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At our AGM held courtesy of the Crowne Plaza on the 19th October, I was voted in to be President for another 12 months. The full minutes of the meeting are on the website but it also gave me the opportunity to report back on the last 12 months. As President they have been both enjoyable and challenging, when I took over as President I spoke to many members & non members to get their feedback on the Chamber and to ask what you wanted from the Chamber moving forward, after all the Chamber is a member’s led organisation there to represent its members. The feedback was positive and in general you enjoy and get value from being a member, areas that you wanted to see change were an up to date web site that you could use as a source to gather information on what’s happening locally and Chamber activities, you also wanted to have more communication from the Chamber on what we were doing and local events as well as more opportunity to promote your businesses. The feedback & ideas helped to give me a plan and some of the highlights are:
Executive
Over the last year we have seen some change in the Executive with new members Annie Mulady, Tim Graham, Jon Child, Simon Gibson, Tony Light, Adam Marlow
Vice president
Due to the increase in projects that the Chamber was working on I’m pleased to say that Annie was voted in as Vice President and has been voted in again to continue for another 12 months
Web site
We went to tender with several local web developers and appointed Peter Stagg, our brief to Peter was simple, we wanted members to be able to access information on the Chamber, future & past events & meetings, the executive and an opportunity to promote businesses. We launched the web site earlier this year and are continuingly developing it to meet our member’s needs. One area to look out for in the coming months is a virtual tour of Marlow.
Communication
In the last 12 months this has increased in many ways. We have worked hard to build relationships with local media, we continuingly keep the web site updated with projects that we are working on and earlier this year we started sending out a monthly newsletter (big thanks to Annie)
Monthly Business Meetings
We now have monthly business meetings at different venues such as Dun & Bradstreet, Spinvox, Café in the Park and the next on will be held at Harleyford Golf club on 16th November. The meetings give us the opportunity to update on local issues, members to promote their businesses and most importantly an opportunity to network together. Each month we have seen the attendance increase and we are currently getting between 40 to 50 members attending
Retailers meeting
Due to the economic downturn and the direct affect it had on the retailers in January we held a meeting for all of the retailers to get together and share their experiences and come up with some positive actions. Out of this we then held a rates revue meeting where we had an independent expert was available to offer advice and guidance
Scarecrow Trail
Out of the retailers meeting we organised a Scarecrow trail to bring people to the town, with a lot of hard work from the executive and the retailers we had the scarecrow trail in July. Agreed by all the event was a great success and the shops & town were busy. Due to the success & positive feedback we will now organise similar events and make the scarecrow trail an annual event.
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Marlow Experience
Another project to come out of the retailers meeting was the idea to create a brand identity, Tony Light got his thinking/marketing hat on and came up with the Marlow Experience. The idea is not rocket science but at the same time to our knowledge has not been done by any other town. Mulady Solutions held customer service training for the participating businesses who all committed to be courteous, helpful & enjoyable.
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The Chamber are currently focusing on the Christmas lights (see the article in this newsletter) and the Late Night Shopping event held on the 3rd December – if you would like to be involved in this family event, please contact any of the executive – contact details can be found on the website |