Coconut Creatives Director Chris Cook has just returned (by train!) after cycling to Le Mans from Somerset in just 48hrs. The 232 miles of cycling is part of a training programme for a charity off-road mountain bike ride in the summer.

The ride was conceived by Chris’s friend Andy Stobart (PR at Bridgestone). Andy and Chris left Somerset, with pace man James Bowler, at 12.30 last Thursday. After a brief photo-shoot at J Day Engineering the 3 headed for Shaftesbury and then on to Salisbury along pretty country roads.

With a healthy tail wind and fresh legs the pace was rapid with a top speed of 50mph recorded after one descent. James departed in Salisbury and the 2 pedalled on to Portsmouth stopping for a shower and food before catching the overnight ferry to Le Harve. The average speed for the afternoon had been 15.2mph and total mileage 85…

After a poor nights sleep on the ferry and with sore legs the guys arrived in Le Harve. The rain eased and the sun came out as they headed East to cross the estuary and then West before dropping down South towards Le Mans. Day 2 saw a whopping 95 miles covered with rain ending play at the small village of Sees approximately 70kms from Le Mans.

An early rise on Saturday saw the remaining 55miles to Le Mans covered by 11.30hrs. The guys arrived picked up their passes and met the Lola press team.

Chris returned by train to St Malo and then over the channel by Condor Ferry. Andy has continued on to the French Grand Prix a further 250kms - ouch!

Pictures copywrite Coconut Creatives Ltd. 2008

A Mendip butcher turned franchisor, who helped a Somerset school win the best dinner 2007 award, will take pride of place in this month’s Mendip Food and Drink Festival (October 19 to 28).

Among the delights offered by Jon Thorner’s is the free range pork which helped Baltonsborough School near Glastonbury scoop the Somerset accolade.

Later this month he will be showing off why he’s among the best at producing and selling local food on a national scale, and why more than 60 schools across Somerset have chosen him as their food supplier.

As a main sponsor of one of the largest regional food festivals in the country the Mendip Food and Drink Festival. Jon Thorner and his wife Caroline, run two successful template franchise farmshops with a further 4 franchised butchery counters within established farm shops in Somerset and Dorset, say promoting local and regional food is vital to supporting our farming community.

Mr Thorner, who has previously been awarded Somerset Business of the Year, said: “The Mendip Food and Drink Festival offers a wonderful opportunity to celebrate regional and local food. It creates a focus on the good things about our region and brings suppliers, retailers and customers together to offer a deeper understanding of what goes on behind the scenes of so many wonderful local businesses.

The recent foot and mouth outbreaks in Surrey have reinforced his message that supporting local producers helps reduce the need to transport animals and therefore reduces the chances of spreading the disease.

He said: “We’re really glad that the Surrey foot and mouth outbreak has been contained and well managed. In promoting local and regional food, we further reduce the travelling of animals and produce which reduces the risk of diseases like foot and mouth spreading right across the country.

“Seventeen of our producers live within just 10 miles of our shops, most of our meat reaches our farm shops after travelling very few miles, ensuring full provenance and quality of the meat and other produce that we offer our customers.”

Jon Thorner’s has an established relationship with marketing specialists Coconut Creatives who manage their on and offline communications, seasonal events and annual marketing strategy to maximise on exposure opportunities such as the Glastonbury Festival which Jon Thorner’s has supplied with produce for almost 10 years.

Since graduating from Bournemouth University in 2005, Tariq Ebrahim has had big plans to redefine the online dating market with a brand new concept; theICEBREAKER.

Launched on the 1st December 2006, with national newspaper and radio coverage, the business concept had a great start towards hopeful success.

What makes theICEBREAKER different from other online dating sites is that the real magic doesn’t happen online. Once registered and armed with cards, you could be absolutely anywhere, even stuck in a crowed public place where traditional ‘chat up’ lines just wouldn’t be appropriate.

Tariq explains “You sign up, order your cards and start giving them out. Then, next time you’re at a party, on a train or even at work and you see someone you’d like to get to know better, just give them a card… they go to our website and look at your profile and if they like you, they click to accept the date!”

Tariq also happened to give a card to Sarah Dyer at Coconut Creatives and began a new type of relationship… a professional marketing one.

Since it’s conception, Coconut Creatives has helped www.theicebreaker.co.uk make affiliations with Bournemouth University, Islandoo (owned by the Channel 4) and the BBC to help raise awareness of this unique online dating phenomenon and increase its growing online membership base.

Maybe not coconuts but every business owner has an ultimate goal and ours is to escape to a desert island filled with palm trees!

The reason I have started with this analogy is business owners tend to get bogged down in the daily operation of their company and loose sight of what they are actually doing it all for!

Ask yourself; are you suffering from the common things associated with small independent business:

- Keeping up with new technology
- Growing pains as you expand
- HR issues and red tape
- Loosing site of the customer as the market changes (so does customer needs)
- You know what you want to do but just don’t have enough time to do it

The answer can be simpler than you think!

The owners we work with often know what they need to do to generate more profit, many simply need more time! The reason you are doing what you do is because you are good at it. The forward momentum of the operation tends to be left to grow in an ad-hoc way which is not the best way.

We have one core aim which is to offer the small independent businesses a fair and fighting chance at reaching that aim, whether it is a desert island with palm trees or a luxury motor yacht…