THE Shuttle/Times & News is joining forces with Kidder-minster's Big Breakfast Club, a group of successful business men and women, in a search to find the most enterprising and imaginative business folk in Wyre Forest.

Today we are launching Business Idol with a first prize of £1,000 in a bid to extend a helping hand to people who have a business concept they believe could deliver a significant profitable growth in the next 12 months.

Ideally, they are already on the way but need that extra help to push strongly ahead.

The business may be a one-man or one-woman business or have anything up to a maximum of 20 employees. The only proviso is that it is based in the Wyre Forest area.

The winner will receive a £1,000 cash prize as well as more than £2,500 worth of free business advice from members of the Big Breakfast Club.

The company will also get a powerful publicity boost by reaching 70,000 readers through a special feature on their success in the Shuttle/Times & News.

The two runners-up will each receive six-months, free membership to the Big Breakfast Club.

Robert Forsyth, chairman of the breakfast group, says: "Our club members have a huge spread of business experience and we want to offer that expertise to others.

"Our own success has been helped tremendously by the networking we are able to do at our meetings.

"We are a small informal band who do good business but make it fun at the same time. There are no joining fees, no paid staff, and we find it works better than the larger more anonymous breakfast clubs.

"We meet at 7am every Tuesday at La Brasserie restaurant in Lower Bridge Street, Kidderminster, and over a good breakfast discuss our business ideas, swap business contacts and, as a result, nearly all our members have seen substantial benefits."

He added: "We are always looking for other business people of integrity to join us and through Business Idol we hope to make our activities more widely known and at the same time give a boost to the entrepreneurs in the area."

Shuttle/Times & News editor Clive Joyce said: "Naturally we welcome any enterprise that will mean more jobs and more prosperity for our readers and we are delighted to be involved in Business Idol.

"The future success of Kidderminster and our surrounding towns rests to a large degree on people with new ideas who are willing to put in the graft to make those ideas work.

"Business Idol is a novel scheme which has the potential to make things happen."

Click on the Business Idol logo on our Home Page to see how to enter.