Business Must have a Strong Local Voice - Somerset Chamber of ...

Rupert’s ReviewYou can find the Somerset Chamber of Commerceon Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.administrator.As Somerset Chambermembership and our associatedactivities grow, so has ourdedicated team, and the way wesupport our members.Sometimes I find it hard to believethat just 7 years ago when I joinedthe Chamber there were no fulltime staff – just a part-time CEOand a “very” part-timeThrough steady growth in membership and increase inrevenue from significant project work with IntoSomerset and Hinkley Supply Chain, as well as hostingthe Somerset Business Awards (SBA) and the Somersetin Business Conference (SIB) being the two mostimportant business events in the county, the Chambernow needs a team of experienced and committed staffwho can help our members get full value from theirmembership.This month I would like to introduce 3 new faces to theChamber – 2 to support our recruitment drive and 1 toassist the delivery of our Hinkley Supply Chain work.Julie Evans and Alistair Powell have joined our salesteam and are tasked with making significant progressin hitting our membership target of 700 by the end of2015. Both of these individuals are known to theSomerset business community and are both veryexperienced in the field of sales. Julie has particularexperience in the life of Chambers and Business Linkfrom her previous work in the Midlands and now runs avery successful sales business near Yeovil. Alistair willbe familiar to many in the area for his astute attitude tohelping businesses increase their sales activities, so itis great to have him with us “practicing what hepreaches”. We would like to hear from anyone who canrefer to us a business that would be value being amember of the Somerset Chamber.The third new member of the Chamber family isSusannah Jones who is graduating from ExeterUniversity this summer with a degree in Physics &Astrophysics. Susannah joins us at a very exciting timefor her with the Hinkley Point C project about to get realtraction. She will be focussing on managing the supplychain database and supplier matching activity, somembers registered on the supply chain may well behearing from Susannah in the weeks and monthsahead.Finally, in an attempt to increase our value to memberseven more, we are working on developing newmembership categories that reflect the needs of ourmembers and correlate more to the benefits ofChamber membership. Historically, there have beenmore than 10 membership categories that cannotsupport our members most effectively. I know that byhalving the number of categories, we can provide thelevel of targeted service that our members willappreciate and value. These changes will come intooperation from 1 st May 2013 and will only affectmembers when membership comes up for annualrenewal. To coincide with this change we will also beintroducing the opportunity to pay membership bydirect debit which has been requested by a number ofmembers recently.We know Somerset Chamber membership is right formost businesses so we want to make it easy to becomea member, easy to renew membership and easy to getreal tangible benefit from being part of the SomersetChamber – and hard to leave us!Our PatronsA big thank you to the Patrons of the Somerset Chamber of Commerce whose continuedsupport is vital to the growth of the Chamber.2FRONT COVER IMAGE COURTESY OF A & B PHOTOGRAPHY