Business Diary: December 20

But there was something different about Huddersfield Town’s festive celebration, which was held at the North Light Gallery in Armitage Bridge.

The club held a charity auction at its official ‘thank you’ for its corporate supporters, where you could bid for clay handprints made by players such as star striker Jordan Rhodes. His team-mate, Lee Novak, was even inspired to produce a painting. But what are club chairman Dean Hoyle’s plans for 2012?

After selling the Card Factory for £350m in 2010, does he have any further business ambitions?

Mr Hoyle told Diary: “I’ve got a big project on here with the football club but obviously this won’t last forever. Going forward it’s got to be the right opportunity. People say it’s easier to enter a business than exit it successfully. There are lots of opportunities. At the same time, I don’t want to be a busy fool. I want to pick the right ones.”

Would he be interested in Clinton Cards, which has struggled in recent months, or other card-related businesses, Diary wondered?

Mr Hoyle replied: “We need to be interested in successful businesses. Some businesses can be turned around, but I think that business (Clinton Cards) is going through a tough time.”

According to Mr Hoyle, it pays to keep your business cards close to your chest. “You’ve really got to keep your ideas to yourself,” he said. “There’s no point in shouting from the rooftops. If you’ve got a good idea you’ve got to be secretive. We did that at Card Factory – we got to 100 stores before anybody had really heard of us.”

Altogether, the night raised £3,740 towards the club’s Keep It Up campaign, with half of the cash going to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and the rest to Huddersfield Town’s academy.

Casino boss sees red

Roy Ramm, a director at Yorkshire’s largest casino, loves his job but there a few things that frustrate him about the industry. One of the things he finds most difficult is the use of the word ‘casino’ to describe bad banking practices. “If the banking industry had half the integrity of the casino industry and a regulator as effective as the Gambling Commission, there wouldn’t have been a crisis,” he said recently.

A LEP of faith

You could forgive Barry Dodd for wanting to change the name of his local enterprise partnership (LEP).

York North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership has one of the longest names in the LEP network.

The Yorkshire LEP was one of the new names suggested but Mr Dodd, chairman, said it was never a runner. “We have got the longest LEP name in the country and it’s a bit of a mouthful but we would have never have changed it to the Yorkshire LEP,” he told Diary.

Caring lending

In the spirit of Christmas giving, one couple are sending all the money from the sale of their eggs to help people living in poverty overseas to develop a business.

Andy and Lynne Roberts, from Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, are lending to fellow farmer Sopheap Yoeurn in Battamburg province in Cambodia through Lendwithcare.org, a micro-lending initiative from international poverty-fighting charity CARE International UK.

The loan is allowing Mrs Yoeurn to purchase piglets and a pig sty.

Lendwithcare.org enables people in the UK to make small loans from £15 to entrepreneurs in poor communities looking to start or expand a small business, such as a market stall, a fish farm or an internet café.

Mr Roberts said: “When we started selling the eggs from our hens we thought we would charge £1 for half a dozen eggs and send the money to entrepreneurs through lendwithcare.org.

“We get such a positive feeling from constantly being able to see how our money is helping the entrepreneur we have chosen.”

He added: “When the money comes back from the entrepreneurs we have lent to we will re-invest it in the businesses of other entrepreneurs and hope that the impact builds up over time.

“Our business is not big at all but if you make a lot of small loans over time you can really help.”

All of the loan made is sent directly to the entrepreneur and the money is usually repaid within six to 12 months. It is currently operational in Togo, Benin, Cambodia, the Philippines and has recently been extended to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where it is helping many women affected by war to rebuild their lives.

Gift vouchers recently launched for Christmas mean that loans can now be given to a friend or loved one, who can then make a loan themselves.