​The Waltham Forest Business Network is partnered with Creative United to organise 8 Making Connections events as part of the Forge creative business support programme. 
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Each event will be at a local Waltham Forest venue, and provide an opportunity for the community of creative and cultural people and businesses in and around Blackhorse Lane to meet and form new connections with people from a range of industries across the borough and beyond.

These events will also offer the opportunity for other local community groups to meet the Forge businesses, find things in common, and create new connections.

If you are interested in attending this event,   you can complete an application for the programme here ​or via the WFBN mailing list sign up here.  ​

​Additional Making Connections events will take place on the following dates:
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• Thu 26 Sept 2019 – Crowdfunding
• Speaker  – Successful crowdfunder Sarah Hardy of The Edible Museum and Channel 4's Extreme Chocolate Makers
• Thu 21 Nov 2019 – Accessing Large Retailers
  Speaker: Sara Gatoff of Buying Vision 

Interested Creative United's Forge Programme?  Complete an application form here. 
The Forge business support programme is funded by Waltham Forest Council, supported by 
the Mayor of London, and delivered by Creative United in partnership with 
Slingshot Simple Venture Design and local partners.

Thanks to everyone that attended the Forge Making Connections event last week (25.4.19) at This Time Next Year in Leyton.  Our speaker Shireen Smith of Azrights left everyone better informed and new links and connections were made!   Our next Making Connections event will be on 13th June - join our mailing list to receive your invitation.     Image credit:  Penny Dampier

​Additional Making Connections events will take place on the following dates:
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• Thu 13 June 2019 – Developing Creative Practice
  Speaker: Patricia van den Akker of The Design Trust 
• Thu 26 Sept 2019 – Crowdfunding
  Speaker 1 to be confirmed, Speaker 2 – Sarah Hardy (successful crowdfunder, The Edible Museum) 
• Thu 21 Nov 2019 – Accessing Large Retailers
  Speaker: Sara Gatoff of Buying Vision 

             Interested Creative United's Forge Programme?  Complete an application form here. 

 Start Up Saturday
A full day of motivation and action at this annual orgy of business start up!  Whether you want to start your own business or side hustle, or simply want to improve your business skills, this is a good place to start.  You’ll be able to access over 100 inspirational entrepreneurs and small business experts across 11 stages and interactive zones.Taking place on Saturday 19 January at King’s College, London.
Take a look at the full programme here.  Book here.

Bread & Jam Fest 
This food founder’s festival has really established itself as one of the highlights of a food entrepreneurs calender.  The festival itself is 3rd – 4th October.  However there is a whole programme of networking events both free and paid throughout the year in the run up to this, offering (and these are just a few) opportunities to: pitch your products to stores, a food business bootcamp, monthly socials (next one explores attracting the right investors for your food business) and much more!   Booking info here.

Forge Creative Business Support Programme  
​Forge is a new creative business support programme running in Waltham Forest designed for freelancers, artists, makers, designers, producers, creative micro-enterprises and SMEs in the Blackhorse Lane Creative Enterprise Zone in the London borough of Waltham Forest.  It provides 12 hours of free support through tailored workshops, 1:1 advice and coaching, and events enabling networking, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and making new contacts. There will be 4 editions of the programme, starting from March 2019.  To Apply – Applications are now open, criteria do apply.  More here.

TableCrowd  
We love TableCrowd!   Imagine being able to dine and learn from entrepreneurs who have ‘made it’ or share a glass of wine with investors who are looking for the next big thing, or simply to network in a relaxed restaurant atmosphere.  That’s what TableCrowd offers, a chance to meet people over dinner.
Coming up, you could dine with a leading business journalist: securing press coverage for your business, an Angel Investor, investing in fashion, media & tech or the founder of Pure Gym: launching, scaling and selling, a British business success story.  Get dining! Book here
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Happy 2019!

The Waltham Forest Business Network is delighted to be a partner in a new business support programme designed for freelancers, artists, makers, designers, producers, creative micro-enterprises and SMEs in the Blackhorse Lane Creative Enterprise Zone in the London borough of Waltham Forest.

The Forge business support programme is funded by Waltham Forest Council and delivered by
Creative United, Slingshot Simple Venture Design, Hive Collective, Ayama Coaching, To Market and the 
Waltham Forest Business Network.

If you’re based in the area, join us on 4th December at Switchboard Studios E17 from 9.30am – 11.30am to find out how this new business support programme could help you grow, increase your profits, improve your business skills and enable more people in the community to know about you and your work. 

Hear from Creative United and partners about the workshops, events and support which will be available on the programme, and how these could benefit you.

There'll be the opportunity to ask questions, network and enjoy tea, coffee and breakfast bites.

Register here to attend the event and find out how to apply for the programme! 

An enjoyable 90 minutes of networking for those who ventured out for our Christmas event last Friday, 23rd November - the Gallery was buzzing, see below just a snapshot of the evening!   Thanks to our event sponsors:  Wild Card Brewery and Adams Catering Hire. 

At this event we also announced WFBN's involvement in FORGE, a new business support programme designed for freelancers, artists, makers, designers, producers, creative micro-enterprises and SMEs in the Blackhorse Lane Creative Enterprise Zone in Waltham Forest  - find out more information about this here.  

​The Forge business support programme is funded by Waltham Forest Council and delivered by Creative United, Slingshot Simple Venture Design, Hive Collective, Ayama Coaching, To Market and the Waltham Forest Business Network.
                                                                                                                                         Images credit: Penny Dampier

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We have literally had hundreds attend our business networking events!  They have been held all over the borough from monthly coffee catchups, to summer and winter affairs hosted at the Town Hall, Vestry House Museum and the Wm Morris Gallery, to name just a few.   A particularly memorable event was an amazing night of fun noisy networking at the House of Commons with Stella Creasy MP, Harriet Harman QC, MP and Baroness Oona King setting the tone of the evening.  More images here.

The network has facilitated a number of workshops over the past 10 years.  This has included those for creative businesses with Artillery (founders of the E17 Art Trail) and The Growth Series, with Enterprise Nation & THP Accountants. However by far the biggest programme was with Waltham Forest Central Library where a whopping 30 workshops were run. 

With so many creative business owners in the borough, it makes sense to make ourselves known and see how we can collaborate.  Creative Exchange has aimed to do that, bringing together creative professionals at three events so far hosted by Blackhorse Ateliers, Elbow Creative and Gnome House.​  Read more.

Nick Bertram of Stow Film Lounge and his then business partner became our very first overall Waltham Forest Small Business Competition winner.  Their business polled 234 votes our of 640 to win! There are six category winners and then one overall winner that have won prizes, publicity and a much coveted promotional banner they can include in their marketing.  Previous winners have included Build, Paul Henry Architects,   Read more here.

We've always known that there thousands of brilliant small businesses in our borough.  So when the opportunity came up to write about them, it was an opportunity we could not miss!  The Waltham Forest Echo is distributed throughout the borough and the business column showcases great businesses and their owners throughout.  See who's been featured: WF Echo Business Column

So many people have helped to make the network happen! Big thanks to Sunita Gangoo who has been there from the start, Stef Lowry, Pat Howie and Liz Fenton for encouragement, the Wm Morris Gallery for collaborating with us on Christmas events, Stella Creasy and Clare Coghill, and many, many more who have supported the network over the years.

One of the outcomes of being a well connected network has been to attract opportunities with organisations who wish to engage with SMEs in Waltham Forest.  This has given us the opportunity to work with organisations such as East London Business Place, Cavendish Consortium (now NWES) and Waltham Forest Council, Newham Council, University of East London to name a few.