Today I enjoyed some excellent company and a mighty fine lunch at Slough Means Business Economic Growth Conference.
Hosted by Ruth Bagley, CEO Slough Borough Council and her very able assistant Lee Shostak from Shared Intelligence, we had a most interesting day.
After Lee entertained us with tales from Atlantic City and his involvement with helping Stevenson back in the day, we moved on to more modern travel.
John Holland Kaye, CEO of Heathrow Airport explained how many people Heathrow touches from a business and community perspective. That 5th runway needs some space, move over Hounslow 😉
John Goldsmith shared with us his hopes for speedy travel to Heathrow & City Airport from Slough and Reading… 40 odd minutes to Excel from Slough… now we’re talking… just gotta wait until 2019.
We heard from Mars about their CSR… I was reading just the other day how they had invested a couple of million in Africa for Fair Trade and a whopping £35,000 in Peterborough which impacted on 15,000 people. Mighty generous for a £33,000,000,000 company!
Ruth shared her 5 year plan which involved making Slough healthier… mmm…
In all seriousness, she did a great job of laying out their hopes and aspirations and I’m sure with her leadership and Rafiq close by in the wings, Slough will become a more vibrant as the melting pot of nationalities that descend on the town become part of the community and start looking to make it their home… with a cosmopolitan town centre experience that becomes more Constantinople than Coventry.
We then broke into workshops, choice of two from six…
First one I walked into felt like it was going to become some tick box exercise for a bunch of vultures who’s only interest is self and not the community at large… I can’t swim with the sharks so I needed to move on and find some friendlier turf.
I found that with Elevate Slough… helping to inspire young people to get off their arse and do something more productive instead… that’s more my space… thank you Shanzeeda, Neil & Ketan for a most uplifting 30 minutes.
Then it was Telefonica’s turn to work their magic and get us thinking about how we as citizens and businesses might benefit from a SMART City, one where the train takes the strain and we just hop & go. Great job the guys who ran that session…
After that it was time for a wrap up by Ruth & Lee before we tucked into the grub…
I knew that being Slough, the food would not be a disappointment… they need to cater for multiple dietry needs, not simple bloody sandwiches as we had provided by Microsoft yesterday… Slough knew how to win friends and influence people… marvellous…
Next up for Slough, Rafiq’s Slough Business Awards… have you got your ticket for the dinner… 200+ of Slough’s movers and shakers will be joining us for dinner… you coming… come on, top nosh, fine hotel, quality business networking and you might even know some of the winners…
Thank you.
Jon
07717 820823
Business in Berkshire 