I started writing about 2009 and it soon turned into an armchair rant about the recession, the media, cashflow, resellers, franchising, negotiating with investors, considering merging with a company and then deciding not to, having a BIG rant about accountants, calming down because we’ve found pearls through 4Networking who now help us in the shape of Martin Radford and Wayne Searle. Then I turned to business consultants and then consultants in general which led me to twitter guru’s and then I had to go downstairs to get a cup of tea and ruddy well calm the feck down.

Then there was Eddie and Brad Burton and the dance off’s, Brad Burton in general, referencing us in his book GET OFF YOUR ARSE for being creative – how proud I have been of Eddie and how much he has grown – his career as a dancer in general, as a networker. All about his fear over the idea of selling on his own as I leapt back into the studio while Charlotte leapt from production into the accounts department.

There was car sharing with Charlotte and crying with laughter, dog racing and everyone’s comments about the one’s that had a pre-race poo being lighter. Ryan upsetting Charls with his “Eddie Who?” t-shirt at the dance off. Looking for new offices – laughing at the estate agent lady who claimed it had “the best view in Grantham” when it overlooked a car park and some oil tankers. Meeting dragon’s den chappie, Andy Harsley who invented the rapstrap who then became a client, and, soon after, our work being acknowledged by Duncan Bannatyne on iPlayer – (I say “that’ll do for me” whenever I can) Meeting rugby legend Rory Underwood at our 4 Finkin Street opening who turned into a client too – very nice chap.

Meeting Liselle (marketing genius) through our efforts to support the lovely Tarnia with her epic Heroes Festival. Me saying to Adrian Johnston that his war story about the navy, army and airforce working together to clear a hemp field being a joint operation to which replied “corny, but I’ll let you have it” and thinking I’d blown it altogether but getting an email the next day from Liselle asking us whether we’d be interested in pitching to rebrand Newark Showground. Meeting my first MP Patrick Mercer who, when I said hello boomed “AND YOU ARE???” this was “AND YOU ARE??” 1 of 2 for the year.

Having my budgie – Ron Bugundy stolen from under my nose when under the influence and receiving two poison pen letters that ordered me to do something for charity, which I did, but never got Ron back. Sniff.

Seeing Eddie’s face light up when the army, navy and airforce recruitment chaps came over for training and signing his Combat Survival books. Winning an award for being nice to placements. Kyle dressing up as a tortoise. The warrior getting bigger and the cat collar he has to wear when he exercises in the studio.

Then there was the dark realisation that we’d have to scale down the business for three months, reducing three folkers weeks down to three days and the horrible truth that someone had to go altogether.

Then I was going to write about meeting organisations locally that had always had a aura of mysticism about them. Big guns like Chandlers Oil & Gas, Belton Woods and South Kesteven District who approached us and turned out to be lovely people. Chandlers kept visiting us and bringing sweets and red bull.

Then I realised the danger with acknowledging one client over another would probably upset someone as folk acknowledgements loomed too.

So I thought, NO, keep it neat, and to the point. No waffle Marson. You see how people yawn and glaze over…

So here it is…

Happy Christmas everyone, this year has been ruddy hard but equally awesome and surprising. Everyone who has helped us to not only stay afloat but continue to grow know’s who they are and Ed and I heartly appreciate everything that has been done for us.

Here’s to 2010 :)

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Monday 29th June. One of the most anticipated days of the 2009 calendar. This day could mould the future for many young people.(yeah right) Today was the beginning of work experience.

The day began at around 7:30 (yes, a whole two hours before I got to Kimeera), with the bright sun scorching through my bedroom window. I awoke, thinking at first it was a normal school day. However, after a few seconds, I came to my senses, and realised what day it was. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I rushed to the shower, somehow thinking I was going to be late. I was completely ready and prepared with 10 minutes, and yet had more than an hour to wait for the taxi to arrive. After a substantial wait, the taxi arrived, and when he asked where I wanted to go, I blurted out Old Malt House, Springfield Road, reading from the confirmation letter I had received. After what had seemed like an age, I arrived at Kimeera.

I then looked at my iPod, and realised I was 20 minutes early, so decided to go down the road to the newsagents and buy a Citrus Punch Oasis (something I would do every day since while at work experience.) After a short walk, I was back at Kimeera. I gingerly walked up the steps, making sure I had the right place. I paused outside the door, being temporarily paralysed by my nerves. After a short moment, I had built up my confidence enough, and stepped inside. I slowly stepped inside, and squeaked out a very quiet and abrupt Hi. Suddenly, 10 people were staring at me. Luckily, Charlotte was there to save me from this uncomfortable moment. She introduced me to the rest of the folkers. I then plonked my bag down at the spare desk, and sat next to Tom, watching him do some editing of the Heroes Festival. A few minutes later, Ben, my friend, who was also doing work experience here at Kimeera, arrived. He whipped out his pristine laptop, and sat it down on the desk. I had officially started work experience at Kimeera.

