zero by 2040.

HICP will also outline the potential for the Humber’s industrial decarbonisation to support decarbonisation beyond the industrial cluster, including maritime in the UK’s largest ports complex, road/rail transport and decarbonisation of the gas supply (25% of the UK’s supply passes through the Humber). Linked opportunities and implications for renewable energy, especially BECCS and offshore wind (both of which the Humber leads on and are integral to decarbonising industry), will also be identified.

Supporting UK leadership of decarbonisation technologies and the creation of local jobs and supply chains are crosscutting themes where HICP will identify future actions the Humber can take to accelerate the green recovery, including identifying opportunities for inward investing businesses and those looking to diversify to take advantage of low carbon infrastructure.

HICP and the evidence base that will be assembled through its development will provide a clear way forward for industry, Government and local leaders to work together to achieve rapid decarbonisation of the UK’s largest cluster, whilst maximising opportunities for local people and businesses to benefit from the transition.

The strategic importance of the Humber means that there is significant national and international interest in the progress and development of this Plan.

Works required are split into 8 Lots as follows:

Lot 1 – Model and Scenario Outputs – being commissioned by CATCH;

Lot 2 – MPR Fuel Switching / CCS / GGR – being commissioned by CATCH;

Lot 3 – MPR Emissions Offsets / Imports – being commissioned by LEP;

Lot 4 – Societal Challenge and Innovation Study – being commissioned by LEP;

Lot 5 – Preparation of Cluster Plan – being commissioned by LEP;

Lot 6 – Inward Investment – being commissioned by LEP;

Lot 7 – Supply Chain Audit – being commissioned by CATCH; and

Lot 8 – Skills and Age Profile Audit – being commissioned by CATCH

You can review these Invitations to Tender at https://www.yortender.co.uk/

Search for Current Opportunities with Hull City Council

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is delighted that our project ‘Green Investment in Greater Lincolnshire’ has been backed by the Government’s Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund.

Green Investment in Greater Lincolnshire is among 27 schemes nationwide to benefit from the pioneering new fund to drive private investment in nature and tackle climate change, Defra, the Environment Agency and Natural England announced yesterday.

The Natural Environment Investment Readiness Funding will help the Trust to work with relevant stakeholders to establish a joint vision and strategic priorities for Green Investment in Greater Lincolnshire addressing the key issues that people and wildlife are facing.

A credit trading model will be developed where nature-based solutions are designed to deliver habitats to meet biodiversity net gain requirements, to capture and store carbon to enable the journey to net zero or to store water during flood or drought events, or cleanse water to improve the quality in our waterways and in the supply change.

Tammy Smalley, Head of Conservation at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust said:
“This is truly exciting news for Greater Lincolnshire. This funding will enable us to work with our local councils, landowners, developers and our partnerships covering river catchments, enterprise and nature to develop a fair and equitable scheme for biodiversity, carbon and water credit trading.

“If we get this right, we will be able to deliver more for people and wildlife, while tackling the climate crisis. Together, we can make our patch of the UK resilient to climate change, more vibrant for our communities and allow nature’s recovery.”

The Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is grateful to the many people and organisations that provided letters of support for this project and to Anglian Water and the Humber Nature Partnership for providing match funding.

For further information please contact:

Tammy Smalley, Head of Conservation, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust tsmalley@lincstrust.co.uk

TesTex NDT Ltd. have been a Contractor member of the Humber Bank Contractor Competency Forum (ConCom) since June 2008.  During this time TesTex has carried out Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) for a number of the ConCom Client members, including; Total (LOR), BP, Centrica, Phillips 66, Arkema, British Steel, Crystal, Greenergy, INEOS, Lenzing, Nippon Gohsei, Novartis, SSE, Synthomer and VPI.

In November 2011 TesTex were awarded the inaugural ‘Continuous Improvement Award for Workforce Competency’

Following a successful audit in April 2015 the auditor wrote; “You will be pleased to know your end score is 94%, last year was 92%. 94% is what we would call a perfect score and we don’t get many if any over this score usually, so well done, you definitely deserve the recognition for this”.  Following this achievement and throughout the following years TesTex have continued to score highly in the mid to high 90’s.  That is until April 2021 when the auditor wrote; “thank you for your support in collating the evidence for your remote ConCom Audit.  Absolutely brilliant, excellent preparation, very helpful.  I have pleasure in attaching your completed Audit Report, an Excellent Audit achieving 100%”.

