Mon 21 / 11 / 16
Why collaboration is important - it gets things done!
Chamber member Mike Wardill from BITC talks about collaboration and his work with The Bevy. The Bevy's chairman Warren Carter will be speaking at our Pop-up Breakfast on 12 January, find out more and book here.
Seven months into this amazing role as a Business Connector with BITC, so very different from my role in my seconding organisation Lloyds Banking Group, another Connector Colleague said to me it’s like being the Secret Millionaire without the cash and remembering you might not be able to change the world, but you can change somebody’s world…..
One common theme that follows through is collaboration – or the art of getting things done!
I meet lots of people from both the business and the community world and during the course of my secondment when an opportunity comes up, I connect these organisations - business to business, business to community and community to community. They begin to collaborate, and get things done.
I have brokered some great examples – here are just a few:
Collaborating with YOU Search & Select, a Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce member, to find a new manager for The Bevy Community Pub. This important piece of work took three months; from writing the advert, putting it out on social media, two stage interviews and the final appointment of what turned out to be a management team who will help sustain The Bevy into the future and build on its strengths further.
Brighton Soup, a successful micro funding charity based on a great concept out of Detroit USA, wanted a venue in East Brighton for their quarterly Dragons Den style pitch and vote evening. I introduced them to the fabulous team at The Bridge Community in Moulsecoomb. On the 28th September 120 people came to The Bridge for an evening of four passionate pitches, five great soups and one vote each! Great evening connecting people.
Barclays Eagle Lab in Preston Circus, another Brighton Chamber member, have offered ongoing support through visits to their amazing maker space, providing meeting rooms and co-working space to so many people I have met.
Aspect8 Independent Financial Advisors and Brighton Chamber members (common theme here!) have supported the Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and Wildlife Project in their bid to secure an Aviva Community Grant. Another great example of business supporting the community, fingers crossed that they are successful.
Business and the Community are interwoven, they operate in the same space and can genuinely help each other in many ways as you can see from these examples.
Brighton is certainly the place to collaborate…..it gets things done!
Thank you to Mike Wardill for providing this blog. If you would like to hear more about The Bevy and the work it does, come along to our Pop-up Breakfast at The New Club on 12 January from 9am - 11am. Steve Bustin will be interviewing Warren Carter, the Bevy's chairman, and there will be great networking and a delicious breakfast. Tickets available here.
You can also listen to the November Brighton Business Show recorded by Chamber member LauraOfBrighton, where both Mike and Warren are in the studio for a chat.
You might also like:
If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk