Yesterday we held our very first Dorking BID Guild Talk. These are a fantastic opportunity for our business community to come together in a forum to share knowledge with each other.
Our Dorking business community is full of brilliant, creative, knowledgeable experts who deserve to have their voices heard. We have so many fantastic businesses in our town – from artisans to chefs, to accountants, stylists, baristas, and technical experts, fashion-forward style makers, and storytellers — who are true masters of their craft. Our team is committed to raising their profile and helping them be successful. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed.
Our town is filled with inspiring people whose businesses help our town thrive. That’s the way we see it.
We want to continue this tradition of knowledge transfer, and share expertise, friendship, and events to highlight all that our experts and town have to offer.
Our Dorking Guild speakers align to an issue or event the Dorking BID or high street is facing. The first four deal with:
- Policing
- Surrey Day / Placemaking
- Big Green Week / Sustainability
We also invited our local policing team to join the Surrey PCC last night but they were unavailable on this occasion. However we are very pleased to share that they will join us for our Guild Talk in July and look forward to welcoming them to the event.
Yesterday our businesses were given a forum to discuss ideas and feedback regarding ASB, shoplifting and the various community policing issues our business community has been facing. For those businesses unable to attend, as promised, I provided the Surrey PCC with comments and themes that were sent to me ahead of the meeting. Members of our board and businesses were in attendance, and the PCC provided a few helpful tips I promised to share with the business community:
- Report suspicious activity using the Surrey Police Suspicious Activity Portal
- Utilise Twitter to report crime @SurreyPolice
- The police continue to recruit PCSOs; we have offered to promote recruitment on our social media channels.
Join us
We meet at Ralph James Estate Agents on West Street (44 West St, Dorking RH4 1BU) – thanks to the generosity of Sam and his team at Ralph James – and all BID Members are welcome.
Each meeting begins with a welcome, talk with our speakers, Q&A, networking, and refreshments. On this occasion, we enjoyed delicious catering by Nikhil at Tikkanation.
Thank you to the 20 businesses for joining in and sharing their ideas, expertise, concerns and experiences with us. It was a positive evening full of knowledge sharing, and I am grateful for the support of our local business community for joining in and making our first event a success.
We hope to see you all next month as we kick off Restaurant Week in Dorking and celebrate Surrey Day with Mark Carter, the Managing Editor of BBC Surrey and Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey.
Photo by Ralph James
