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As catering manager of the Rogers family, Sandra’s dinner-time menu left a little to be desired…

Where would we be without our Mums? Unable to eat, dress, conduct ourselves socially and with nobody to wipe our faces after dinner. 

In fact, if you were to search on our Jobs section for a Mum, you’d probably need to include quite a few keywords: caterer, housekeeper, dry cleaning services, head of entertainment, nurse, taxi-driver, counsellor, teacher, relationship therapist, accountant, personal shopper, estate manager, travel agent, animal trainer… the list goes on. Which is precisely why Mums are so great at multi-tasking (thank goodness!).

With several mums amongst the HugoFox team, we know exactly how important it is to handle your time effectively. If you are not juggling saucepans, separating whites from colours and changing nappies all at once now, you’re probably planning how to manage the growing list for tomorrow. Makes you tired just reading about it all, doesn’t it? Luckily for Mums throughout the region, HugoFox is here to help.

Here on HugoFox.com we have tried to keep this in mind as we constantly update our news, events, jobs and offers to keep your life ticking along consistently: after all, having a ‘one stop’ site where you can organise most of your ‘duties’ in one hit is a time-saving luxury.With constant updates on our many sections, we can help you find a local football club, book a birthday party, search for some great local shopping deals and much more – even better, everything is local to you, saving time, money and a whole lot of additional effort!

Whether you need a new car for your growing family (Hummer, anyone?) a part-time job to fit around your family needs or you are looking for ideas to help the finances go further, there is a category to fit the bill. HugoFox.com has great ideas for keeping the family happy on a weekend or school holiday with events from fun days to family musicals  - and if you are on a budget, it’s always worth a browse through the Offers section for discounts and savings on your doorstep.

Being a mum is the best feeling in the world… but sometimes we all need a little time-saver to help make the job a bit easier. Search HugoFox.com for ideas.

The business section has listings of the services you may need for organising a holiday, coffee shops and beauticians to unwind, to specialist food retailers if you are trying to work around your vegetarian/intolerant/generally picky brood. Need a regular babysitter or a nanny? Why not post under our Jobs section (posting costs from just £24) where local, well-known and reliable people will be looking for this type of work – after all, as events manager and head of recruitment, this is part of your role too!

School is a big part of family life so being able to read about what the local schools are up to can give an insight into the activities in which they encourage their pupils to participate. Our News site is well worth keeping tabs on – not least because we avoid the sensationalist and just generally depressing stories in favour of what’s really relevant to you – read about the Dyslexia Research Trust here to find out how this charity changes children’s lives, and of all the great charity work which is being done to help raise funds for such worthwhile causes.

And if, after all that, you still have a spare few minutes each day to run a business of your own, then the site is a fantastic way to list and promote your services: there are guides to help you use HugoFox to your advantage and develop your business, whilst still reserving precious time to wipe little Johnny’s nose and release the cat’s tail from Molly’s ‘death grip’. All in a day’s work…

Keep up to date by following us on Twitter or checking the Facebook page, where you can have your say, make suggestions and leave comments. The team are always glad to hear any thoughts and ideas, so do get in touch by emailing us at news@hugofox.com.

Favours From Us owner Kate Chandler is looking forward to a busy season, with Mother’s Day around the corner on 18th March and a wedding season about to kick off – Kate’s range is in high demand.

Supplying bespoke stationary and favours for all occasions, she also packages chocolates for hotels and restaurants looking to provide something extra special for their guests.  With part of Kate’s range on display at local arts and crafts shop, Doodles, and a selection of stationary and favour boxes on show at Dream Wedding Gowns in Tadley, she also sells her popular fabric-covered handmade cards, as well as notelets, gift boxes, vintage style brooches, French macaroons, boxed chocolates and personalised chocolate bars. Perfect for anyone looking to depart from the norm and buy a local gift with a twist!

This beautiful red spotted hat holds treasure within, in the form of hidden Guylian chocolates! Check out HugoFox.com classifieds for more ideas from Kate...

Now off the back of a bumper Christmas and New Year (2011 was the year of the chocolate, apparently!) Kate’s goodies are already proving in demand as wedding couple and romantics are turning to local produce in favour (excuse the pun) of mass-produced goods.

Kate says: “The HugoFox.com website is great for putting items up for sale in the classifieds section, and I was really pleased when I found that my business listings were helping my search engine optimisation significantly – I’d really encourage other businesses to take advantage of the opportunity to add their services or products.  It’s really easy to list items, edit them or suspend them if necessary –  I believe it’s a great site for helping local businesses and am looking forward to working with the founder and local business owner Michael Thompson on projects together going ahead.” 

With Kate’s new range including specially designed Mother’s Day chocolate bar wrappers and cupcake gift boxes, Kate will be doing us all a favour in the office when we’re trying to find something special just for Mum!

For more information please click here or phone 07887 772233.

*Gift boxes, macaroons, Choc-o-lait Belgian chocolate sticks and favour boxes can be found in the classified section on HugoFox.com, and don’t forget to sign up to receive HugoFox.com Offers to be notified for a great deal coming soon on gift wrapped Guylian chocolates, courtesy of Favours From Us.

