Berwick Chamber of Trade & Commerce hosted its first Business Networking Event in Berwick Town Hall on Wednesday 2nd November.

The theme of the event, “By working together, we can make a difference”, attracted 55 attendees from a range of businesses in the area.  Stephen Scott, Chair, Berwick Chamber of Trade, welcomed everyone to the event, and said, “businesses have so many common needs and share many common challenges. By working together on those things, we can make a difference and help reduce some of the problems that individual businesses feel unable to address on their own.”

Everyone had time to socialise and network with other business representatives. Facilitated group sessions were held to identify the problems and issues affecting business in Berwick, potential solutions, and what the Berwick business community can do to reduce those problems.

Stephen Scott said, “ I am delighted by the positive attitude and the great ideas that were discussed, our plan is to assess all of the ideas captured and where practical turn them into a plan that would form the basis of the Chamber’s priorities going forward”. 

Carol Bruce and Robert Frost from Allan Bros attended the event, Carol said, “From our point, we thought this was a great starting point, local businesses coming together sharing their issues/concerns as well as ideas and suggestions on how to improve things and in turn helping our Town. We were able to meet all types of business owners large and small and to see people joining together to improve our Town was inspiring.”

Roland Wallis, a Partner at ROJO Antiques in Bridge Street said, “As shop owners, we often feel isolated and seldom get the chance to meet other businesses. The event in the Guild Hall gave us a great sense of being a collective and very much part of the fabric of Berwick.

The event showed how many common themes there are in the aspirations of business owners and in asking us what we would like to see happen brought about a great sense of optimism”.