My Back Story 
By Madeleine Holt,
Culture Correspondent, Newsnight

I have spent seven years on a round-the-world odyssey to sort out my curved spine. Finally, I have cracked it – I no longer have any pain, and I even look straighter. This is my story.

I was diagnosed with scoliosis (spinal curvature) at a school medical when I was fourteen. By then, it was too late. My condition had run its course. My mother and I had watched one of my shoulders get higher than the other. We had never heard of scoliosis or we would have gone to the doctor. Instead we thought it was because I carried a heavy school bag, so we did nothing.

The curves in my neck and upper back were reasonably big (and matched, weirdly, the position I took up when playing the flute all the time). But they were not considered bad enough for surgery or bracing, plus my back didn’t seem to be getting any worse. The consultant told me to stretch up my arms when I went through doorways, and that was it. No one knew if I would get pain at any point.

Until the age of twenty seven, everything was fine. Then, suddenly, I started to get chronic pain in my neck and upper back. It would kick in after I had been standing or sitting for about twenty minutes. Only lying down, a hot bath or a stiff drink would zap the pain.

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This years Zed PR coffee morning, held for the companies with which it shares The Old Linpac Building, again raised over £200 for Macmillan Cancer relief.

Thank you to everyone who attended or donated raffle prizes/cakes.

* Brave Louiselle urges medical profession to hear her story

Cardiff teenager, Louiselle Morris, 14, has avoided major back surgery by practicing a daily exercise routine prescribed by a Suffolk clinic, Scoliosis SOS.  She has issued a challenge to medics to inform themselves better about scoliosis, to examine closely the practise of putting teenagers in children’s wards rather than young people’s wards and to acknowledge that there are alternatives to surgery.

Louiselle has a condition known as scoliosis, excessive curvature of the spine, a condition that affects around three percent of the population, which often becomes apparent in teen years.  Normal treatment is to wait until the curve becomes severe and then operate.

Before her diagnosis, she was diagnosed with asthma, constipation and even told she was ‘hamming up’ the pain.  She and her family are outraged that they were told that scoliosis doesn’t hurt, and that her mother was ‘overcaring and fussy’.

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Birmingham – 28 August, 2007: Teleperformance Italia, the Italian arm of the contact centre solutions company, Teleperformance Group, has been short-listed for both the ‘Best Virtual Contact Centre’ and for the ‘European Call Centre of the Year’  in the CCF European Call Centre Awards, for a solution based around software from .Infinity Contact Centre Software (CCS).

“What a great start to our new venture!” said Carl Adkins, Managing Director of the newly formed Infinity CCS.  “We provided the technology that allows two traditional, room based contact centres, various outsourced operations and homeshoring to operate within the same application.   I can’t think of a better fillip for everyone in both companies – other than winning, of course.”

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A management buyout has resulted in the formation of a new contact software centre software company, Infinity Contact Centre Software (CCS).  Although effectively a start up, the company already serves customers throughout Europe, across sites ranging from a six seat outbound call centre, using scripting only, to a three thousand seat operation, using it to manage inbound and outbound customer contacts, including desktop scripting and timesheets .

The software offers a range of modules designed to make operations simpler for both the contact centre agent and their managers.  It originated within one of the world’s largest, most successful, international contact centre outsourcing operations, the Teleperformance Group, which remains a customer.

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Lucy Meikle has quite literally helped her herself to a better back by practicing a daily set of exercises prescribed to her following treatment at Scoliosis S.O.S.

Lucy has a condition known as scoliosis, excessive curvature of the spine, a condition that affects more than three percent of the population. She is now full of praise for the treatment she received at a Suffolk clinic, Scoliosis S.O.S., where a course of treatments through exercise may have saved her from years of pain and even painful surgery 

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Infinity Contact Centre Software (CCS) offers proven modular contact centre software.  It includes
- Inbound and outbound contact management
- Rapid desktop scripting
- Predictive dialling and blended CTI
- Agent reporting and time-sheeting
- Call recording and quality monitoring. 

Web address: http://www.infinityccs.com/ 

The software originated within one of the world’s largest, most successful, international contact centre outsourcing operations.  Today, Infinity CCS serves customers throughout Europe, across sites ranging from a six seat outbound call centre, using scripting only, to a three thousand seat operation, using it to manage inbound and outbound customer contacts, including timesheets and desktop scripting.

For further information, please call Claire Thompson:
+44(0) 118 969 8966
e: infinity@zedpr.co.uk

Out with The Silver Surfer, In with The Platinum Player

As pensions crises hit the headlines yet again, Nick-James.com, the on-line business support club, has released a short, useful guide to help retirees supplement their pensions by developing an Internet-based business: ‘Retirement? Your Pension’s not the only thing you’ve got going for you…’

“It’s a practical, thought provoking guide to getting started, including some genuine case studies from the Nick-James.com forum” said the site’s founder, Nick James.  “This is about empowering people to put in some effort and make enough money to supplement an income, or, if like me you do it full time, making enough to live comfortably.”

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