July is rushing past and we're approaching our monthly lunch at midday on Friday 30 July at the Chichester Arms, Bishop's Tawton.

After discussing the optimum numbers for these events, we decided 20 was probably the largest number to make them practical – you can't get many more people round a table and hope to be heard.

We're happy that 17 people have already booked for this month, leaving just three places available. 

This month we are also pleased that Barbara Fryer (@BarbaraFPhotos) has offered to take professional portrait photos for anyone needing a good photo for use on their social media profile, web site or for PR. Barbara is charging £10 for one photo with additional photos £5 each. If you would like your photo taken after the meal, please dress accordingly, bring a comb and a USB memory stick so Barbara can copy the JPEG file on to it for you to use.

We look forward to seeing you for lunch, stimulating discussion, photographs and networking!

Call 0333 044 2038 or email info@ndba.org.uk to reserve your place. Lunch costs £20 and includes main course, drinks and coffee.

Directions to Chichester Arms:

 
View Larger Map.

North Devon’s geography is at once a blessing and a challenge. It must rank as one of the most beautiful places in the world – no exaggeration – in which to live and work, but remote towns separated by long distances cause difficulties. 

Everyone knows this and the members of the North Devon Business Alliance were not the first to discuss this at our end-of-month Friday lunches. It’s also the reason why no all-embracing North Devon business organisation existed previously.

The logistics of getting people from Bideford to Lynton and from South Molton to Ilfracombe together in one place mean that few events attract representation from across the area.

Building a cohesive community

Yet North Devon needs a cohesive business community to work together, to share aims, to debate and resolve problems and to build a bigger, stronger and resilient economy that is the greater sum of its individual parts.

That’s why we decided to take action to build this community.

Using social media

Several NDBA members have been networking online for seven or more years and now use ‘social media’ extensively to find new contacts, promote their businesses and attract new enquiries.

You may think that twitter and facebook are merely for gossip or sharing holiday photos, but their owners have introduced features to make them valuable business users. In fact, facebook deliberately targeted business users to start making money. LinkedIn, originally an online CV repository, has also developed into a networking and discussion service.

NDBA is active on all these services and now aims to draw together the hundreds of existing users and encourage all North Devon businesses to use these tools to get to know each other better and to promote their businesses and the area locally, nationwide and internationally.

We need face-to-face meetings

Online networking cannot replace face-to-face meetings and NDBA sees the two complementing each other.

We will continue our monthly lunches at the Chichester Arms, Bishop’s Tawton and will be hosting other events across North Devon.

Current plans include an informal ‘TweetUp’ in Barnstaple on 10 June, introductory social media sessions to help everyone start networking online and even a conference event.

Championing North Devon

Of course, as a community, we want to provide what members want.

We aim to represent the interests of all businesses in the area and, through supporting existing businesses and encouraging start-ups, to develop the full potential of the local economy.

We’re in business in North Devon, championing business in North Devon.

We welcome every size of business, from every sector, from across the area.

If this inspires you, please join us today. Call us on 0333 044 2038 or message us on twitter at @northdevon.

We look forward to welcoming you.