For the first few days I was with Tom, watching what he was doing, researching ideas for projects, and doing other general IT stuff. On Wednesday, I was given the task of filming a viral teaser video for the dance off, with everyone in the office busting some moves. However, on Thursday, things went from strange to virtually impossible. Ben and I were given the task of making the scouts cool. This is a lot easier said than done. After a day of little progress, we pulled it together on Friday, and presented our ideas to Ryan, Rob and Tom. Luckily, they were quite impressed with what we had come up with, yet they seemed to find pictures of a t-shirt and shorts hilarious, so who knows?

However, my most prominent memory was when Ben decided it would be a good idea to put The Ultimate Warrior on the desk where we were working. Things were ok for the first few minutes, until it decided to do its business on the desk, only a matter of centimetres away. Everyone in the office were not best pleased, as the heat wave which was sweeping the country simply enhanced the terrible stench. A few canisters of air freshener later, everything was (almost) back in order.

And so my first week at Kimeera was over. A lot had happened in the first week. I would be on my own in the second week, as Ben was going on a summer army camp. Still, I was looking forward to my second week.

The weekend seemed to fly by, and before I knew it, I was back at the Kimeera Ranch. I spent most of the week creating logo designs for a new face wash, editing photographs on Photoshop,(an application which I had very little experience with) and writing this blog entry (something I found very compelling……not)

However, on Wednesday, things got a lot more interesting, when Eddie competed in a dance off, and all the folkers went down to support him. He was certainly a sight to behold, and after pulling off some staggering moves, clearly won the contest.

My time at Kimeera consisted of many things: exhausting heat, fly swatting, terrible jokes from Ryan, strange dancing, terrible singing, amazing conversations and many more intriguing and inspiring things.

So, after all the anticipation of waiting for this epic two weeks of working in the real world, it was all over. I will never forget my time working at Kimeera. I have learned and gained many things at Kimeera, especially a boost in my confidence. Finally, I would like to thank the whole team at Kimeera for making my work experience a very enjoyable and worthwhile experience!

Liam

I have spent 2 weeks on work experience with the “Kimeera Folks.” And it’s been interesting, I thought I’d give you the whole story of what I’ve done since I’ve been here. So I might as well start here…

My first day, Wohoo!
I was really nervous and worried for what was to come, but also disappointed to see outside my bedroom window a beautiful white wonderland. I was gutted, there was ankle high snow on my garden floor, and I had to go to work whilst my brother and sister lay happily in bed snuggled up in the warm, knowing later on that day that they were going to make a snowman without me.

I crawled down my stairs, miserable that is was snowing. Only I could have luck like this, as all my other friends had the day off work experience because of the snow. So as I ate my “special K” thinking of how everybody but me was going to lie in today and make a snowman and go sledging! However, I tried looking on the bright side to what was going to come.

I got to the Kimeera doors at about half past 8, shaking like a leaf, of the thought of walking into the office door and being started at by 20 different eyeballs, and being asked the question, “And who are you?” thinking they might have forgotten who I was, or why I was here.

I knocked on the door once before opening it to see only one pair of eyeballs stare back at me. “Hello” he said in a friendly voice. “I’m here for work experience,” I said, standing awkwardly in an almost empty room. The man offered me a seat on the sofa and wait for everybody to turn up, as they normally turn up at 9am.
We started to chat, about how the snow was really bad, “You must be gutted” The nice man said, “You could have had the day of school today!” I shook my head, and told him how my friends and family were all at home. But a thought came to mind as I remember what my R.E teacher had told me once, “Welcome to the real world.”

It wasn’t long before people started turning up and gave me a smile and said “morning,” I was relived that they could remember who I was. As I sat on the sofa watching people go to their desks and switching on their computers, I watched and wondered who they were and what they do.

The Director Eddie, showed me around and introduced me to the “Kimeera folks,” they all seemed so friendly so I was less worried. Eddie gave me my own desk and a laptop so I could work. I was so chuffed, I felt really grown up and professional. My own desk and laptop!

For the first couple of days I was working with Leona, the Illustrator. When I saw her work on the walls and on her computer it really inspired me, to be able to be as good as she was. She explained the project she was working on called “Ben and Terry,” I was really excited when she said I could have a go at designing a logo for them. So straight away I was sketching away with my imagination going wild.

I looked at the time on my laptop to see it said 12.00pm. My belly rumbled. I got out my pack lunch and was half way though my sausage sandwich when I saw everyone putting there coats and gloves on, I was confused on what was going on, Were they all leaving me?
“We’re going to have a snowball fight!” they all said, I sat still hoping one of the team would invite me to come play as well.
“You too” they said, so I grabbed my coat and gloves and ran outside to the white wonderland in front of me, chuffed that I was finally outside in the “white stuff.”

