20 Aug 2024
Ginny Cooper, the face of STANTA (St Albans Enterprise Agency) for 24 years, has recently retired from her role. Here she looks back on the highlights of her time working on behalf of the local business community.
I am feeling a mixture of excitement and sadness as I will certainly miss all the contacts I have made over the years. Business advice clients, tenants at STANTA Business Centre, stakeholders such as Wenta, SADC and the Herts Growth Hub and particularly the St Albans business community through the St Albans District Chamber of Commerce, have been an important part of my life for many years.
I like to think that my particular skill and success in connecting small business owners has benefitted so many local businesses and if the comments on her farewell post on LinkedIn is anything to go by, they are truly grateful.
I started at STANTA in July 2004 – as a part-time administrator, which fitted in well around my then-primary school age children.
At that time the office was at St Albans Enterprise Centre (off Porters Wood), which they managed on behalf of SADC. It was a pretty basic office with an extremely slow desk top inkjet printer which took so long to print the business information sheets which were given to every client and I often felt frustrated that her skills weren’t being fully used.
All this changed four years later when STANTA bought a new building in Soothouse Spring – STANTA Business Centre and it was exciting watching it being built and being shown around by Jarvis the builders, wearing a hard hat.
In April 2005 STANTA relocated its office to this lovely new modern building and I sat at the same desk for the following 19 years. This coincided with Mel Hilbrown joining as executive director and we became a great partnership, with Mel delivering business advice and me marketing the premises, showing prospective tenants around and handling all the administration for the business advice service.
It took a year to fill STANTA Business Centre and it has had very good occupancy ever since, with a slight dip in 2011-2013. STANTA tenants have come and gone, but some have been there for more than 10 years running successful businesses and we have become friends.
In 2016 STANTA secured funding (via Wenta, their business partner) from the European Regional Development Fund. This meant that clients could benefit from 12 hours of free advice and training, rather than just two hours, which is what they had only previously been funded for.
From this point on STANTA really came into its own as we developed a range of training workshops that clients could attend as part of the free package so we got to know clients well, as they came to STANTA regularly and we were able to build relationships.
We also needed to market our service to the local community so I attended lots of networking meetings such as Business Buzz, Businesswomens Unltd and the Chamber of Commerce, which I really enjoyed as it’s easy to sell a free service that is well-respected and helpful. This also coincided with Facebook being used regularly for businesses and Sue Wybrow’s The Businesses Community became a great referrer to us. A large percentage of Facebook users are women, and women are great at talking and sharing so there were often comments such as: “You must go to STANTA, they offer an excellent free business advice service.”
In 2020 my job title was changed to operations manager in recognition of this all-round role.
When COVID hit in 2020 STANTA changed its business advice service to online. Neither Mel, business advisor Mark Fordham or I had ever used Zoom before, but we soon got used to it and it worked well for one-to-one business advice meetings. Our workshop trainers also delivered their courses oneline, so we were able to continue to support pre-start and new businesses, something that we are proud of. In the early stages of COVID, the business advice sessions were more about survival, cash flow and marketing, all of which we were able to advise on.
Mel Hilbrown continued to work from home for nearly two years, so during that time I took on more and more responsibility and became the face of STANTA. In early 2021, the STANTA board promoted me to director of operations, a role which I fulfilled until my retirement and one that I enjoyed very much.
There are so many memorable things from the last 24 years, but the highlights include welcoming two St Albans MPs – Anne Main and Daisy Cooper to STANTA Business Centre, STANTA’s 30th and 40th birthday celebrations winning awards from the FSB, MumsUnltd and The Businesses Community, and taking part in fun things like Sue Wybrow’s charity mash up video – dancing to Stayin’ Alive!
But best of all has been watching STANTA clients – such as Midnight Blue Marketing and Buff and Bare – receive awards at The St Albans Chamber of Commerce Community Business Awards and several clients being selected as finalists in the Lord Lieutenant’s Enterprise Challenge – particularly as this is a countywide competition.
I felt like a proud mumma watching them deliver their three-minute pitch to the Lord Lieutenant and the Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce.
Other STANTA success stories include Wagada Digital, who started in a shared office at STANTA Business Centre and are now nationally respected, and Heaven is a Cupcake who sought our advice when seeking a loan from The Prince’s Trust 13 years ago and now own their premises in St Albans and supply spectacular cupcakes and occasion cakes locally.
In my retirement, I plan to travel, join the Chapel Gym in Wheathampstead, go for walks, meet friends, go to an Odyssey matinee but best of all I will continue to run Wheathampstead Businesses, so will be still be out and about networking!
Wheathampstead has become a destination for Harpenden and St Albans residents due to its great range of independent shops and cafes, so there’s lots to promote.
If you’re interested in finding out about Wheathampstead Businesses, email me at chair@wheathampsteadbusinesses.co.uk or take a look at the website: www.wheathampsteadbusinesses.co.uk
Eva Lambe and Jeni Peacock now share the operations manager role at STANTA – for further information on how you can obtain business advice, visit https://stanta.co.uk/
