The SCR Chambers: East Midlands
Celebrating success at the President’s Summer Reception
Making sure we continue to celebrate success in difficult times was the key message from East Midlands Chamber (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire) President Kevin Harris at his Summer Reception recently. Talking to nearly 100 guests at the event at
Makeney Hall Hotel, Belper, he said: “When we look at some of the political issues taking place around us – Brexit and the selection of a new Prime Minister, for example - some of you might ask what exactly is there to celebrate?” Avoiding getting political, he used those two
examples to show how forces beyond individual control could affect business on a daily basis and yet, at the same time, “offer opportunities to demonstrate how good we are at overcoming adversity”. He said we should celebrate that:
• The East Midlands continues to be one of the biggest contributors to the national economy – second only to London and the Southeast
• we continue to create jobs at one of the highest rates in the country, according to the Office for National Statistics
• we continue to lead innovation and growth • we continue to be a world-leader for advanced technologies and gaming
• we continue to be very good at selling our wares around the world.
‘Counting chickens? I say
Other things to celebrate, he said, included the growth at and around East Midlands Airport and the promise of regeneration at Toton, through HS2, and of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar area when the coal-fired electricity generating station there is decommissioned in the near future. He said: “The growth promised by the fulfilment of these opportunities can’t fail to boost the region’s economy. Counting chickens?
let’s celebrate the promise and then secure fulfilment’
I say let’s celebrate the
promise and then secure fulfilment.” Offering still further cause for celebration, the focus of the event was to announce the finalists for this
year’s East Midlands Chamber Business Awards, many of whom were at the Summer Reception. Kevin said: “That gives me an excuse to
celebrate each of you. It’s your support that gives the Chamber the capacity and capability to speak on behalf of the East Midlands business community in the corridors of power, to work tirelessly to bring about conditions in which businesses in the East Midlands can thrive and achieve further success.” Chamber Chief Executive Scott Knowles then
talked about how the Chamber has added “two small words and huge significance” to its vision of ‘enhancing East Midlands businesses’, making it ‘business and communities’. “Those two little words have added a massive
remit to the role of the Chamber but are vital to our overall ethos – after all, there is an inevitable and unbreakable link between thriving communities and thriving businesses,” Scott said. He said that nowadays one of the measures
Business Awards applicants were among the guests at the President's Summer Reception, as the finalists were announced
44 CHAMBERconnect Summer 2019
used by younger workers to evaluate a company’s worth was its commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). “Only two days ago, I compered the Chamber’s second annual CSR Summit – where delegates learned from successful organisations and multinationals that have implemented and
Kevin Harris addresses delegates
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