Thursday morning, 6th November. The mornings are certainly getting darker, but that is doing nothing to quell the enthusiasm of our members – quite the contrary in fact. We were delighted to have a total of 86 people in attendance at our November meeting, with over 20 new and revisiting guests. It’s clear that more and more people are seeing the tangible benefit of joining our hugely diverse and well connected group.
There were a few notable differences this month. Firstly, we were delighted to welcome Jay Ratchett as our Master of Ceremonies – he did a fantastic job keeping everyone on agenda and, most crucially, on time! We look forward to having Jay as a valuable member of our team here at The Boardroom Network.
With the room abuzz with activity, we invited our first “2 minute warmer” Alison Owens from estate agency, Home Xpert to the podium. Alison proved what networking is all about – not just about selling your services, but genuinely wanted to help other people. Her tale about her clients calling her, in search of a good plumber, is testament to the power of networking… After all, we all like to deal with people we know, like and trust!
Much to our delight, our favourite Michael McIntyre impersonator at TBN, Sam Dyer of Smallporate, shared rather interesting news about the latest government-backed scheme – offering up to £2000 of grant money for business growth activities. Sam is a dedicated member of our network, travelling all the way from Cornwall each month, because he has seen the tangible benefits of being involved. If you’d like to find out more from Sam about the grant, please visit www.smallporate.com and contact Sam directly.
Finally, we welcomed Justin Cohen from Darren Northeast PR to the podium – with two pieces of news to share. Firstly, he extended our invitation to you, our loyal members, to the cocktail evening we have arranged to celebrate the 1st Anniversary of The Boardroom Network. Jacqui has sent formal invitations to all members, to the event at the Menzies Carlton Hotel on 25th November – which will no doubt be a convivial evening enjoyed by all!
Justin’s other task was to introduce Lorna Trent from our chosen charity, BCHA. We are delighted to be supporting such an active and important charity that helps people from across our region. Lorna highlighted how easily it could happen to any one of us – becoming homeless through circumstances that are outside of our own control. We look forward to helping raise BCHA’s profile and of course raise some much needed funds for them too – we’ll have collection tins available at upcoming meetings, should you wish to donate.
And with that, we now look forward to our final TBN meeting of 2014. What a fantastic year it has been – and we are confident that 2015 will only get better!