- Small firms network celebrates milestone with visit from Governor
- Watch a video of their tenth anniversary celebrations below
- Club has grown to now include three chapters
- See what members say below
A BREAKFAST clubs network for small local businesses celebrated its tenth anniversary yesterday with a visit from the Island’s Lieutenant-Governor, General Sir John McColl.
What started out in 2005 as the monthly ‘7.45 Breakfast Club’ – based on the time the morning meetings started – quickly snowballed into two more clubs, the 7.46 and 7.47 clubs.
- The Jersey 7:45 Breakfast Club was created to fill a gap perceived by the founders for an informal business forum where people could meet and network their businesses.
- Because of the success of the 7.45 club, two further chapters were created to meet demand for places.
- It currently has a membership of over 150 across its three chapters – the 7:45, 7:46 and 7:47 Breakfast Clubs.
- The Club is a non-profit organisation and charges an annual fee of £130 to cover the costs of venue hire, catering and administration.
- Each of the three chapters meet once a month at the Pomme D’Or Hotel for breakfast, conversation, networking and to hear other members give a two minute speech about their business or some other topic they want to share. There are generally six speakers per meeting. The rest of the time at each meeting is given over to listening, talking to other members, networking and enjoying the breakfast provided by the Pomme D’Or
- Four times a year the three chapters get together for a joint meeting – an opportunity to access to the whole network.
- The club has a policy of admitting only one member per occupation to each chapter, ensuring diversity and avoiding conflicts.
Ten years on the clubs are still going strong with many of the original members having grown start-up ventures into flourishing enterprises.
One of the criteria is ‘no duplication’, meaning that firms competing for the same market cannot belong to the same club.
St Helier Deputy Rod Bryans, who kick-started the initiative while working in the private sector, recalled that it all started from a discussion over coffee with co-founder Louise Bracken-Smith about finding opportunities for small firms to network.
‘We wanted to do something different and really focus on small businesses and sole traders,’ he said.
‘I believe that some of the growth of the clubs has come from the sharing, getting together, talking about our difficulties and how we felt about things.
‘Other values such as empathy and kindness took the clubs into another direction.’
Over the years the clubs have also become a catalyst for community initiatives, promoting the Think Twice, Buy Local campaign, which was widely taken up by retailers and producers.
Kevin Keen, one of the proponents of that campaign and a former managing director of Jersey Dairy, recalled that it started with trying to get club members to buy local products.
‘What I was trying to say was that in buying a locally-produced yoghurt, 80 per cent of the money would stay in the Island, whereas buying a non-local yoghurt meant that 80 per cent of the money was going outside the Island, in terms of wages, advertising, and maintaining the countryside,’ he said.
Mr Keen said that these ideas were still being developed, with a seminar held last month attended by American author Michael Shuman, who had spoken about local business ‘pollinators’.
‘We have some good pollinators already,’ Mr Keen said.
‘Genuine Jersey is a fantastic success and there are new members all the time; the Channel Islands Co-op is owned by its customers, and buys locally; and the Digital Jersey hub is getting people working together.’
Mr Keen said he believed there should be opportunities to try and harness local savings, so that people with money to invest could contribute to local ventures.
He also appealed to the public sector, to focus on buying more goods and services locally, which would in turn boost tax take and employment.
Other speakers at the event were Paul Bisson, who outlined some of the events planned for the forthcoming Jersey Festival of Words in October, and Derek de la Haye on the NatWest Island Games, which will involve more than 3,000 competitors from 24 islands, providing an estimated £4 million contribution to the Island’s economy.
Comments from 745breakfastclub.com:
“I found this to be one of the best things I did in a tough year.”
Steve McCann, Oakhurst Garage
“I love the idea behind this club as it doesn’t pretend to be anything its not.”
Mac Bouchere, Digimap
“I like the club because it has no pretentions and does exactly what it says in its manifesto. It’s a networking club where you can meet with positive like minded people.”
Mike Waddington, Naish Waddington
“This club has helped me enormously both in gaining confidence and I recently used seven Club members when designing and opening an extra salon!”
Maddie Doran, The Room
“The Club has given me just what I was looking for: new clients, contacts, networking opportunities, ideas and social events. I love turning up once a month and just meeting people!”
Kate Allen
