On Wednesday evening we held our Annual Review Meeting at the Galleries of Justice in central Nottingham.
The event kindly sponsored by Kaplan Financial was not only a time to reflect on the last 12 months, but also an opportunity to look to the future.
(A big congratulations to James Simmonds from UHY Hacker Young, winner of the business card draw. The Galleries of Justice will be in touch about your prize).
L-R: Simon Gray (NMB), Thalej Vasishta (NMB), Sean Akins (NMB), Masa Prastalo (GoJ), Mark Goldby (NMB) and Spencer Bliss (Kaplan Financial).
Following presentations from Masa Prastalo from the Galleries of Justice and Spencer Bliss from Kaplan Financial, Simon Gray (NMB’s Chief Executive) talked through key achievements since last year’s AGM:
At the start of the year we rebranded from Invest in Nottingham Club to Nottingham Means Business (NMB) to give a clearer message to the business community about who we are, what we do and why it matters.
We clarified our message under three headings – INFORM, INSPIRE and INVEST.
We created ten Interest Groups to be the ‘eyes and ears’ of the indigenous business sectors, international markets and foundations that underpin our local economy.
In February, we walked away from the Midlands Business Awards in Birmingham with accolade of Midlands Business Club of the Year.
INFORM – to bring together the business community at regular events to network, collaborate and exchange ideas:
During the last year we’ve held six member lunches, which have been attended by 576 members and guests.
We’ve run niche based events on broadband, Germany, manufacturing and India.
We remembered our founding father Jim Taylor at the Jim Taylor Memorial Race Day at Nottingham Racecourse and are now making this an annual event in celebration of his life.
We celebrated Christmas at our Christmas Drinks, which as always was very well supported.
In total, 992 members or guests attended one of our events during the past year.
NMB and many of our members took an active role in Nottingham’s first Business Expo and we look forward to supporting this event again in early 2016.
A fantastic venue for our Annual Review Meeting 2015 – Nottingham’s Galleries of Justice.
INSPIRE – to encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs to start businesses here and existing businesses to grow and prosper:
In conjunction with the Creative Quarter, Nottingham City Council and sponsored by PwC we ran our third Creative Class Event (#CC2014) at Nottingham Contemporary. We profiled ten growth businesses, celebrated in their success and gave them honorary membership of NMB for 12 months.
We’re supporting Dan Miller a young entrepreneur who is putting on an event at Antenna on 30 June 2015 to bridge the skills gap between employers and schools. Many of our members are involved and NMB is very proud to sponsor the event.
INVEST – to support Invest in Nottingham (IIN) to attract inward investment into Nottingham and Nottinghamshire:
We’ve continued to work closely with IIN and our members have been involved in the majority of inward investment enquiries. During the past year there has been particular emphasis on property and the recruitment of skills.
NMB has directly generated six enquiries that have been passed to IIN.
Membership and communications:
Membership currently stands at 233 – an increase of 41% on prior year.
In the last 12 months we’ve had 10,500 visitors to our website (23% of this traffic coming from social media).
We’ve had over 100 articles in the local press – the challenge now is to gain more exposure both nationally and internationally.
Interest Groups:
Manufacturing and India have been two of our most active Interest Groups and Mark Goldby (IG Chair for Manufacturing) and Thalej Vasishta (IG Chair for India) summarised the extensive activity they’ve undertaken during the past 12 months.
Moving forwards:
We have a packed schedule of events set out for the remainder of this year, which can be viewed here.
The Place Marketing Organisation (PMO) now exists – Marketing Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, for the purpose of bringing together tourism, business and inward investment to better promote the city and county, both nationally and internationally.
Paul Southby’s 12 months as Transitional Chair starts from the first meeting of the PMO Board. Work is underway to create this new Board and to put the right structures in place.
For the first few months there will be parallel running of the respective organisations while a structural and management review takes place.
It’s been acknowledged that business engagement is crucial to the success of the new organisation. The NMB Board will be in discussions with the PMO Board to establish how this can best be achieved.
Finance and Acting Chairman:
Our financial position is similar to prior year and we are where we expected to be. A copy of the draft accounts can be obtained by emailing Chris Taylor at: chris.taylor@smithcooper.co.uk
Sean Akins, Acting Chair of NMB took to the stage to thank members for their continued support and highlighted the importance of business engagement and collaboration as we move forwards with the PMO.
Simon talks through NMB’s communications in the impressive courtroom.
Thank you…
It’s been a busy year and finally it was time to say a special thank you to those who have made things possible:
The sponsors of our events – RizkMcCay, PwC, Creative Quarter, Shakespeares, Specsavers, Russell Scanlan, LTA, Nottingham Racecourse and Baker Tilly.
The NMB Board for their energy and support.
Geldards for providing us with office space and Smith Cooper for running our finances.
The Galleries of Justice for hosting the Annual Review Meeting and Kaplan Financial for sponsoring.
Natalie for all her hard work in making things happen.
The most important thank you however goes to our members, without whom none of this would be possible.
Simon then closed proceedings with the simple message:
‘WE ARE NOTTINGHAM – AND NOTTINGHAM MEANS BUSINESS.’
To see the photos from the event, please visit: www.neilhoylephotography.com
Click on the green ‘Client Area’ icon towards the foot of the first page and then on job 101615-1. The password is DARK (case sensitive).