Sponsors
Aon
Being the premier Risk Management, Insurance Brokerage, HR & Pensions Consulting services provider in Yorkshire, Aon has a committed interest in the economic well-being of the County's life and are quite rightly associated with sponsoring the Business Enterprise Award.
BBC Yorkshire
BBC Yorkshire brings you what matters in Britain's biggest County - on the radio, on tv and online. Our radio stations in Leeds, Sheffield and York provide the latest local news, travel, weather and sport. BBC Look North provides 13 news bulletins a day for tv audiences across Yorkshire. Our sports programmes 'Late Kick Off' and the 'Superleague Show' highlight the best of the region's football and rugby league. And when big stories happen, local people turn to our local websites across the region.
BBC Yorkshire also produces Helicopter Heroes, which showcases the fantastic work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance to a national audience on BBC One, and a number of special documentaries, which exclusively uncovered new work by Hull’s favourite poet Philip Larkin and another which threw new light on the famous Dambuster raids during WWII, and was narrated by actor Martin Shaw. Different audiences also join us for events at the BBC big screens in Millennium Square in Leeds and Centenary Square in Bradford.
The region also played host to the award winning, multi-platform BBC Three production of Frankenstein’s Wedding-Live in Leeds.
We're proud to be part of the Yorkshire Awards for a fifth successful year and hope you enjoy our coverage of tonight's events on Look North at 6.30pm next week
Black Sheep Brewery
Founded by Paul Theakston, and named with tongue in cheek by Paul’s wife Sue, brewing started in 1992 in a former maltings building next door to Theakston’s in Masham. Sixty year-old brewing vessels and hundred year-old slate fermenters were found to create a traditional ale brewery (no longer brewed here!). The fermenters are Yorkshire Squares, a system invented by Timothy Bentley in Huddersfield in the early 19th Century which best produces the classic bitter beer for which Yorkshire was famous. The Brewery’s forte is cask ale, and today about sixteen million pints a year of Black Sheep are downed throughout the UK. Likewise, nearly five million bottles a year of Black Sheep find their way into homes through the supermarket trade, and on to the tables at the Yorkshire Awards.
Hilton Leeds City
Since opening in 1971, Hilton Leeds City has firmly established itself as leading providers of accommodation and events within the city. With 208 bedrooms and 7 meeting rooms the hotel can cater for all conference and event requirements. The hotel is currently refurbishing its 6th and 9th Floors to further enhance the guest experience, at a cost of £1.2m.
QBE
QBE Insurance Group is Standard & Poor's 'A+' rated and is one of the world's leading international insurers and reinsurers, headquartered in Sydney, Australia. We operate out of 49 countries across the globe, with a presence in all key insurance markets, and are lead underwriters within our chosen markets, setting rates and conditions. For the year ended 31 December 2010, the company underwrote gross written premium totalling £8,809 million and held shareholders' funds of £6,605 million.
Welcome to Yorkshire
As an award winning Destination Management Organisation, Welcome to Yorkshire has achieved international respect for innovative marketing and PR.
We are strongly focused on further increasing the regional visitor economy, which has grown to £7billion, adding 4,000 jobs to the 250,000 already in the sector.
Our aim is to instil pride in the County and to make Yorkshire the number one destination in the UK for leisure and business.
Yorkshire Bank
Yorkshire Bank is a high performance bank and the principal English arm of the National Australia Bank Group, which has operations internationally. With a strong personal and business customer base in the north of England and the Midlands it is proud of its origins which are evidenced by its support of the Yorkshire Woman of the Year Award.
Yorkshire Society
Formed as a non-political, not-for-profit organisation in 1980, the Yorkshire Society encourages businesses, charities and individual people from, or living in, all parts of Yorkshire and worldwide who share a passion for Yorkshire to join together in "Promoting the County". Membership of the Society is open to individuals and organisations alike to enable everybody to work towards, and achieve, common goals throughout the County.
Other sponsor profiles
Wensleydale Creamery
Wensleydale cheese has been made in Wensleydale since 1150, when the Cistercian monks first settled in the Dale. Today, following a management buyout in 1992, after the Creamery was closed by its owners, Wensleydale cheese is still handmade to a time honoured traditional recipe, using milk from local farms, where the cows graze the sweet limestone pastures, rich in herbs. It is this herbage that gives the milk and hence the cheese its special Dales flavour!
