All Nottingham businesses need to read this!

We guarantee that all Nottingham businesses will find something useful and interesting if they spend 10 minutes reading this newsletter.  If you don't - then please let us know.

Happy New Year!

What have Lord Lucan and the Growing Nottingham Newsletter got in common? They’ve both been missing for a while! However unlike the (allegedly) errant Lord – Growing Nottingham is now back, and we wish all readers a very Happy New Year. In this Newsletter we will tell you:

• The latest local business support developments and events 
• A little bit about ourselves

Latest Business Support News

Here’s what’s new on the local business support scene. If you’re running a business (or thinking of starting one) it’s verging on the irresponsible not to check these out:

Start Up Support - NBV have a new start-up programme available - “Start and Grow”. It’s particularly suitable for ambitious start-ups. If you’re starting a business you surely don’t want to be considered “unambitious”? See here.

Business Finance - Three recent developments that are well worth a good look: Grow on Growth (incubator businesses relocating), N2 Business Growth (growth grants) and Nottingham Social Impact Fund (for businesses with a social focus). To get up to date on these and other available business finance assistance see here.

Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Programme - provides practical education and business support to high growth small businesses. It’s free – and as you’ll have guessed there are 10,000 places available. Find out more here.

Winning Public  Sector Contracts - If you don’t win public sector contracts – perhaps it’s time to get some help? Try here. 

Nottingham Jobs - Nottingham businesses are eligible for a significant amount of assistance with workforce development (including grants) which not all businesses are accessing. Don’t miss out! Find out more here.

New Ideas - If your business struggles to come up with great new ideas or ways to differentiate your products from those of competitors – there’s some free expert help available here.

Employment & Skills Policy - If you’d like to know more about local Employment and Skills Policy then there’s plenty of information available here.

Forthcoming Attractions

Interesting local business events in the near future:

Nottingham Castle Transformation (15th January) Find out about these exciting developments and how you can get involved here.

Indie City ( 28th January) A really interesting free evening networking event for city centre independent retail and leisure businesses, looking at current high street trends and reviewing the Christmas footfall figures.  Find out more here.

Nottingham Trent University Innovation Workshop (2nd February) A free Workshop at NTU to equip you with the tools you need to increase the impact of innovation in your business. Find out more and register here.

Social Enterprise Prospectus (2nd February) If you care about the future of social enterprise in Nottingham then you should be there! See here for more information.

Love Business (11th February) The East Midlands biggest business networking event getting bigger every year: Find out more and register here.

Venturefest East Midlands (16th March) The premier East Midlands event for innovative and progressive businesses (or those who aspire to be). Find out more and register here.

The University of Nottingham Ingenuity Programme (various dates) Some really interesting sessions at the University of Nottingham most of which are highly relevant for all businesses. Take a look here.

The Growth Hub

Growing Nottingham’s primary role is to make sure that ambitious Nottingham businesses know about all the support that’s available for them so that they can use it to help them grow. We work closely with the D2N2 Local Economic Partnership to provide a Growth Hub which in plain English is a focal point for information about business support.  The shop window of this service is a brilliant website. Please click here to take a look.

We also offer a more intensive service for Nottingham businesses in our key growth sectors via our three Account Managers:

• Life Sciences/Food and Drink: paul.edwards@nottinghamcity.gov.uk
• Creative Digital/Financial Services: anthony.byrne@nottinghamcity.gov.uk
• Low Carbon/High Value Manufacturing: tracey.hylton-burrows@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

If you’re an ambitious Nottingham business in one of these sectors and you haven’t yet met Paul, Anthony or Tracey please get in touch with one of them. 

Three Quick Snapshots

The Growth Hub has already assisted over 450 Nottingham City businesses in the last 12 months.

Three of the Nottingham businesses who’ve benefited from our involvement are:

Tumour Trace has been introduced to the City Council’s market visit to China and also UKTI for funding to assist with the costs. MD Aamir Butt said “Our visit to China has accelerated our opportunity there by many months.  Excellently organised, connecting us to the CEO's of multi-billion pound companies. As a business what else could you ask for?”

Fatfree Media has been introduced to business coaching, helped to get a business growth grant, and introduced to UKTI Export Services.  We were thrilled when MD Neil Rostance told a large audience at a business networking event “The Growth Hub is seriously badass!”

MeArm (Robotics) has been helped with recruiting, networking, and exporting. MD Ben Gray commented “Rather than going it alone, I’ve tapped into the Growth Hub networks and knowledge to grow my business at a much faster rate”

Read more about how we’re helping local businesses here. 

And Finally

We’ll send out another Growing Nottingham Newsletter in February. However we tweet much more frequently with useful business information eg new opportunities and events. So if you’re not already one of our 3,500 twitter followers then why not join us today.

Please feel free to share this bulletin with those using your own communication channels and those that will find the content of interest.