We're very excited this month to have been named finalists in three categories in the SME National Business Awards! We've been shortlisted for Best Networking Group, Best Community Business and Greatest Positive Impact. We worked very hard as a team on the awards applications so it feels great to have been shortlisted in every category in which we applied. We are up against some pretty amazing businesses, naturally, and we cant wait to meet them all at the awards ceremony in December in Wembley!

Even being shortlisted for a National Award is a great achievement and we intend to celebrate whether or not we actually win anything! The event itself is a reward and a great networking opportunity. Well done Team SiGNAL. #smenationals

While we are on the subject of wins we recruited our 80th SiGNAL BiZHUB member this month - it's been our target for a while now so on the day we naturally celebrated with a cheeky glass of bubbly in the office! Congratulations to Mark Harrison of Blucando Connect who was our 80th sign up - a bottle of bubbly is on its way to you as a thank you! #signalwin #blucando

Although we are known for business support and workspace lets here at SiGNAL that is not our only purpose. I published an article this week on Linked In that gives some additional context to the work that we are doing in Whitehill and Bordon. In it I draw on what we have learned during the last 6 years at the frontline of town centre development and outline the fundamental principles for building town centre resilience. You can read it here

It's always interesting to see what images work for your brand on Social Media - at SiGNAL its not cute pictures of cats and dogs or even our squirrels and deer that get you liking and sharing. Our most highly engaged and popular posts, oddly, are the ones of the team doing cleaning and maintenance around our grounds!! We aren't big enough yet to have a dedicated grounds and maintenance team so mostly we all pitch in. (Well, OK, it's mainly Gareth and Claire!)

Speaking of popular posts, a bit of an ongoing SIGNAL mystery is that a blog we wrote back in 2019 called How to Start Your Own Holistic Therapy Business in Hampshire has been in the top five SiGNAL blogs for the last 5 years! Want to see what all the fuss is about? You can read it here

The Tap @ The Shed is an integral part of SIGNAL life - our offices at the Shed are situated just above and our tenants can often be found enjoying an after work drink here. Each June the team at The Tap hold a beer festival in aid of local charity. SiGNAL were proud sponsors of the event which raised £3000.00 for the Bordon Food Bank. I was pleased to see so many of our tenants supporting the event by drinking plenty of beer in the sunshine.

Here I am pulling the first pint of the festival with Ed and Bonnie from the Tap @ the Shed and Cllr Andy Tree and Cllr Catherine Clark of EHDC and Whitehill and Bordon Town Council. Special shout out to the Grizzly Grasshoppers for some really great music on the night too!

Finally, dont forget to book on to our upcoming event on June 23rd at The BOSC in Bordon.

BBC Apprentice Finalist and award winning entrepreneur Richard Woods is our keynote speaker and he will be talking about AI and its integration with Linked In.

Richard says : 'This will be an hour of interactive value bombs. Don't miss it!'

Then we are following this with a 40 minute rapid fire town centre workshop where we get creative about the future of our town centre, specifically The Shed and the Mess Hall

The workshop will be run by James Gross of Urban Place Lab who ran the original town centre workshops several years ago and is keen to find out the views of local businesses now that The Shed has been operational for two years.

It promises to be a busy morning packed with insight, the chance to have your say on the Town Centre and all the usual fun of mingling with a great business crowd.

You can book your place here

Next newsletter will be out 20th July. See you around before then!

Emma and The SiGNAL team