Pro.verb - The Professional Voice of East Riding Businesses - a newly formed group representing small businesses in the East Riding, will host a Bizweek event in Driffield this June.
East Riding of Yorkshire has more than 12,000 small businesses operating in the area and over the last 18 months East Riding of Yorkshire Council has been working closely with the Federation of Small Businesses to provide opportunities for people running small businesses to get together, network and generally find out more about the support on offer.
Building on the success of those events, Coun Jane Evison, Portfolio Holder for Economic Development, has brought together a small group of people representing Micro Businesses in the East Riding; the role of this group is to act as the voice of small businesses in the East Riding.
Coun Evison said: “I brought together a group of representatives from small businesses earlier this year to see if there was any mileage in working together on a joint better understanding of issues relating to council and small businesses, there is the potential for so much to be happening over the next few years and we need to work together.
I am delighted to say the group have become well established in a short space of time and have gone as far as giving themselves a name, ’Pro.verb’ One of the projects was to put on an event in the East Riding for Micro Businesses in Bizweek this year. The event, to be held at The Driffield Rugby Club on 4th June, will be an opportunity for small businesses to meet the members of ‘Pro.verb’ - there will be a speaker and opportunities to network.
I have found the meetings I have had with the group have been very useful and hope it will be the start of a strong relationship between the council and small businesses”
Claire Steele who runs ‘Birds of Prey’ at Bridlington and is a member of Pro.verb added,
“I feel that the Pro.verb group is very useful as now we have an online presence it is giving micro businesses the chance to put their points forward to the Council and also to get advice from other business owners.
I hope it will make smaller businesses feel like they are important and get them more involved in networking and grow in confidence when they feel they are supported. The feedback I have been given in the past from smaller businesses is that they feel they are on their own and sometimes not sure where to turn and because we are on social media sites and now in touch with the council there is a much better link to make sure any message we have is heard”.