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    <title>About us</title>
    <description>About us</description>
    <link>http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com</link>
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        <title><![CDATA[Developing our Leaders of Tomorrow]]></title>
        <pubDate><![CDATA[2009-10-10 15:30:00]]></pubDate>
        <description><![CDATA[Our Leaders of Tomorrow graduate placement programme is designed to support private, public and voluntary sector organisations undertake focussed improvement activity.If you are looking to accelerate your improvement activity and feel you could benefit from a two-week placement carried out by a high-calibre graduate who will be focussed on your specific improvement needs, then our Leaders of Tomorrow programme is for you.Running each spring, our Leaders of Tomorrow programme sees graduates from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) placed with a broad range of organisations across the East and West Midlands to carry out short-term improvement projects.Organisations applying for the programme must be committed to continuous improvement and have a stretching project that will benefit all participants. Please note that because the programme aims to provide a new challenge to the PwC participants, accountancy related projects should NOT be submitted.Scores of organisations have gained enormous benefit from the programme which has received superb feedback and is seen by participating organisations as fantastic value, costing just &Acirc;&pound;299 plus VAT.Placements are allocated on a first-come first-served basis subject to the submission of a suitable project. To find out more or to register your organisation's interest, please contact us at midex@midlandsexcellence.org.ukThis year's dates:26th February: complete and return Registration of Interest5th March: submit project application26th March: briefing day for all those successful applicants and graduatesApril/May/Jume: graduate placement will take place]]></description>
        <link><![CDATA[http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com/about-us/leaders-of-tommorrow]]></link>
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        <title><![CDATA[Our People]]></title>
        <pubDate><![CDATA[2009-10-05 14:15:00]]></pubDate>
        <description><![CDATA[Our people share a passion for excellence and helping others to improve, it is our reason for being.We also have real-world experience of delivering sustainable results for a wide range of organisations across a variety of sectors (39 at the last count) which combined with our healthy obsession with performance improvement, makesthings happen.Our thirst for knowledge means that we keep up to date with the latest management and performance trends and we work very hard to share this with our excellence community, which includes many volunteers helping us spread what works and what does not.This includes our highly capable board of trustees, headed by our founding Chairman Alan Jones OBE. The board provides a wealth of management experience and helps us ensure we meet our strategic goals. And we&acirc;d be nowhere near where we are today without our enthusiastic band of volunteer assessors who give 3,000 days a year of their time to help organisations measure their progress on the excellence journey.Contact any of the team on 01675 460997 or email midex@midlandsexcellence.org.uk]]></description>
        <link><![CDATA[http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com/about-us/our-people]]></link>
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        <title><![CDATA[Volunteer Assessors]]></title>
        <pubDate><![CDATA[2009-10-05 13:35:53]]></pubDate>
        <description><![CDATA[Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.]]></description>
        <link><![CDATA[http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com/about-us/volunteer-assessors]]></link>
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        <title><![CDATA[Sponsorship opportunities]]></title>
        <pubDate><![CDATA[2009-10-05 10:58:00]]></pubDate>
        <description><![CDATA[Want to be part of our success story? Looking for a way to put your brand at the forefront of decision makers&acirc; minds in &acirc;Midlands PLC&acirc;? Then now is the time to think about sponsoring Midlands Excellence and generating some distinctive high profile exposure. There are all sorts of ways to get involved, including:&acirc;&cent; Top tier sponsorship: enjoy access to senior level decision-makers in the region&acirc;&cent; Event sponsorship: flexible packages that put your name in lights at our conference, awards ceremony and other influential events&acirc;&cent; &acirc;In kind&acirc; support such as providing speakers or venues for eventsWhat else do you get for your investment?&amp;#160;&acirc;&cent; Access to our network of 550+ organisations&acirc;&cent; Regular exposure at excellence events, including a black-tie audience of 1,300 at our annual Awards ceremony&amp;nbsp;&acirc;&cent; All the CSR benefits of supporting a worthwhile charitable causeIn short, sponsorship is a cost-effective way to position yourself as an organisation that&acirc;s committed to quality and to improving the region&acirc;s performanceIf this sounds to you like the makings of a great partnership, call us now for a win-win conversation on 01675 460 997. ]]></description>