Continuing to enjoying global acclaim for their cheese, The Wensleydale Creamery has developed a fantastic range of award winning cheese that combines tradition with innovation.
Why not visit their visitor centre at the Creamery at Hawes in Wensleydale and watch Real Wensleydale milk being made into Real Wensleydale Cheese!
Wensleydale Creamery kindly co-sponsor and produce the Yorkshire Awards cheese board.
Shepherds Purse Cheeses
Thirsk, North Yorkshire-based Shepherds Purse Cheeses, established by Judy Bell in 1989 as part of a diversification scheme on the Bell family farm, was the first company to reintroduce artisan blue cheesemaking to Yorkshire since its disappearance in the sixties with the rationalisation of the dairy industry. It launched initially to fill a niche in the market to provide sheep’s milk products, but now boasts a wide range of cheeses available in major supermarkets, specialist cheese shops and delis nationwide, through a large wholesaler base and overseas.
The multi-award winning range of speciality cheeses is still traditionally handmade using top quality, locally sourced cow’s, ewe’s and water buffalo milk, made to the family’s own recipes. Cheeses include best selling Yorkshire Blue, Mrs Bells Blue, Buffalo Blue, Byland Blue, Fine Fettle Yorkshire Cheese, Olde York, Basilano, Monks Folly, Katy’s White Lavender and local brand Ryedale.
Shepherds Purse Cheeses kindly co-sponsor and produce the Yorkshire Awards cheese board.
Bettys of Harrogate
When Bettys opened its doors for the first time in 1919 it was just as our founder, Frederick Belmont, had visualised – customers were greeted by a tempting array of delicious Yorkshire and Continental confections in the shop and an elegant Café Team Room that served teas and meals in the traditional English style. It was an immediate success.
Over 90 years later and we welcome more than one million customers a year to Bettys. We’re still a family business and continue to stay true to Frederick’s founding principles that everything should be ‘fresh and dainty’ and that ‘if we want things just right we have to do them ourselves’.
There are six Bettys Café Tea Rooms to explore: the spa town of Harrogate has two branches (one in the town centre and a second at the RHS garden at Harlow Carr) as does York (Bettys Stonegate just round the corner from Bettys, St Helen’s Square). You’ll also find Bettys in the market towns of Northallerton and Ilkley. All our cakes, breads and chocolates – more than 600 specialities – are made by hand at our Craft Bakery and our extensive range of teas and coffees are blended by our sister company, Taylors of Harrogate.
Bettys of Harrogate kindly sponsor and produce the Yorkshire Awards after dinner chocolates.
Jet2.com
Jet2.com is the North’s leading leisure airline with Friendly Low Fares with 8 UK bases at Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Newcastle, Blackpool, Edinburgh, Belfast, East Midlands and Glasgow offering flights to an exciting range of over 50 City, Sun and Ski destinations.
Jet2.com passengers also benefit from 22 kg baggage allowance, allocated seats, great flight times and points for free flights with the Myjet2 loyalty programme. A wide range of Atol protected 2-5* package holidays are also available with Jet2holidays including flights, accommodation, baggage and transfers to fantastic destinations!
Jet2.com are joint sponsors of one of our fantastic auction items.
Swinton Park
Swinton Park is a luxury castle hotel set in 200 acres of parkland in the Yorkshire Dales. Lavishly furnished with antiques and family portraits, this is the ancestral seat of the Cunliffe-Lister family. Each of the 30 bedrooms is individually designed, and award winning cuisine is served in the sumptuous dining room with ingredients sourced from the hotel's four acre walled garden and surrounding estate. The cookery school runs day and residential courses throughout the year, with a range of themes including Dinner Parties, Game and Children's Cookery. Other facilities include a spa and treatment rooms, and country pursuits such as falconry, golf, shooting and fishing.
Swinton Park are joint sponsors of one of our fantastic auction items.
Keyspan Technology Limited
Keyspan Technology have over ten years experience of computing and the internet and specialise in custom application software and web solutions. We are pleased to sponsor the Yorkshire Awards web site.