Dorchester Chamber’s virtual business meeting on 30th June with Chris Loder, MP for West Dorset as main speaker, was a great success.
Over 40 businesses attended the meeting to hear Chris share his insights on West Dorset’s economy and the challenges being faced as we come out of lockdown. It was interesting to hear about the Government’s proposals to support recovery and what is planned for West Dorset. There was a Q&A session afterwards which invited lively debate and gave members the opportunity to talk to Chris about some of the issues they were facing.
President, Steve Farnham said “It was great to have some insight from Chris Loder on the way in which the government is dealing with the Coronavirus and Brexit and to feedback how our members are seeing the situation locally on the ground. There were wide ranging questions from the group, which Chris was happy to take. We hope to make the calls a regular feature of our remote networking timetable”
Chris is very keen to support local initiatives, particularly the LoveDorch campaign led by Dorchester’s Chamber, Town Council and BID, working alongside Dorset Council. The group have joined forces to promote Dorchester and regenerate the High Street and Dorchester businesses following the coronavirus crisis.
Members had already been enjoying virtual networking breakfasts since May, providing an opportunity to catch up with other members and meet new faces from local businesses. The remote networking has worked well and will continue, with an additional business meeting with topical speaker every month until the Chamber’s popular face-to-face events are able to resume.
The virtual meetings are kindly supported by Dorset Chamber’s Zoom Video conferencing platform, which has been made available to affiliated town chambers along with great hosting from Steve Bulley, Head of Business Engagement and Executive member of Dorchester Chamber’s Executive Committee