Dear Editor , Stay Engaged with “ Engage ”. I send my deep appreciation and congratulations to you and the rest of the Engage team for creating and organising an amazing business that allows BAME ’ s , SME ’ s and Corporates to come together to promote and network our businesses , products and services to each others ’ professional networks and social circles . I ’ m a Stress Manager with a Corporate Financial background . From my 3 years of networking and business development , I ’ ve had more quality based , fruitful contacts from attending your past 3 events than at other networking events . To summarise : |
Dear Editor
I have read engage magazine since issue one and had to write to congratulate you on a ground breaking product . I have kept each issue because for the most part , the content does not date . It particularly pleases me that you feature a wide variety of business in various sectors and that the focus is not on one minority ethnic group – but all of us . I have also attended many of your networking events and , stemming form this , made useful contacts not only with large organisations , but also identified partnership opportunities with other BAME businesses . Engage is clearly a magazine which supports business diversity in its broadest sense and this is what sets your product apart from anything
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called ‘ meet the buyer ’ it too much would expect the core activity to be just that , rather than lunch .
I ’ d be interested to not only hear the views of others , but also a view from engage on the above points . Perhaps you could offer some sort of quality mark to help us sort out the sheep from the goats …
Once again congratulations on a fantastic product , when ’ s the next networking event ?
Geofrey Gordon
Editor ’ s Response to letter
Dear Geofrey
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attendees .
4 . The locations and venues used for each meeting has been impressive , especially the EDF Energy building – Victoria , Lehman Brothers – Canary Wharf . I could go on , however with my parting words I ’ d just like to say – please continue with the fantastic work . The word about Engage is spreading , the attendee numbers are increasing and your forums are greatly needed . Bless you ! Best Regards , Valerie Lothian Financial Stress Manager Tel : 0800 195 1864 www . Focusivity . successuniversity . com www . Focusivity . co . uk
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failed to get on preferred supplier lists ?
My second question is this …
If you purport to be an organisation that promotes and supports ethnic minority business and you are well funded from the public purse to do so , why do you not provide some serious , relevant business support ? I really feel that funded organisations should tailor what they offer to what the business might need ( rather than only being driven by gathering statistics for the funders )
Why not ask BAME businesses what we want , instead of providing hit and miss interventions . For example , if your event is
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strategies and policies and taking steps to ensure there is a level playing field for all potential contractors , regardless of size or ethnicity of ownership , which has to be a good starting point . On the other subjects you raised regarding organisations funded by the public purse and hollow ‘ meet the buyer ’ events . I agree there are a lot of ‘ tick box ’ initiatives out there and not enough measuring of impact . We , at engage will be constantly surveying our extensive BAME and minority-owned business database to establish and understand the needs of today ’ s BAME enterprises . We will share and hopefully resolve many of the issues raised via our networking events . |