Complete the North Devon business skills survey for a chance to win £400

North Devon+ is conducting a survey on behalf of the Northern Devon Employment and Skills Board to learn about local needs and issues so that it can improve support for local employers. It is keen to get as many businesses as possible to take part.

Please complete the survey to help produce an accurate evidence base of training requirements in the area.

The time to complete this survey will differ for each business. As a guide, it may take only six minutes for small businesses, 10 minutes for medium-sized businesses, but 18 minutes for larger businesses. You will be able to save your answers and complete the survey at another time if you need to. Answers will be handled in the strictest of confidence and anonymised (you and your business will not be identifiable).

As a thank you for taking the time to complete it, you’ll have the chance to win £400 cash – complete survey.

February networking lunch – doesn’t February fly past?

Of course February is a short month, and our next lunch meeting is next week, 22nd of February, and we will be meeting at our usual place, well at least for Barnstaple, we will be meeting at the Chichester Arms, in Bishops Tawton!

We get to use the pubs “Den” bar which most months we get all to ourselves, and we have a special menu organised which is a selection of meals from the main menu, which the pub will pretty much guarantee will be available. This suits us a lot better than trying to get the meals pre-ordered!

We book the table for 12:30pm with the aim to sit down to eat around 1pm, although we do encourage people to come along from midday so that they maximise the opportunity to network. After all, that is what we do!

We are an informal networking group, and we always resist the temptation to have that 30 second elevator pitch. I always say, if you do your pitch & no one wants your business they won’t come and talk to you, but if they don’t know what you do, they will!

We are a great bunch, a very welcoming group – I know, I would say that – and I also know for a fact that business is done between members, referrals are passed between ourselves, and what is most important…..

….we keep in touch with each other between lunches.

We advocate the use of social networking, we tweet with one another, we are friends on facebook, or at least like one anothers pages, are part of the same group on Linked In and even get to be part of circles & communities on Google+.

Lunch finishes whenever, some have to disappear back to work, others have the time to hang around and network some more – we have an all in price of just £20 which includes, drinks, food & coffee afterwards!

Why not join us – contact us via the contact page on this website & book your slot!

I for one look forward to meeting you!

Growing the local economy forum!

Earlier this month the above event was cancelled due to bad weather – we did have a bit of snow didn’t we! The event has been re-arranged as follows:-

Councillor Phil Collins Lead Member for the Torridge Economy and Councillor Malcolm Prouse Executive Member from North Devon Council invite you to an Economy Forum. We would really appreciate your views on how you see the economy and to help us target our limited resources to the most beneficial areas. It is proposed that the outcomes from the forum will inform the draft joint economic strategy for the Torridge and North Devon area.

If you could circulate this invitation as widely as possible within your networks this would be much appreciated.  

If you have any questions that you would like to raise at the forum please email them in advance to georgina.beardsley@torridge.gov.uk who you should also send your RSVP to.

We look forward to hearing your views at the forum.

Regards

Councillor P.Collins  Councillor M.Prouse

The event will be held at Caddsdown Business Support on 7th February from 6pm – please email Georgina as above if you want to attend – I understand there will be nibbles & refreshments!

 

Do you blog?

Last year the North Devon Business Alliance (NDBA) ran an Award evening and one of the best contested Awards was the Blogging Award, which was won by Elaine of Convallis Software. It is great to see her blogging on her own blog-site as well as continuing to contribute to Devon Social Media & here on NDBA’s website!

Blogging is a great way to talk about your expertise without actually trying to “sell” what you do, and with many aspects of marketing yourself works best if you blog regularly!

Here on the NDBA website we encourage our members to blog as often as they wish – a member benefit – but surprisingly few do! Why, well probably they have their own website that needs regular blogging and they see this website as a competitor to their own website, or they are just too busy to find the time to add another website to their already busy schedule!

It is worth the effort though, this website appears quite high in google listings for relevant content, the strange mix of blogs from different members keeps the interest going and draws readers in that may other wise not head over in this direction.

So, members, go on have a go, not a member, well it only costs £15 a year to be a member, and you can blog away to your hearts content!

Contact us via the contact page!

Superfast broadband for North Devon delayed

The Connecting Devon and Somerset programme, which has been heralded as bringing superfast broadband to North Devon, has been delayed yet again.

According to a Connecting Devon and Somerset quote published by BBC News about the contract with BT, “both sides have been unable to reach agreement over ‘significant issues’.”

Yet again connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk has not been updated with this important news and its Twitter account, which only promotes its events, has not been updated since 7 January. It only carries good news.

I think this is the biggest reason why such a critical infrastructure project should not be managed by county councils.