Summary of results from member’s survey for Dorchester Chamber for Business
- We asked: How you rate our monthly breakfast meetings?
You said: 89% rated the breakfast as either good or excellent and of those remaining 8.5% had not attended at breakfast.
We will: Thank you for the positive feedback, we will endeavour to maintain the high standard
- We asked: What you value most in breakfast meetings.
You said: The highest priorities were meeting new people, catching up with acquaintances and opportunities to promote your own businesses. Hearing chamber updates were of average importance. The quality of food, levels of tea and coffee were less important.
We will: Take account of this in structuring our meetings.
- We asked: Whether you would prefer to continue to rotate venues for breakfasts with the result that some may not be able to cater for everyone, or to stick to 1 or 2 high capacity venues to enable everyone to attend?
You said: 60% said that they would prefer to stick to one or two high capacity venues with the remaining 40% saying they liked the variety.
We will: Endeavour to book venues which can seat, and provide timely service to, a minimum of sixty members at each monthly breakfast. We think that there about half a dozen venues within the Dorchester and District region which can cope with that demand, thus ensuring that members do not miss out on breakfast due to lack of capacity, but are still visiting a variety of venues.
- We asked: How you would rate the monthly breakfast meetings?
You said: 90% of responses in all categories were good or satisfactory. We ranked highest on the food price and meeting structure.
We will: Consider your recommendations for improvement below.
- We asked: If you selected satisfactory or “needs improvement” for your suggestions for improvement.
You said: “It would be a good idea to have buddies for new members who may feel overwhelmed” “as a relative newcomer networking can be a daunting experience”
We will: Aim to have executive members available at the meetings to meet new members and to facilitate introductions.
You said: “Suggest facilitated sessions with table moves” “It will be super to have table swaps or some kind of structure” “Networking needs more organisation” “Networking opportunities are limited due to the size of the venue and once seated for breakfast there is no opportunity to move” “Sit down structured networking breakfast events” “Have an individual standard one-minute table introduction” “Better networking/speaking opportunities”
We will: Ensure that each table at breakfast has a table facilitator whose role will be to allow each person at the table to have a short one-minute slot to introduce their business to the rest of the table. This allows the business to be promoted to the whole table rather than the person sat either side. The structure of the breakfast and the time constraints do not easily allow the table swap or introduction to the whole room ideas.
- We asked: How satisfied or dissatisfied you are with the Dorchester Chamber for Business?
You said: 93% were either very satisfied or “somewhat satisfied” with the Chamber’s performance.
- We asked: How likely it is that you would recommend the Dorchester Chamber for Business?
You said: 68% said that they would promote the Dorchester Chamber for Business as against a survey monkey global benchmark of 53%.
- We asked: What else we could do to help make the most of membership?
You said: “More ways to promote our business across Dorset” “Look at more ways to help people collaborate to create new businesses”
We will: Continue to produce our Directory for businesses who are members. We are also looking at a “meet the neighbours” event with the Yeovil, Sherborne and Bridport Chambers. Membership of the Dorchester Chamber also gives an affiliate membership to the Dorset Chamber for Business.
You said: “More events other than breakfast meetings” “Put on more varied events, getting more businesses involved” “Keep things new”
We will… Look to arrange different events. We are in the process of organising a “meet the neighbours” event, a series of “learning lunch” sessions and we will continue to experiment with evening sessions (although to date those have been poorly attended).
