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http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1246957

November update

The departure of Mike Wilson from The SIA and the apparent reasons for it, in many ways strengthens the need for the SIA Small Business network to voice the concerns of the smaller organisations within the licensed sector.

We are in the process of arranging a few regional meetings and a larger national meeting perhaps for March 2009: details of which will hopefully follow shortly.

We would also like too canvass your opinion with the following question.

“What are the two most important issues that you would like The SIA Small Business Network to raise with The SIA” We can then act accordingly.

We look forward to your replies and to see you at future meetings

Meeting with SIA

The joint Chairmen of the SIA SBN are meeting with SIA CEO Mike Wilson on 15th October to decide the way forward.

We hope to be in touch with the Network w/c 20th October.

Letter to the Network

On behalf of the joint Chairmen, apologies for the lack of any output recently. Pressures of day jobs and a couple of flu bugs have delayed some planned activity.

Rest assured that things are happening. We are in the process of arranging a meeting with Mike Wilson and are looking for venues for the next SIA SBN meeting.

Apologies particularly to those of you who expressed an interest in getting involved with the running of the Network. I know we have been in touch with some of you, but not all - yet.

Could I please ask that if you are still keen to get involved that you please drop me an email (again) perhaps indicating what function you would like to get involved with e.g.. organising national or regional meetings, PR, fund-raising / sponsorship, SIA liaison etc.

Promoting Best Practice is I feel a function of the Network and if you have some interesting experiences of problems that you have encountered and the ways in which you dealt with them, please let me know. It would be useful to share some of these case studies with other members of the network. Perhaps you could prepare a short presentation to deliver at the next meeting?

Anyway, we hope to be in touch shortly, but here are a few final questions for you.

Can you offer or suggest a venue for a future meeting and if so where?

Can you suggest any possible sponsors that we can approach as we need to move towards being self-funding?

Would you be prepared to speak at a future meeting? On what subject?

Hope to see you soon.


Mike Hurst
Joint Chairman

30th June Meeting Notes

The meeting notes from the network meeting on the 30^th June are now available on the SIA website and can be found at:

http://www.the-sia.org.uk/home/licensing/sb_network.htm

The notes also include responses to the written questions that were submitted on the day as well as copies of the presentations given. There is a link to the Small Business Network Blog. (Please note that the SIA is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.)

Feedback from 30th June meeting.

Thank you to all the delegates who filled in their feedback forms: 60% of the delegates completed these. Here is a summary of the results.

Did you find the meeting useful? - Yes = 100%

Are you interested in attending future meetings? - Yes = (100%)

How often would you like future meetings to be held?
3 months: (52%)
6 Months: (48%)

Should future meetings be?
National meetings (various locations): 16%)
Smaller regional meetings: (11%)

Both: (73%)

Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Last chance for local businesses to register for free trial

Small and medium sized businesses have until the end of this month (July) to register for a three month trial which provides free access to thousands of public sector contract opportunities.

More than 87,500 contracts have been advertised on http://www.supply2.gov.uk since it launched two years ago, specifically aimed at smaller sized firms that benefit from tenders valued at £100,000 or less.

Project Griffin

I thought that this might be of interest to members of the Network.

Meeting Feedback

Thank you to all the delegates who took the time to fill out the questionnaires we distributed at the meeting on 30th June.

We will be analysing the data in detail, but below are some of the headline results:

• 95% of the respondants found the meeting useful (the other 5% left that box blank),
• 100% would want to attend a future event,
• As to the frequency of future events, there was a 50:50 split between quarterly and semi-annual meetings and
• 73% of respondents wanted both national and smaller regional meetings.

Meeting Report

Today's Meeting

Just a short note following up on today's meeting. The two presentations by The SIA were generally received and as you would expect led to a lively Q & A.

The two post lunch presentations on Privacy Laws and Training, were both interesting and well presented and thanks go to our speakers.

A fuller report will follow in due course.

Next Meeting

The Next meeting, which will take place on Monday 30^th June in London at The Hatton, 51 – 53 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8HN

Invitations have now gone out.

We will be looking for venues and sponsors of future events, so please let us know of you have any suggestions.

Notes from Previous Meetings

The first small business network meeting was held on 8 January 2008 in London. It was arranged and facilitated by the SIA as part of their Stakeholder Engagement Strategy .

Details can be found here. http://www.the-sia.org.uk/home/licensing/sb_network.htm

SIA Small Business Network

Following the initial meeting of The SIA Small Business Network in January 2008, volunteers were invited to consider the future of the Network and take responsibility for the running of future meetings.

At a meeting at the SIA in May, it was agreed that Dawn Barry, James Henderson and Mike Hurst take on the role of Joint Chairmen.


The purpose of the Small Business Network is:
1. To coordinate efforts to reduce criminality and raise standards in the private security industry
2. To raise company profits through sharing and promoting best practice
3. To be an enabling body with the SIA to consult on proposals and issues, look at working practices, identify best practice and propose new developments and ways forward
4. To be run by the industry for the industry

The next meeting of the network will be 30th June in Central London. Future meetings will be held in other locations throughout the country.