Blackburn-based community interest company and business support provider, Community & Business Partners, is to launch a new peer network for winners of the Red Rose Awards and will also extend its successful Rural Peer Network Group.
All the firms that secured awards at this month’s Red Rose Awards in Blackpool have been invited to join a new peer network, which aims to bring together business leaders to share knowledge and help each other with problem-solving.
The network’s running will be overseen by Community & Business Partners, after it successfully ran a similar mentor programme for winners of the Sub36 Awards, the Red Rose Awards’ sister programme which celebrates the achievements of young people in Lancashire.
Community & Business Partners itself has enjoyed its own success at the Red Rose Awards in the past, having won the award for Corporate Social Responsibility in 2021. It also featured as the official sponsor of the Winners’ Reception for this year’s awards, held at Winter Gardens.
Community & Business Partners’ operations director, Jaydee Davis, commented: “Our work matching experienced mentors with the winners of the Sub36 campaign has been very successful and we see peer networking as the ideal tool to help the winners of the Red Rose Awards to build on their success.
“The beauty of peer networking is that no matter what challenge you’re facing, there is always somebody in the room who has dealt with the same and can offer support and ideas.
“Better still, surrounding yourself with like-minded, ambitious businesses challenges you to raise your game and to be your best version. And what better company is there to keep than the best of the best in Lancashire - the winners of the Red Rose Awards?”
The Rose Awards’ Stephen Bolton added: “Our programme has always been about so much more than a night of prize-giving and our partnership with Community & Business Partners is the perfect example of how getting involved with our awards can be a game-changer for your business.
“Having Community & Business Partners involved with Sub36 elevated those awards to another level and we’re delighted to have them involved with the Red Rose Awards programme. They bring something original to the table and it’s something that all of our winners can benefit from.”
Elsewhere, Community & Business Partners has also been buoyed by the news that Lancashire County Council will continue to fund its Rural Peer Network Group, following the success of the first cohort of businesses that underwent the scheme in its January pilot.
Funded by the local authority’s Rural Recovery Fund and delivered by Community & Business Partners’ team of experts, the Rural Peer Network Group will now be able to extend its offering to 11 more local businesses situated in rural areas of Lancashire.
The pilot scheme consisted of weekly group sessions where representatives of participating firms came together to help tackle mutual and unique challenges. Participants were also able to engage in one-to-one coaching sessions with successful entrepreneur, facilitator and rural enterprise specialist, Paul White, over a three-month period.
The next Rural Peer Network Group will begin running in September of this year, with senior project officer Karen Lawrenson confident that it will continue to have an impact.
Lawrenson commented: “The needs of Lancashire’s rural businesses are different to urban businesses and there was a lack of support specifically for rural micro businesses, which is why this programme has been so successful.”
Aidy Riggott from Lancashire County Council added: “The feedback from those involved with the pilot have been overwhelmingly positive, so it is only right that we extend this further to allow us to support more Lancashire businesses.
“We face a difficult period ahead of us, which is why it is incumbent on the County Council to provide our businesses with the support and skills they need to reach their full potential. The Rural Peer Network group is just one of a number of ways we are supporting businesses to do this.”
Davis explained that the rural peer groups it has helped deliver have proven to be some of the most productive she has seen.
She said: “These peer groups have proven to be some of the best business support groups we have seen, particularly for small businesses. Often, smaller business owners can feel very much on their own, and working together like this has really helped them. It’s almost as though they have their own board of directors.”
The next Rural Peer Network Group will continue to offer one-to-one access to Paul White’s expertise, as well as nine weeks of two-hour group sessions.
White said: “It has been really incredible to see how these businesses have grown whilst we’ve been working together. I’ve seen lots of different business support through my career, and this has genuinely been some of the best I have seen.
“It’s quite inspiring to get likeminded businesspeople working together, to help grow their business and because it’s all online, it fits in well with business owners who are really busy too.”
Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
