Sisters take a break to re-energise Whitehouse Farm

Feb 24 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

SISTERS Heather Hogarty and Fiona Teasdale are feeling energised about their Northumberland visitor centre after carrying out a fast-track strategy session with chartered accountants unw.

The pair, who run the 40-acre Whitehouse Farm Centre in Morpeth, went to an Energiser session hosted by unw partner Alan Suggett to take 90 minutes out of their busy lives on the farm to think about their objectives for the business.

The family-owned Whitehouse Farm, which was previously a poultry farm and one of the region’s biggest egg producers, has been entertaining and educating visitors since it opened to the public in May 1997.

Now unw, which is based at Citygate on Newcastle’s St James Boulevard, has helped the sisters look at different options to develop the business, which allows visitors to handle a variety of animals from traditional breeds to unusual and exotic species.

Suggett said: “By their very nature, business owners have a very limited amount of time and putting some of that aside to think strategically about the objectives for their business and what they want out of life can be difficult.

“Whitehouse Farm Centre is an unusual and interesting business, which is thinking about a number of options for the future of its business.

“What was great about the short Energiser session with Heather and Fiona is that we were able to chat through their long and short-term objectives for the farm, for them as individuals and their wider family, what barriers might be preventing them from reaching their goals, and what they might need to do to help reach them in the future.”

Whitehouse Farm Centre joint managing director Fiona Teasdale said: “We have a family board meeting every month so it was great to have this session beforehand and talk about which direction we might move the business into.

“It certainly made us think, ‘Oh yes, we hadn’t thought of that’ and brought a new perspective. With there being six of us, everyone has their own opinions, so it was great to get a neutral view on things we could feed back to the rest of the family.”