This was held at the Municipal Offices on Thursday 8th May and it was very good to see so many Members attending.
Proceedings began with presentation of the Everyman Cup for Sponsorship. This was awarded to the amazing Barnwood Trust Charity whose fund made it possible for the Everyman Theatre to become one of the first theatres in the country to install a state-of-the-art hearing assistance system. This gives the visually impaired or hard of hearing (nearly one-in-three of us), a vastly enhanced performance experience.
Clive Thomas, Chairman of the Everyman Theatre Board and Mark Goucher, Everyman CEO present the CCC Sponsorship Cup to Brooke Abrames from Barnwood Trust
Our President, Steven Murray highlighted some of the Chamber’s core activities and partnerships over the past year – many of which can go under the radar.
These included Together Gloucestershire, a project to help improve opportunities for local businesses to connect and tender for large projects. Other activities included supporting projects to improve skills, connection between business and education, Feed Cheltenham and the Culture Board.
He paid tribute to Projects Executive, Lindsey Holland, who is stepping down from the Chamber Board but who will continue this important work and keep us informed of all the key developments. We will continue to report on these regularly.
He also expressed the Chamber’s huge thanks to Sarah Cook, Deputy Chief Executive and former President who is also moving on to focus on the rapidly increasing demands of her own business, HR People Support. She has been a great ambassador for the Chamber.
And to Rob Stemp, our Cyber Executive who has been instrumental in helping to upgrade many of the Chamber’s systems, the benefits of which should start to be apparent in the near future. We will continue to support and promote his amazing work with CyNam on developing “Boot Camps” for students and aspiring digital entrepreneurs.
These are big boots to fill but if you would like to contribute to our work, whether in improving the Membership experience or supporting our influence in the local economy, please get in touch.
He then talked about the Chamber’s future ambitions, especially becoming an accredited British Chamber of Commerce, with access to its considerable resources and lobbying power. We will be working closely with Business West, who are our key sponsors in this endeavour.
The guest speaker was Max Wilkinson, Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham. In an engaging talk, he talked candidly about his first days in Parliament (and yes, it is a bit like school!) and the challenges in putting a team together.
He gave a frank assessment of the new Governments’ record to date. Acknowledging the size of the task, he highlighted some areas where he agrees – for example, aspects of international relations, prioritizing the NHS and Social Care and green energy, but strongly criticized the very slow pace of Social Care reform, their overall narrative but above all the rises in employment costs and business rates. The latter are incompatible with a growth agenda.
More locally, he is concerned at the prospect of Gloucestershire becoming a single unitary authority, arguing that it would be too big. (The largest in the UK and the only one with two large urban centres.) As a result, key local issues and projects might not get the priority they need. Once it then becomes a combined authority, for example under a Bristol based Mayor, local influence could diminish even further.
With no Borough Council, a strong Town Council with support from key local groups such as the Chamber, will be important to ensure the local voice is heard.
He also expressed the frustration, we suspect shared by quite a few, that work on the Golden Valley Development with all its promises of employment, skills, development, housing and a major contribution to the local economy and cultural life, is yet to start. He suggested that potential planning issues could be overcome by taking a more pragmatic, stage by stage approach.
Max is keen to hear from local businesses and holds regular focus groups to hear their feedback under Chatham House Rules. Chamber Board Members will be attending, so please let us know if there are issues you would like us to put to him.
The meeting concluded with networking over delicious Portuguese wines from Ken Sheathers Wines and an appropriate toast in honour of VE Day.
