Reflecting On 2025 & Looking Ahead

2025 was a year of renewal for the chamber, building on the success of the Expo in 2024, and with new leadership, we decided to change things up and bring back some much loved events, Quarterly Business Breakfasts and The Worthies.

The QBBs were incredibly successful with some amazing speakers, including Sam Wraith form Octavius, Alex Harvey from RiVR, Tim Bound from Transtherm, Nicholas Gould from Omnigo, Prof David Keene from Aurrigo & Mike Foster from Energy & Utilities Alliance. Audiences are building, great connections are being made and people we have all learnt a huge amount about what is happening in our area, new technologies and tips for business.

We will be continuing the series of QBBs and are currently talking to other inspiring speakers, from companies including a diverse range of speakers from CRL Surveys, who are revolutionising engineering surveys, Robert Lawton from Lawton Tubes whose expanding company covers three UK sites and significant export business, and Sally Wilson, who has started a rapidly growing craft business with an international following.

We also welcomed back the Worthies, which was a great success. It was our first year and we have got learning points, which are being acted on to make it even better next year. We were delighted to celebrate so many businesses and want to congratualte both the winners, finalists and nominees, as just to make the list is a huge achievment .

We have also grown as an organisation to our largest membership for some years. This is fantatstic news as the more members we have the more impact we can drive to make our community more vibrant and resilliant. If you are thinking about why to join it is for three key reasons: To make business connections and drive business, to gain support and information from other business owners, and to put something into your local community. If you would like to find out more or to join the committee, please get in touch. All ideas and feedback on our events and activities is also always welcome.

Going into February we have the first year of the Kenilworth Fringe Festival. We are very excited about the great intiative that has been devised to celebrate art & culture, by bringing our community together and into the town centre in the depths of winter. Many events are free, and those that are ticketed are selling well. Thank you to everyone involved in providing us locations or support. Notably thank you to our sponsors (Caremark Warwick, Leamington & Kenilworth, Nomad Accountancy & Prune Software) and our partners (Kenilworth Books, The Treehouse Bookshop, Let it be, Kenilworth Library, Talisman Theatre, & Caterpillar Cross Stitch) and other venues (The Holiday Inn, Greens, Ardens, St Nicholas Church, The Methodist Church & The United Reform Church).

We will also be introducing some new free events called the knowledge exchange, aimed at providing knowledge, information and insights to help your business stay on track. The programme will be released soon. Alongside this we will reinstate our monthly drinks on the last Wednesday of the month.

We do hope you enjoy receiving these updates and look forward to hearing back from you as to how we can grow and improve.

Wishing you a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year

The Kenilworth Chamber Committee.

(Rebecca, Lillian, Roisin, Sarah & Sue)