Over 50 of Sussex’s most successful business people gathered in the superb Winning Post suite at Brighton races full of anticipation and excitement. Could an evening race meeting really create such expectation? Well, yes it could, but these people were just as excited to meet each other and hear about the Sussex launch of the Sport Business Network.
The Sport Business Network, or the SBN as insiders call it, has been running successfully in Kent for nearly a year now so Managing Director and Founder Roger McKerlie decided it was time to spread the SBN wings and move into Kent’s neighbouring county, whilst the London launch will come in the autumn. The Brighton race course, a new member of the SBN, was chosen as the ideal venue for the launch of this unique concept because it provided a stunning backdrop for a brilliant evening of networking, whilst allowing the distinguished guests to enjoy a flutter on the horses.
The SBN has a dual purpose. Whilst every member is assigned an account manager to help them in making effective and strategic contacts with other members and those in the wider SBN group, the network also has a higher cause at its core. This is the belief that the business community can, and should, play a bigger role in the improvement of our society. To do this the SBN passionately supports those organisations which work “on the front line” of community sport, delivering sport to young people in disadvantaged areas. The SBN delivery partners tend to be the community schemes of professional sports clubs and one of those, Albion in the Community, inspired the guests with a presentation on their wide ranging and deeply effective work.
  
Roger McKerlie is a strong believer that the best group dynamics work when networks have a cause or identity which bonds them together, beyond their potential business connections. This is certainly true of the SBN and founding Sussex members ASB Law, Clydesdale Bank, Reeves & Neylon and Smiths Gore all echo this sentiment. Each of the members shares the common goal of helping to make society a better place through the power of sport and this gives them all a natural head start when it comes to making great business connections.
Whilst not many of the members and guests were particularly successful in their choice of horses, they all agreed that this “intelligent and grown up” way of making business contacts, whilst putting something back into the community, is a winning formula. The final word came from Roger who said “this has been a great night, we are now firmly in play in Sussex and we look forward to many more businesses joining us.”
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