Before you knew it there were snowballs from all directions coming at you. What a brilliant first day I thought as a white snow balls flew in front of my eyes, I threw some back excited for the rest of the week.  It was finally home time, and I didn’t realize how I tired I was until I got home.

I woke up the next morning buzzing for the second day of work. My brother and sister still lay in bed comfy in the warm. I arrived at Kimeera and walked in and sat at my desk and switched on my laptop. “Morning” everyone said as they all arrived.

I carried on working on my “Ben and Terry” logo, with more wild ideas being scribbled on paper.
After my imagination had worn out, Leona told me another project she was working on, called “Chocolate,” I was excited as this was one of my many favourite things. Although this wasn’t the chocolate I was thinking of. I had to think of some slogans for a new salon that was opening and luckily Leona was impressed with what I had come up with.

Each day I started to become less shy and more confident as conversations flew around the room and laughter from different people. I started to join in more and laugh along with others. I felt like I was making a lot of new friends already.

It came to Friday, and I felt really warn out, I didn’t realise how hard it was to work, and how tiring it really is; now I understand why mothers moan?

I just wanted to stay in bed when my alarm went of, but I knew I couldn’t let my fellow folkers down, so dragged myself out of bed. Ready for a new day. Friday I was asked to move computers and have a go on Photoshop and make the website I had been designing. I felt nervous doing this as Photoshop is something that I’m not use to, and was worried I wouldn’t make a good job of my website when I had so many ideas for it.

I soon picked the program up pretty easy with some mistakes along the way, but as soon as I got the hang of it I was pretty impressed with what I had done.
By the time it got to 5pm on Friday I was really starting to feel tired, and almost feel asleep on my computer, I’ve never worked this hard in my whole life before!
I had been working on a comic strip for a couple of days during the week and Friday it was on the Kimeera website.  When I saw it on there, I was so chuffed my first bit of art was on the Internet!

Finally it was home time. I packed away my things and slowly lifted my self of the chair.

“So how’s your first week been then?” Eddie asked.

I thought back from all the things that have happened in the first week.
A snowball fight, learning new programmes, being inspired, my art on the internet, experimenting with new things, making new friends, building my confidence up, and getting my own desk and laptop.
“Brilliant!” I said “see you next week!”

After a lovely relaxing weekend, On the Monday morning I woke up refreshed ready for my last week at Kimeera. I knew this week would probably go really fast, and I would end up missing a lot of the new friends I had made, so tried making the most of each day of this week. I had adapted really quickly here, and had gotten use to how they do things. Going back to school is going to be really weird. As my R.E teacher had said again to me “You learn to adapt to the adult world, coming back to a school life makes you realise things clearly and hopefully will make you all more mature,” Such words of knowledge my R.E teacher.
It made me think of how everybody had missed a lot because of the snow. A lot of my friends had only had 1 out of 5 days of work experience in the first week and I had been here everyday on time. I’ve learned a lot and done a lot in the week, and realise now snow isn’t as cool as I thought it had been when I was 9.

I started to read a book that Leona had lent me, called “Caffeine for the creative mind,” a book with 250 exercises to wake up your brain. As I was reading it, it occurred to me how much fun some of the tasks would be. Not that it would wake my brain up, but it would certainly trigger something.
It was interesting to read some of the tasks you had to do, day by day. Like a tick list, ticking of each task you had done.

The week went really fast, and before you knew it, it was time to say my goodbyes. And I knew how much I would miss coming to work everyday. Going back to school the next day certainly is going to be odd. Being back at school, with year 7’s running around bumping into you, teachers nagging at you, and going back into school uniform. I’m going to miss coming to Kimeera everyday, it’s been a really good experience for me and it’s defiantly brought my confidence up a lot. It’s been different from what I expected, but only in a good way. I don’t want to leave. I have become so used to the working world and I like it better then school. I did find it tiring, and I was worn out a lot, but I’ve enjoyed it so much. I’m going to miss the Kimeera team, but I will defiantly remember them all and the amazing cups of tea they make as well.
I hope they don’t forget me too quickly, So on my last note: Thanks Kimeera for a really good 2 weeks, and I hope this isn’t the last of us working together.

Danielle :-)

Clickr Clickr here. Rob as Santa and a tramp puppet is a personal highlight and maybe John with a marigold on his head maybe…also, Ryan has had an awesome idea for Children in Need so they’ll be loads more to come…

Scott

The Kimeera folk bus is going supersonic and we need amazingly talented web developers to jump on board.

The successful candidate will be gobbledegook free, know their onions and have more energy than a cat on catnip.

The usual knowledge of building static and dynamic database driven websites to current web standards using hand-coded PHP/XHTML/CSS/SQL/JavaScript and AJAX technologies is a given, but Photoshop/Illustrator knowledge would be ace too. We’re ideally looking for someone with a bit of commercial experience, but if you’re a superstar graduate then don’t be afraid to get in touch.

Please give us a call on 0845 260 60 57 (we’ll call you back) if you have the skills!

Love you already.