BBC sports presenter Ray Stubbs is looking forward to being a key member of the top team at our Rising Stars 2008 ceremony.

A VIP event at the plush Park Inn Hotel, in Bedford, on November 6 awaits the winners of the Beds and Luton business excellence awards, which are now open for nominations.

Ray, who presents the BBC1 sports results show Score on Saturday afternoons, said he is "looking forward" to the glittering event, where he will once again be master of ceremonies.

The guest speaker is wit, raconteur and TV star Gyles Brandreth.

"Gyles has a fantastic reputation, top class" said Ray. "I am really looking forward to meeting him."

Ray recognises the importance of local businesses to the communities they represent. He explained: "The recognition of how the business community is developing is a window on how the local community overall is progressing and it can be a catalyst and provide the impetus to others.

"It has struck me at this event over the last few years that community issues are linked with the awards and that a lot of great work has been done."

Ray, a former professional footballer, sees parallels between sport and business, where teamwork is needed to reach goals.

Ray said: "How individualism works alongside 'teamwork' has always fascinated me. 'Failing to prepare is preparing to fail', is a phrase often quoted and 'sport' is often used in regard to debates on business practice.

"I can only offer my personal view that shared experiences when working in a team have been so rewarding."

As a double act, Ray and Gyles are continuing a long line of distinguished guests at the awards. Sporting legends Bill Beaumont, Kriss Akabusi and Sally Gunnell, newsreaders Angela Rippon, Michael Buerk and John Humphrys, plus motoring journalist Quentin Wilson, have done the honours in recent times.

Main speaker Gyles Brandreth is a former MP for the City of Chester, a prolific broadcaster in programmes ranging from Just a Minute to Have I Got News for You, an acclaimed interviewer, principally for the Sunday Telegraph, a novelist, children's author and biographer.

Wit and raconteur Gyles once spoke for a world record 12 and a half hours to raise cash for the National Playing Fields Association.

At 22, he turned professional when he joined the books of Associated Speakers, the lecture agency owned by Cyril Fletcher and managed by Dabber and Paddy Davis.

Since then he has spoken all over the world, in venues as varied as the Helmsley Palace, New York and Buckingham Palace, London.

His audiences have ranged from the executives of Coca-Cola to a silent order of nuns, from 1,000 bankers in Frankfurt to 10,000 members of the WI at Wembley Arena.

Gyles has starred in his own award-winning musical revue in London's West End and is a prolific broadcaster on radio and TV, a Sunday Telegraph interviewer and a writer, penning acclaimed political diaries and royal biographies.