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              NEW YEARS UPDATE 2012      

 

HAPPINESS 

In our first steering group meeting of 2012 we decided to focus on Happiness as our theme for the year and to explore ways that we can share what this means for us as individuals, and how we can find ways of improving our own work/life balance. Hopefully our new Health and Wellbeing Group can really help with this! We have now set up a discussion topic on the website where you can share your own thoughts and ideas about this along with any articles/websites/books that you have personally found helpful.

GROUPS

If you have joined as a general member don't forget that you can then also join any of the groups and have more focused discussions. Our activities rely on the energy and involvement of members so if you want things to happen please become active in the group forums and offer your support to the group coordinators. All the coordinators already have jobs of their own so they really need your ongoing help and support to be able to develop the great ideas that come up. 

IN THIS NEWSLETTER    

Latest News 

Cash Draw
Parking consultation 

New homes consultation

WHAT'S COMING UP - KEY DATES FOR YOUR DIARY 

Ongoing until 12 February - new homes consultation 

21st February - Skillspace - Intellectual Property: is it for me?

13 March - Skillspace - How local businesses can get into the press

16-17 March - Local Trading History Exhibition, Bethesda Church Hall
29 March - First Health and Wellbeing Talk 

3 June - Queens Jubilee - Retro Picnic in the Park

Bethesda Church Hall
 

We thought it would be good for everyone to be able to see what we have been doing with our four local primary schools and are now planning a Local Trading History Exhibition at Bethesda Church Hall on the 16th and 17th of March. You can find out more about the project via our history website www.cheltenhamsouthtown.org. Please let us know if you have any photos or items relating to our local shops over the last century that we could include in the display.

Connect Street Project 

Due to the impact of both the parking and road safety consultations we have had to delay Phase One of our Bath Road Project. The working group is now looking at the best use of both the Community Pride Grant of £5,000 and the additional Cheltenham Environment Grant of £12,200 that were awarded to the initiative. You can keep up to date with the project via the website www.connectmystreet.org 

Christmas Craft Fair - the '2011 Crimblefest!"   

The Crimblefest 2011 was a great success - even the snow stayed away!  The new generator and lights meant everything was warm as well as twinkly in the evenings. 

Over the weekend we had numerous different crafters - about 50 over the three days - plus some fabulous local bands who all donated their time for free! The event raised over £1,500 for Cheltenham Connect with the money going towards the Bath Road Project. Thanks very much to everyone who helped to make the event such a success. 

  Skillspace Group      

Business Mentoring Scheme

At the January Skillspace meeting we held a Business Question Time  with a panel of three of our four mentors and Stuart from the Go Green group, who took questions from the attendees about the issues facing small businesses. We had an entertaining discussion that covered business planning, aims and objectives, marketing, use of resources and other topics.

If you are interested in finding out more about our mentoring scheme, please drop an email to belinda@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk

February meeting

For our next SkillSpace meeting on the 21st February Sue Ratcliffe will be talking about Intellectual Property. She will explore trademarks, inventions, design rights and copyright: how to protect your designs and what you can do to improve your unregistered rights. She will also answer questions on these matters. This talk will be useful for anyone who has ideas, designs or businesses that they would like to protect. Maybe you have come up with an original idea and are having problems with people copying it? 7.30pm on 14th February at the Beehive.

New book from Connect Business speaker

Local business guru Geoff Burch, who spoke at Connect Business in the summer, has just published a new book called 'Self Made Me'. It's described as a 'hard-hitting, no nosense look at being self employed' - so is likely to incldue some useful tips for many of us! There's further information on the Skillspace section of our website and the book is available from Amazon.    

Speaking at SkillSpace

We have now booked speakers for the SkillSpace meetings up to May 2012, but if you have any topic of interest that you would like to talk to us about, please let Belinda know on belinda@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk. It might be business related, or it might be "My Story", how you got to where you are today, or any other topic of interest.  

All Cheltenham Connect Skillspace meetings are held on the second Tuesday of the month at the Beehive, Montpellier Villas, and start at 7.30pm with an opportunity to network with other members.  

 Laptop Friday

We meet every Friday morning at Maison Chaplais, Andover Road, Tivoli. Come and join us for a coffee, cake and some co-working. It's a 'water cooler moment' for those of us who work from home!   

 Community Group 

Health and Wellbeing Group

We hope to start the monthly talks in March so let us know if you would be interested in being a speaker. You can find out more, or become involved in any or all of these activities, by contacting vanessa@cheltenhamconnect.co.uk (and feel free to suggest other ideas!)    

The Cheltenham Connect Team