On Friday 6 May over 60 Norfolk Chamber Members from across the region joined us at Duke’s Head Hotel King’s Lynn for an informative morning based on the Downham Market Centre for Advanced Knowledge Engineering.
Delegates arrived early to get started on making new connections. Host Heather Garrod, President of West Norfolk Chamber Council introduced our featured charity The Norfolk Hospice and our first networking ice breaker of the morning. Laughter filled the room as delegates had to pick a coin out of their pocket, look at the date on the coin and think of something that impacted their lives that year. Some even went through all the coins they had!
John Beer, CEO of Downham Market Development took to the stage afterwards to give an overview of the development progress, and how far it has come in the last 3 years. He explained to delegates the first phase objective of the development is to commence the construction of ‘The Hub’, a series of 5 core buildings: • The Institute of Data Science/UTC Academy • 2 x Business Accelerator buildings • A conference centre • A commercial training facility with adult student accommodation
Following John’s talk, delegates tucked into a delicious breakfast provided by Duke’s Head Hotel, continuing to discuss the development and all it’s set to achieve. Once finished we proceeded to mix our delegates up with our Safari Move, changing their tables around to enable them to make even more contacts in the room.
Mark Reavell, Executive Director Partnerships at The College of West Anglia spoke to our delegates next, informing them of the partnership between the Downham Market Development and The College of West Anglia. He expressed his hopes that the Centre would now encourage more students in West Norfolk to stay and develop in West Norfolk, rather than them leaving to follow up their education elsewhere.
This was followed by both our speakers joining Host Heather Garrod upfront for a Q&A Session. The highlight question for the morning being: how can businesses in the region help and get involved in the project? Both speakers expressed the desires of the project to use locally sourced businesses to help in all stages of the development. There will be a procurement process in which businesses in the region can apply to work on the development.
You can view John’s presentation here. Or view the development brochure.
Our next West Norfolk Breakfast will be taking place on Friday 30th Sept. For more details please click here.
