Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce is enhancing its activities by creating a bank of “Chamber Champions” from within its membership.
Following a strategic review, Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce made the decision to add value to its membership by establishing itself as a “Stakeholder Organisation”.
Chief Executive, Damon Scott, explained: “During my time as CEO we have seen an increasing number of businesses expressing a willingness to put something back into the Chamber for the greater good. As a chamber we also recognised the value of being both led and supported by our membership.
“One of our key aims has always been to build a real “business community” in Dunbartonshire. The term “community” is often over-simplified as a way to describe people working in businesses and we know that being in business can sometimes be a lonely experience regardless of size. We try to emphasis the value of being part of a community defined by shared values and interests and work hard to connect businesses to build relationships, communicate and offer each other advice and support. The landscape is flooded with networking organisations driven by sales and, whilst of course we want to encourage referrals, we see them as outcome of the relationships that our members build. We have found this to be a much more sustainable approach with more informed referrals being made, based on a level of trust and understanding having been built up.
“We have also seen an upsurge in businesses recognising the value of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) which is helping us as a chamber. There are businesses that see CSR as a benefit of financial support via our sponsorship opportunities as well as those that contribute in-kind to support our membership and activities. We are delighted that our members genuinely want to give something back, but we are also keen to highlight the benefits to their business in terms of CPD and the message this sends out to their customers about what type of business they are. Community Engagement and CSR Policies are also often an integral part of the public sector procurement process.”
On the back of this interest, Dunbartonshire Chamber recently set up a new “Chamber Experts” Programme, that brought together a group of specialists willing to give up their time and share their knowledge with other members and partners. A series of themed surgeries are planned for 2020 along with workshops and seminars as well as ad-hoc advice facilitated by the chamber. Plans are also underway for the group to support the chamber’s own mentoring programme to provide advice to another member of the chamber on a regular basis for up to 12 months.
The “Chamber Experts”, along with the wider membership, will also help to support Dunbartonshire Chamber’s new skills development programme, “Building Bridges” by providing mentoring and advice for schools’ enterprise and skills initiatives. Additionally, member businesses are supporting Building Bridges by undertaking outreach work at local schools, attending careers days and hosting school visits – with more than 300 schoolchildren given access to local companies to find out more about career opportunities as a result of the first “Schools2Business” Week.
Another key programme that is becoming increasingly member-led is “Dunbartonshire Women in Business” that is now being headed up by chamber member, Mary Ann Smith, of Kingsmith Property Group. Mary Ann recently hosted the launch of a new networking event in Bearsden organised in partnership with fellow member, Café Crème. The sell-out event featured another chamber member, Alison Bell, of the Frill Factory, who gave an insight into being “commercially creative” along with professional blogger Emma McMenemey.
Damon Scott said: “It is fantastic that we have members like Mary Ann, Geraldine Dillon of Café Crème and Alison Bell who are prepared to join our growing pool of “Chamber Champions” and invest their time and expertise to enhance what the chamber is already doing. As a smaller chamber it expands our capabilities, adds value, raises our profile and builds our membership as we continue to reach a wider audience. It also makes a lot of sense to involve the membership in both leading and shaping our activities, it means we get continuous feedback to help us plan effectively and it means there is a real authenticity and credibility about everything we do. The feedback from the event was really positive and we have already had follow-up discussions with Mary Ann about helping to deliver a range of events and activities in 2020 as well as how we connect and build the network.”
To find out more about more about the Chamber Champion Scheme, to get involved or for sponsorship opportunities email champions@dunbartonshirechamber.co.uk or phone Damon Scott on 0141 280 0272. To find out more about Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce visit
www.dunbartonshirechamber.co.uk
