When you organise a business networking event slap bang in the middle of the summer holidays, there is always that little voice in the back of your head wondering whether everyone might quite sensibly be on a beach somewhere instead.
Well, we needn’t have worried!
Oxfordshire’s Bigger Business Breakfast on Friday was incredibly well attended, and from the moment people started arriving, the room had a fantastic buzz about it.
And I don’t just mean lots of people standing around with a coffee and exchanging business cards.
The conversations were flowing. Connections were being made. Meetings were being booked. Introductions were happening.
And, most importantly, business was being done.
That’s exactly what we want OBCN to be about.
One in four guests joined OBCN
There was another statistic from Friday which I think is worth sharing.
25% of the non-member guests in the room signed up to become OBCN members.
One in four.
And, as I write this, we now have 119 members in the OBCN community.
I don’t tend to get too carried away by numbers for the sake of numbers. Having the biggest networking group in the world isn’t particularly useful if nobody gets anything from being part of it.
What matters is building a community where people actually get to know each other, help each other and, ultimately, do business together.
But when one in four of the people who come along as guests decide they want to be part of the community, I think we’re allowed to say it:
We must be doing something right!
Thank you to everyone who came along on Friday, and particularly to all of our existing members who continue to welcome new people into the room and make OBCN what it is.
Because that’s the bit we can’t manufacture.
And then we tried something completely new…
Once breakfast finished, quite a few people stayed behind for something we’ve never done before.
We recorded Get Radio’s Business Brunch in front of a live audience.
The Business Brunch has now been running for more than five years and has featured hundreds of Oxfordshire business leaders, but this was the first time we’d turned the microphones towards a room full of business owners and invited them to become part of the programme too.
The subject was a fairly small one…
The Oxfordshire Economy.
Ben Thompson hosted the discussion, joined by Greg Box Turnbull from Fortitude Communications and Tony Hobbs from Chapman, Robinson & Moore, and the idea was to explore where Oxfordshire’s economy is today, what’s working, what isn’t, and what the next 12 months might have in store.
It turned into a fascinating conversation.
Oxfordshire has an extraordinary amount going for it. We’ve got a globally recognised name, an incredible science and technology economy, phenomenal innovation and a very strong SME community.
But we’re certainly not without our challenges.
And rather than tell you everything that was said, I’m deliberately going to stop there.
Because you really should listen to this one.
The audience made the show
What made the recording particularly interesting wasn’t just the panel.
It was the room.
Our OBCN members and guests got properly involved.
Questions were asked. Opinions were challenged. Different views came from different parts of the Oxfordshire business community, and the conversation went in directions I don’t think any of us could have completely predicted when we started recording.
We heard perspectives on everything from our transport and infrastructure to Oxfordshire’s market towns, opportunities for young people, the commercialisation of our incredible science and technology sector, supporting local businesses, the future of our communities and how businesses can have a stronger voice in what happens across the county.
There were some subjects where people strongly agreed.
There were others where they definitely didn’t.
Which, frankly, makes for much better radio!
One of my favourite things about the session was just how much of it came from the audience. This wasn’t a panel sitting at the front of a room telling Oxfordshire businesses what they should think. Our members and guests became part of the discussion and brought their own experiences, questions and ideas to it.
Later in the programme, the conversation moved into the role of local businesses themselves: supporting each other, influencing decision-makers, building stronger communities and thinking about what sort of Oxfordshire economy we actually want to create.
There are some genuinely thought-provoking moments in there.
Make Sunday 23rd August your appointment to listen
So, get this one in the diary.
Sunday 23rd August at 11am on Get Radio.
You can find out more about the show on the Get Radio Business Brunch page.
And listening is easy:
- DAB Digital Radio across Oxfordshire
- Online at getradio.co.uk and press play
- RadioPlayer or TuneIn aps
- Smart speaker, Alexa, say “enable Get Radio Skill” and / or just ask your speaker to play Get Radio
The Business Brunch airs every Sunday from 11am until midday.
In fact, we had so much audience participation and so much good material that there may even be two parts to this one.
We’ll know more once Get Radio’s production team has worked their magic on the edit later this week.
But whatever happens, make Sunday 23 August at 11am your appointment to listen.
And finally, a huge thank you again to everybody who joined us on Friday.
To those of you who’ve been part of OBCN for a while, thank you for continuing to support it.
To everyone who came along for the first time, it was brilliant to meet you.
And to the rather impressive 25% of our guests who decided to join us afterwards, welcome to OBCN!
119 members and counting.
Onwards!