In October 2020 TesTex were pleased to announce that one of their apprentices had been awarded the ConCom Apprentice of the Year Award and on completion of his end point assessment he was  the first person in the country to complete the Engineering Technician Level 3 NDT Apprenticeship with 3 disciplines; Ultrasonic (UT) Shear wave, Dye Penetrant Inspection (DPI) and Magnetic Particle Inspection (MPI).

We are proud to sponsor this years CHEMUK showcase at the NEC in Birmingham don’t he 15th -16th September.

We will be exhibiting alongside Reynolds Training Services, showcasing the National Centre for Process and Manufacturing.

Plus David Talbot, CEO and James McIntosh, COO will be contributing to the conference programme – check it out below:

We will be hosting meetings at the show – if you would like to book in with a member of our team, please contact info@catchuk.org

The ConCom Scheme is led by a committee of industrial client members, which ensures that the scheme is relevant and fit for purpose in today’s industrial environment.

The team sat down with Committee member Desmond Wright, engineering manager, Lenzing Fibers, and asked how important was the ConCom scheme to him.

I’ve worked at Lenzing Fibers since 1992, starting as a Mechanical Technician before progressing to Maintenance Team Leader, Reliability Team Leader, Mechanical Engineer through to my current position of Engineering Manager.

How important is the Concom Scheme to you?

I first starting attending the Concom client/contractor meetings in early 2000 as a temporary stand-in for my Engineering Manager at the time who had been instrumental in setting up the Concom scheme.

Lenzing’s number one priority is to ensure all our employees who work on the site do so in a safe manner by ensuring we follow all current regulations, guidelines, and best practices.   This same principle is applied to all contractors who work on the Lenzing site therefore we need a process that delivers on our expectations.  Concom has been the chosen process to achieve this for over 20 years.

I have seen a dramatic improvement over the years in the way safety and competence is viewed by the HSE and in return by both clients and contractors.  Concom is a scheme recognised by the HSE.  It is proactive in its outlook, has a proven audit process, and provides a forum for open discussions between clients and contractors to ensure high safety and competence standards are embedded into their process.

Thornton and Ross based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire is the latest organisation to join the CATCH membership scheme.  The company, founded in 1922 are one of the UK’s fastest-growing, leading producers of household pharmaceutical products, and own some of the country’s most loved brands such as Covonia^®, Hedrin^®, Cetraben^® as well as the leading disinfectant Zoflora^®. Many people in the UK will have a product from Thornton & Ross somewhere at home. They are also a trusted and reliable provider of prescription products, including emollients bone health products and generics, to the NHS with almost 100 years’ heritage behind them.

Matt Robinson, HR Business Partner said “We’re really excited to be formally joining CATCH as their latest member. Working alongside other fantastic Yorkshire based organisations will add real benefit to all our operations and help us develop strong links with link minded HR professionals”.

We look forward to working with Matt and his colleagues and welcoming them to our regional networks and events.

To find out more visit https://www.thorntonross.com/

We are moving forward with our SME Climate Hub Commitment!

We committed to taking action, through changes in our own workplace, using the tools and support offered through the SMEClimateHub to achieve our plan – to half our carbon footprint by 2030 and to be net-zero by 2050!

In response to our commitment, Paul Snowden, Head of Operations, said “ I recently attended a training course – carbon for business, delivered by Tunley engineering. The course helped me to understand how to measure and benchmark our carbon footprint and then put a plan together to reduce it.  We have already put in a number of measures including, distributing new recycling bins across the site, renegotiating our waste contract to support with recycling and shared these measures with our on-site tenants. We have also made provision for Electric charging points in this year’s budget and we are working on proposals to install solar panels on our roof space across the site. Ultimately our plan is to half our carbon footprint by 2030 and to be net zero by 2050”.

To find out more, please contact Paul – paul.snowden@catchuk.org you can make your own commitment here www.smeclimatehub.org