Hello all. Happy New Year! We wish you all a happy, healthy and successful 2022.
I start this month with some very sad news. Kay Barton, long time ISSBA member and supporter, as well as my wife of 47 years, passed away on the afternoon of 6th January. I would personally like to thank all of you that have sent such kind messages to me. It has been very comforting to find out how many lives Kay touched as not just a member of our business community, but as a friend, wife, mother and grandmother.
We move forward into this year with our first networking event of 2022 which will be held online on 26th January. It is free to attend, very friendly and everyone is welcome so I hope to see lots of you there. Book your place now!
Anglia Business Exhibition 2022 will take place at Trinity Park on 11th May and around 30% of stands have already sold. Make sure you book soon so that you don’t miss out. Stands start from just £195 plus VAT and we have a fantastic range of sponsorship packages to suit a range of budgets. Visit www.angliabusinessexhibition.com to find out more and book your stand or get in touch on contact@angliabusinessexhibition.com. Click here to read our ABE22 update.
Our first Member of the Month of 2022 is Universal Customs Clearance. Find out more about what they offer here.
As many of us are now back (or still!) working from home, our January Business Focus piece is titled ‘Working from home – what have we learned?’. Thank you to Merie Sennett for writing the article.
We do still have a couple of spots available on the ISSBA committee so let us know on mail@issba.co.uk if you are interested. We are a friendly bunch and usually meet once per month (via Zoom currently!). As well as having a say in how the organisation is run, this is a fantastic opportunity to build your profile in the local area. Get in touch if you’d like to know more.
Don’t forget our Recommend a Friend scheme, it is great to see ISSBA members benefiting from this. Any current ISSBA member will get one month's free membership for each new member they recommend, plus the new member also gets one free month, so Win-Win! There are no limits to how many referrals each ISSBA member can make as long as you have a current, paid up membership, so if you bring in 12 new members, you'll get a whole year for free!
GoCardless is making the renewal process much easier for many of our members. If you haven’t signed up yet, either let us know on mail@issba.co.uk or keep an eye on your inbox for an authorisation request. GoCardless is a direct debit system fully protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee and means that you never need to worry about forgetting to renew again. By signing up to this you will help your committee save valuable time in chasing renewals, so please, if you aren’t already signed up, please do!
Graham Barton, ISSBA Chair