April 2010 Event - Huge Success
Tewkesbury Borough Council held its first Business to Business Networking Event at Tewkesbury Park Hotel on Wednesday 21st April 2010 and it was an overwhelming success, attracting 130 representatives from local businesses across the Borough. The event was organised in partnership with Smartline Ltd and Tewkesbury Borough Local Strategic Partnership.
The event included a range of seminars; the opportunity to network over lunch and the chance to build new contacts and gain new business.
It was officially opened by Tewkesbury Borough Council’s Chief Executive Mike Dawson, followed by a series of short talks focused on looking ahead and life after the recession. The talks included planning for economic growth and supporting competitive business in the Borough.
Local procurement was also a key topic, including how to secure local government contracts and how to ensure a business is in the best market position to gain contracts with other businesses.
There was also advice on promoting business through social media and how to take advantage of new marketing opportunities.
Throughout the day there was the opportunity to visit and talk to the wide range of exhibitors and local organisations present at the event - helping to gain new contacts and business.
Tewkesbury Borough Council’s Lead Member for Economic Development and Promotion Cllr Phil Taylor said: “B2B Tewkesbury really highlighted how vibrant and active Tewkesbury Borough’s business community is – and the fact that more than 130 people attended just goes to show the importance of events like this.”
The overall success of this event was clearly evident form the exit survey results, with 96% of attendees stating that they would like to attend similar events in the future!
The survey also shows that the main reasons for attending were to network and make new business contacts followed by attendance of the seminars.
The aspects that delegates liked most about the day were:
· Well organised, relevant, informative.
· Local People and local event. Was great to be doing this in Tewkesbury and not Gloucester or Cheltenham.
· Quality and diversity of speakers.
· The number of people attended and the friendliness
· As newcomer to business in Tewkesbury, was an ideal opportunity to network.
Suggested improvements for future events?
· Possibly more exhibitors
· Organise events for specific businesses to meet relevant prospective customers e.g. for engineering companies who would like to supply manufacturers.
· A list of delegates attending the event, so that you could focus more on meeting people from businesses relevant to you.
· Speed networking as didn’t get an opportunity to speak to everybody!
Just some of the positive comments received by attendees of the event:
· Good, clear and relevant marketing and communication. Great to see TBC really engaging with the local economy - let’s have more of it. We are customers, let us engage!
· A fantastic event - Thanks for the invitation.
· I think this was an excellent event, and the effort put into organising it was plain to see. I think the venture has a clear and definite future and will continue to be well attended.
· Need another!
· Well organised and extremely useful event!
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our kind sponsors Gloucestershire First, Federation of Small Businesses, Dale Process Engineering, Red Sixty Solutions, Healthcare RM and Alpha Safety.