Our first in person breakfast since March 2020, which was kindly sponsored by Albert Goodman had a fantastic turnout consisting of members and guests alike. Held at The Boat That Rocks on Portland – who provided us with a lovely breakfast – this event was also streamed on Zoom. 

President Craig welcomed everyone back to in person events and provided a brief run down on the events of the past 18 months. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Craig then introduced new members, Weymouth High Street. Barry and Aaron talked us through their soon to launch local project – a NEW digital platform for all things Weymouth. Think along the lines of Amazon, Etsy and Uber Eats for Weymouth and Portland.

The platform will provide an all-encompassing online marketplace for every small business in Weymouth and Portland, regardless of size or location.

The boys are hoping to launch early December, just in time to support local businesses for Christmas. The Chamber are proud to be supporting this exciting local project and look forward to seeing what developments are just around the corner. keep your eyes peeled! Thanks to the boys for sharing with us.

For more information visit the Weymouth High Street facebook page 

 

Next up was Richard Bugler, Managing Partner of our honorary Accountants and this meeting’s Sponsor Albert Goodman.

Richard gave us an overview of the recent autumn budget and the outlook for businesses. Richard advised that many of the Chancellor’s announcements came as a bit of a surprise and its a good job they hadn’t run an office sweepstake.

With lots of points covered ranging from tax codes to buying electric cars, Albert Goodman kindly sent over a digital copy of their Autumn budget 2021 summary to share with our members, which can be viewed here –  Albert Goodman’s Budget 2021 Summary

Very kind of them to sponsor our return event – we once again send our thanks.

A big Thank You to President Craig

After serving as Chamber President for 2 years and 8 months (after agreeing to temporarily stay on due to the pandemic) Craig will be standing down. Craig has done an outstanding job in difficult times. He said he was honoured to have held the position he had within Weymouth & Portland having lived here his whole life and it is something he would never have thought himself doing whilst growing up. He also advised he is immensely proud to have served many and had the support of first-rate people around him. Rick Simmonds will become Caretaker President until voted in officially at our AGM in February.

Unable to attend the meeting in person, Rick said a few words via our zoom link. He thanked Craig for his sterling efforts and presented him with a gift (by proxy). He then spoke of plans over the next few months at the Chamber.

We look to continue to welcome new members and expand on our exec committee, if this is something you could be interested in, please get in touch.

Rick also urged people to send us their stories and share news with us that we can distribute via our various channels – we want to help businesses as much as possible.

A few photos of our speakers and Craig were taken before bringing the meeting to a close

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you to all those who came, to Craig for his efforts, to Richard & Albert Goodman and to Barry & Aaron of Weymouth High Street.

A special thanks to Paul Appleby and Team of Tech Wessex and Tim Hargreaves of Tim’s Computer Hardware Support for providing technical support

Details of our next meeting will be released soon – keep an eye on our events page – we have earmarked Wednesday 8th December 2021