November 2019 breakfast
Another excellent turn-out for the last breakfast of 2019
A seasonal flavour for our November 2019 breakfast with news of various people’s efforts to raise money and help others. These included Andrew Bingham’s daughter, Poppy, 13, raising money for Suffolk Young Carers and Kate Kelly collecting used printer cartridges for an initiative called Keeping Hearts Beating, that buys defibrillators to locate in public places.
Kate also launched our reverse advent calendar to collect festive food for the Stowmarket Food Bank.
Shelli Moyes has a new role on our committee
Shelli has volunteered (read arm twisted) to manage finding and booking speakers for our breakfasts and for our coffee mornings.
The options are a 10-minute presentation at the breakfast or a half-hour slot at the coffee morning, where speakers can talk about their services or about specific aspects of their businesses that a 60-second breakfast spot has no time for.
Shelli already has speakers booked for most of next year but she can put you on the reserve list in case anyone has to drop out. Just email her or catch her at breakfast.
“A lot of us in this room do have a lot of skills and maybe also activities we do in our social time, such as charity work. Perhaps you might want to talk about these,” she said.
A presentation can be a good opportunity to demonstrate some of the extra things a local small business does that a larger company doesn’t.
She emphasised that this was not about selling but about informing and educating people about what is involved in what a business does.
Follow-up to Allan’s Big Announcement
Our chairman, Allan Scott, reported on the successful launch of the new Stowmarket Innovation Labs, in what used to be the Bistro on the riverside. The Innovation Labs were formally launched the previous evening to a very full house.
The guest speaker was Peter Scott, brother of member Bob Scott, of Niche Cocktails. Peter works at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) which has had a role in almost every space mission.
Founding launch partners for the centre are Stowmarket and District Chamber, Peter Brady, of Orbital Media, business consultant Peter Basford, and Hermione Way, former head of communications at Tinder. Additional business partners are actively being sought.
The project has the backing of Mid Suffolk District Council and already has links with the Martlesham Innovation Centre in Ipswich.
Tell us what you want
Allan is happy to receive any suggestions for what members want to see the Chamber doing in the future. Please send your ideas (and your want lists) to [email protected].
Dates for your diary:
December Coffee | Christmas Lunch |
Needham Market Community Centre | The Shepherd & Dog
Onehouse |
Friday, December 6 | Friday, December 15 |
10.00am-12noon | 12noon-2pm |
For more information contact Keely Taylor
phone: 01449 770965
e-mail: [email protected]
Anyone who has a story to publicise should contact marketing officer Alison Withers: