-05/03/2020-
Last Friday, our director team enjoyed a fantastic day out, attending the annual SBS conference and event, hosted by the iconic business tycoon and famous BBC Dragon Theo Paphitis.
The event was held at the ICC, in Birmingham and was attended by hundreds of Theo’s SBS winners, past and present.
Our directors, Hannah and Bledi were honoured to meet the long-standing and legendary Dragon, Theo Paphitis himself who congratulated them on their SBS win, whilst handing over their official certificate. As big fans and avid watchers of BBC’s notorious Dragons den, it was a really proud moment for our directors.
The day also involved talks, presentations and Q & A sessions with useful tips and advice from Google and Linkedin experts. The highlight of the day however, was Theo’s live fireside chat on stage with the show’s newest and youngest ever Dragon, the outstanding Sara Davies who shared her success story with the audience. Sara discussed how she juggles the commitments that stem from running her own business with the duties of Motherhood, and offered her advice to other Mums in business. Sara is truly an inspirational and a great role model for female entrepreneurs.
With International Women’s Day just round the corner and the celebration of women in business being such a hot topic, her words resonated with many members of the audience, including our own directors.
The event was full of exciting, thought-provoking and inspiring discourse from start to finish. With what started off as just a casual tweet one Sunday evening that to our delight, was later retweeted by Theo Paphitis, the learning and networking opportunities that it has led to have been superb.
An insightful talk was also delivered by Faye McGuiness, Head of wellbeing at Mind on such a poignant topic as Mental Health and wellbeing. Faye explained that doing even just 10 minutes of 2 of the 5 circles in the diagram pictured below, twice each week can significantly improve the mental health and well-being of an individual.
Poor mental health has been dubbed ‘the silent epidemic’ in the construction industry and in fact, statistics have shown that suicide kills more construction workers than falls at height, which is shocking. Companies are great at carrying out risk assessments and looking at ways to prevent falls and other physical accidents, but how many actually take the time to evaluate potential mental health risks to their employees?
The points highlighted by Faye are things that we can all easily incorporate into our lives, or look at increasing if we already do them. We will certainly be taking forward what we have learnt from last week’s eye-opening discussion, and incorporating new ways of thinking into our current policies and procedures at BRS. Click here to view our home page!
We would definitely recommend having a go at entering Theo’s Small Business Sunday competition if you’re a start-up or an SME, and exploring for yourself where it could lead! Find out more about the competition here!