National Apprenticeship Week 2012 takes place this week, and at a time when employment is at such a low amongst our young people, it’s about time businesses looked at making more vacancies available through training schemes.

This year, 55 WorldSkills UK national competitions are being hosted by a range of organisations across the country. Entrants can exhibit a wide range of skills from automobile technology and floristry to stonemasonry and caring. The competitions are designed to help people develop their employability skills at the start of their career, helping them to progress in the workplace.

National Apprenticeship Week 2012 takes place until 12th February

Business owner and founder of jobs site HugoFox.com backs the drive to make more opportunities available to young people. He tells HugoFox news:

“We founded our website on the premise that more people are looking for jobs locally, wishing to avoid lengthy commutes and also working to build bridges within their community. With the news this week reporting that university applications are down by 10%, it’s more important than ever that local businesses make room to take on enthusiastic young people.

“At my precision engineering firm, RE Thompson, we are taking on four new apprentices this year, linking with our local college in Basingstoke. Our previous apprentices have worked so hard and formed a great team, so we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend schemes such as these to other companies. We have dozens of local businesses listed on the site and we are keen to encourage them to post vacancies suited to local people. HugoFox.com provides an affordable way to advertise such positions, as it only costs £24 to list a job.”

Michael concludes: “My own experience of taking on apprentices shows how much promise can be gained by opening the doors to training schemes, rather than hiring qualified employees purely because they have the credentials. We live in a time where there is a high demand for jobs of any kind, and it’s important that candidates offer a strong work ethic and a passion for developing themselves further in order to be considered for a role.”

Both of Michael Thompson’s enterprises actively support apprenticeship schemes and he hopes to elevate their profile amongst employers listed on HugoFox.com.

National Apprenticeships Week is set to be a big success as, for the fourth year running, its organisers work to ‘engage and persuade employers of the advantages of employing and supporting apprentices in their workplace’ as well as ‘highlighting the talent and skills of apprentices to employers and the wider public.’

Why not give your support? Have space in your organisation to train a new employee? Advertise on HugoFox.com now to see how offering apprenticeship schemes could benefit your company, as well as your local community.

Forget the novelty of browsing in your local supermarket at three in the morning; online business has been a twenty-four hour affair for so much longer. Shoppers sat at home in their pyjamas (the wearing of slippers not having been banned from the internet) can browse at their leisure for hours on end. They can wander in and out of businesses, return, have a good look at the products and compare prices with other shops, all within minutes and just a couple of clicks of the mouse. While the main high-street sleeps, the online high-street is buzzing.

Out of business: a bad shop front won't do your name any good. The same goes for having a messy, badly designed website. That's where HugoFox.com can help...

These days, customers are far more likely to search the internet when they have a fish tank emergency or need to send that apologetic bunch of flowers than they are to flick through the telephone directory. That’s where HugoFox.com is fulfilling a vital role. Rather than just bunging your business name and telephone number in a ‘dead’ listing website and leaving it there, HugoFox.com brings together all the online shop-fronts into one long virtual high-street. It’s like taking a stroll down your own main road, in your nightie, and being able to shop ‘til you drop whatever the time of day.

Small businesses in particular benefit from a website shop front. It means they’re not limiting themselves to footfall and word of mouth but opening themselves up to a national and even international market. If you’re a specialist store then the potential is even greater.

When customers come on to the website they’re often looking for something specific. It’s important to make sure that they can actually find you in the first place, if you stock what it is they’re looking for. HugoFox.com can help there too by bolstering your place on the Google rankings, and listing with the site can benefit you greatly as our own directory will help single you out. Which means you gain recognition locally, but also from those with a specific interest in your products or services, wherever they may be. No doors are closed!

That said, it’s no good just having a presence online: be under no illusion that web-surfers will leave your site as quickly as they arrived

Don't restrict your opening hours: get online for free with a little help from your local fox!

if it’s overly-complicated or bewildering. If it’s deemed too much work then it’s a no-go. It’s a good idea to visualise a real shop window. When people look in they want to see something that’s clear and ‘clean’ but also that’s immersive and makes them want to come in and nose around. You want to turn them from window-shoppers into buyers. By showing the customers what they want to see, you’re reducing your risk of a high ‘bounce rate’; those are the shoppers who walk through the door, have a quick glance around and then either feel intimidated or can’t see anything that immediately draws them in. They hurry out and they’re very unlikely to return.

Your shop front also needs to be responsive too. Customers don’t like to be left hovering around waiting for some assistance. Websites need to be maintained, questions fielded and it needs to be easy to actually purchase something. After all, it’s really nice that people come and have a look at your shop but the aim of the game is to make some money!

If you don’t yet have a website then listing with HugoFox.com could be a great first step. You’re in charge of the information you post and can change and edit it at any time. You can even advertise your own HugoFox.com Offers for customers at a very low cost. It’s an easy, online presence that’s clutter-free and clear as day to use. Here at HugoFox.com we have masses of customers, some in their pyjamas and some fully-dressed, who are looking at our website every day – so why not join us to take advantage of a ready-made audience?

Don’t just turn the light out at the end of the day. The online community never sleeps; and neither should your business.

To register your business for free, click here and scroll down to register as a new user. Remember – list your business and take advantage of HugoFox news to tell the world about your latest event, fundraiser or story!

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