        <link><![CDATA[http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com/about-us/sponsorship-opportunities]]></link>
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        <title><![CDATA[People we work with]]></title>
        <pubDate><![CDATA[2009-10-05 10:56:00]]></pubDate>
        <description><![CDATA[We&acirc;ve engaged with more than 600 organisations from 39 different sectors over the last 12 months. There isn&acirc;t space here to list them (!), but as you&acirc;d expect from a charity that aims to make &quot;excellence accessible to all&quot; they range from SMEs to multinationals to public sector and not-for-profit bodies.&amp;#160;What&acirc;s remarkable is that whatever their size, age or field, organisations report strikingly similar benefits from engaging with Midlands Excellence. As our Chairman Alan Jones OBE points out:&amp;nbsp;&acirc;Excellence is a winning formula that works for everyone. When I talk to the variety of people who engage with us, there&acirc;s a real consistency in the stories they tell. They invariably mention better processes, more productive employees and increased ROI, to name just three of the benefits that Excellence can bring.&acirc;&amp;nbsp;Also, there are striking similarities in the people we work with &acirc; they are improvement focussed, passionate to learn and share ideas about what works for them. They are also competitive and value recognition, so we take every opportunity to share their success stories and in return they provide us with feedback on the services we provide.If you share our passion for improvement, please do get in touch to see how we can work together. Contact us on 01675 460997 or email midex@midlandsexcellence.org.uk]]></description>
        <link><![CDATA[http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com/about-us/people-we-work-with]]></link>
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        <title><![CDATA[What we do]]></title>
        <pubDate><![CDATA[2009-10-05 10:45:00]]></pubDate>
        <description><![CDATA[Our vision is &acirc;to make excellence accessible to all&acirc;We make this happen through organising relevant and topical events including free workshops designed to broaden your mind, inspire change and support improvement activity. In 2008 we held more than 100 events and engaged with 600 organisations.We&acirc;ve also created specialist Communities of Practice (CoPs) for professionals who share common interests and goals. These CoPs enable people to learn from each other&acirc;s successes and from experts in the field via events, on-linecollaboration, informal networking and site visits.We help to match personal development with improvement opportunities &acirc; an example being our Leaders of Tomorrow programme which in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) places PwC graduates on improvement projects with a wide range of Midlands organisations. And of course we run the famous Midlands Excellence awards &acirc; culminating at Europe&acirc;s largest celebration of excellence which is&amp;#160; attended by over 1,300 guests each year and is now an established highlight in the region&acirc;s corporate calendar.And not forgetting our &acirc;virtual&acirc; support through the &acirc;sharing what works&acirc; area of this site packed with hints, tips, templates and other improvement goodies.To find out more contact us on 01675 460997 or email midex@midlandsexcellence.org.uk]]></description>
        <link><![CDATA[http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com/about-us/what-we-do]]></link>
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        <title><![CDATA[About us]]></title>
        <pubDate><![CDATA[2009-10-05 10:44:00]]></pubDate>
        <description><![CDATA[We&acirc;re here to make the Midlands economy more competitive and efficient. A 1600% return on investment demonstrates our sustained effectiveness over the seven years we have worked with the Regional Development Agency, Advantage West Midlands. They gave us &Acirc;&pound;1m of public funds and we delivered &Acirc;&pound;16m of added value to the region. We aim to have this kind of positive &acirc;multiplier effect&acirc; on every organisation in the region. We&acirc;re the UK&acirc;s only charity dedicated to sharing the philosophy of Excellence with the business community and the public sector. Our roots are in the EFQM excellence model, a proven framework that can help any organisation to systematically improve its whole performance. Since 1996, when Midlands Excellence was founded to improve the region&acirc;s economy, we&acirc;ve created a vibrant community of organisations in the Midlands and beyond who are dedicated to sharing best practice. We achieve this through holding inspirational events and performance-boosting workshops. We are supported by our volunteer assessors who enthusiastically give their time to assess organisations entering our exciting Midlands Excellence Awards programme. 

 Many of our high-profile sponsors have been with us since the start, sharing our passion for making Excellence accessible to everyone. Through our subsidiary, Investors in Excellence, we also offer tailor-made programmes for individual organisations, including Six Sigma, Kaizen and Lean.]]></description>
        <link><![CDATA[http://midlandsexcellence.oneblackbear.com/about-us/introduction]]></link>
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