Appointments, promotions & achievements in the Cumbrian business community this month...

 

*Kendal-based Crosby Granger Architects has made three senior promotions this month.

Promoted to associate architect is Gordon Blunt who joined the practice in September 2020.

Also promoted is Amy Redman, who has been with the firm since January 2022 after completing the SPAB Scholarship and the hird promotion is Andrew Bodenham who started at the architects in January 2019. The business was founded by Chris and Chloe Granger with Paul Crosby ten years ago.

 

*Matthew Welsh has been promoted to partner at robinson+co accountancy firm in West Cumbria. He has worked in the Workington office for almost a decade and is a VAT specialist.

 

*After 16 years and 778 summits of Helvellyn, Lake District National Park Authority Fell Top Assessor Jon Bennett has retired from his unique role.

As one of the team of Fell Top Assessors who summit Helvellyn each day from December to April to provide boots on ground safety condition reports, Jon has worked the Christmas day shift for years to ensure that people keep as safe as they can out on the fells. Jon said: “I leave, proud to have been the longest serving Fell Top Assessor so far, having started in December 2008. 

“People often ask if I get bored of ascending the same fell, but the changing weather conditions, light, under boot conditions and fellow walkers one meets makes each ascent unique. I have found myself questioning if I really want to give up this special and unique job but this year, two things have changed for me. Firstly, the number of days of driving, horizontal hail, or rain and secondly, the hill is beginning to get steeper! Thus, although sad to be leaving it’s now time to ascend the fells on my days off and on fine, pleasant days!  As well as not being as quick with the advancing years, I’m also becoming softer with age.”

 

*Jodie Park, butchery assistant at Higginsons, Grange-over-Sands, has had her ‘Chicken Kiev Bomb’ selected for a Gold Award at the Q Guild’s annual Smithfield Awards. More than 200 products were put forward for judging by butchers from up and down the UK.

 

*Lauren Goad, 27, has qualified as a solicitor at Wragg Mark Bell in Carlisle, after spending 12 months as a paralegal and then the past two years as a trainee.

“I wanted to be a solicitor from a very young age,” Lauren said. “I couldn’t tell you where the interest came from! I’ve always lived in Carlisle, but went to Northumbria University in Newcastle where I did an integrated Masters degree, which included my LPC.”

 

*When Matty Rayson was just sixteen, he aspired to be a geography teacher. But after his sister joined her local theatre school, a new world of possibilities opened to him. Since June 2010 he has had a range of roles including assistant, manager and Principal of Razzamataz theatre school in West Cumbria. This month he takes on the additional role of Operations Manager.