MIA Chairman - Paul McManus

Throughout 2009, we created a variety of valuable and progressive Partnerships with a number of the UK's most influential Trade Associations. This partnership programme is unique to the training sector and we were delighted when the Music Industries Association became the latest Trade Association to sign up to Cosensa's UK wide range of courses.

The Music Industries Association (MIA) is the UK Trade Association representing suppliers, retailers and educationalists involved in musical instruments and associated products. They represent the full breadth of music from classical instruments right through to electric guitars, technology products and sheet music.

All MIA members can now book all of Cosensa Learning and Development public courses directly through the MIA website at www.mia.org.uk In doing so, MIA members now have direct access to our courses at specially negotiated discounted rates.

MIA Chairman Paul McManus said; "This is an extremely valuable and worthwhile partnership opportunity for ourselves and our members. We have hundreds of members throughout the country who regularly contact us wondering if we would be able to help organise industry specific training for them. This partnership with Cosensa effectively means that we can now offer a standardised diary of training events throughout the country, safe in the knowledge that the programmes will be delivered to the same continuously high standards - no matter where they are!"

Absence Management Specialists

Healthy Return, the Absence Management Specialists, have recently helped a medium sized Belfast based organisation reduce their long term absentee problem by a staggering 90% saving them in the region of £50,000 per annum.

Research indicates that overstreched, skilled key workers show a higher frequency of sickness spells than other sectors and are amongst the most likely to fall into long term sickness (20 days+) and are the most expensive and difficult to replace whilst away from the workplace.

Within Local Authorities long term absentees represent only 6% of the sickness absentees but generate 51% of the cost of absence, estimated at £960 per employee in the 2008 CIPD report. This equates to millions of pounds in cost of absence even for the most modest of Local authorities. A local Authority with just 20,000 employees typically spends over £7Million per year on long term sick pay alone, before taking into account the cost of temporary staff, additional training and the long term Health & Safety implications borne out on remaining staff due to increased workload.

HealthyReturn provides a Case Management led approach proven to substantially reduce long-term absenteeism and assist individual key staff to return to work as early as possible, recovered, healthy and revitalised.

HealthyReturn takes a holistic approach to getting key staff back to work as early as possible and produces a win-win situation for all stakeholders.

Helping staff get themselves back to fitness and work quickly produces a strong sense of well-being, good morale and communication with line management whilst saving the organisation the substantial cost implications of temporary replacement and inefficiencies of shared workload.

If you would be interested in finding our more about how Healthy Return can help you dramatically reduce your long-term absenteeism problem, you can contact them on 0141 433 0151.

The Heating & Ventilating Contractors' Association (HVCA) is the latest in a long line of 'Channel Partners' to join forces in promoting Cosensa's UK Wide Training Diary to their membership base.

HVCA members can now access Cosensa's training programmes directly via the HVCA website and benefit from up to a massive 20% off the total cost of their Booking.  HVCA Currently offer members an initial 10% Discount and they can double this amount to 20% by booking two or more delegates on each course.

Both Cosensa and HVCA are delighted with the Partnership Agreement and Cosensa's MD, Richard MacMillan said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for HVCA's UK wide membership to access high quality standardised training throughout Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. HVCA is one of the largest and most powerful Trade Associations in the UK and we are delighted to help them provide their members with this unique on-line discounted training opportunity."

For more information on HVCA please visit: - http://www.hvca.org.uk

Meeting Room at the Ramada Encore Hotel

One of Belfast's brightest and newest Hotels is now the new home to Cosensa's Diary of Open courses in Belfast. After nearly three years residing at the Holiday Inn, we have decided to freshen things up a little and we are delighted to announce our new contracted agreement with the Ramada Encore Hotel on the edge of the cities Cathedral Quarter.

We have been most impressed with the facilities and set up at the Ramada Hotel and we are sure you will find the facilities in keeping with Cosensa's fresh and upbeat approach. All training rooms are air conditioned, generous in size and equipped with state of the art equipment and modern, comfortable furniture.

The Hotel itself is bright, airy and extremely welcoming and the catering for lunches and refreshments throughout the day is of the highest calibre. Still within easy walking distance from all manner of public transport facilities in the city centre and other nearby Railway stations, we have also negotiated exclusive Free Parking facilities for all delegates on Cosensa courses, at the NCP St. Anne's Court Car Park which backs onto the Hotel.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our new choice of venue and trust you will enjoy your training course even more in these plush, modern surroundings.
More information on the Ramada Encore Hotel can be found here.

It would be fair to say that the introduction of Health & Safety Management systems has been on something of a slow burn for the last decade, however just recently we have noticed a significant surge in interest in our OHSAS training courses.

OHSAS 18001:2007 specifies requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, to enable an organization to control its OH&S risks and improve its performance.

OHSAS 18001 was first published in 1999 and has gradually been embraced mainly by organisations that already operate a Quality Management System like ISO 9001 and/or an Environmental Management System like ISO 14001 or EMAS.

The Auditing requirements for an OHSAS based Management System can only be met by individuals who are already experienced in Auditing this particular system or by those who have undergone OHSAS Internal Auditor Training like Cosensa's OHSAS Lead Auditor Training Course.

We are delighted to announce that a new series of dates have been launched for our new OHSAS Lead Auditor programme in Belfast. We will shortly be announcing a new range of dates for Lead Auditor programmes throughout the rest of the UK, however Full Board Accommodation rates are available on request for anyone outwith Northern Ireland wishing to attend the next series of Belfast dates. For more information, contact us on 0845 602 6192.