Friday 1 May 12.00 - 12.30 Enterprise Nation Lunch & Learn Understanding data to shape your marketing strategy. Book now 

Monday 4 May 12.00 - 12.30 Enterprise Nation Lunch & Learn Diversifying your business to come back stronger Book now

Tuesday 5 May Online small business meet-up Crawley, Redhill, Reigate & Gatwick Enterprise Nation have created the Heads Up campaign to build communities of small business owners throughout the UK who can support one another.  Sign up here

Tuesday 5 May 12.00 - 12.30 Enterprise Nation Lunch & Learn Using PPC and paid social media to grow  Book now 

Wednesday 6 May 12.00 - 12.30 Enterprise Nation Lunch & Learn How to use e-mail marketing for your business  Book now

Thursday 7 May 12.00-12.30 Enterprise Nation Lunch & Learn Using TikTok for your business Book now

21 May 10am-12pm Getting enquiries from LinkedIn - online workshop,with Nicola Macdonald, Attractive Marketing Book now

Various dates Learning Online Website & Digital Marketing Insight Clinics, with Web Motivation Book here 

Join your local Business Guild

Business Guilds are a great way to be part of your local business community. 

Banstead - fully committed to helping Banstead become the most vibrant village in Surrey in which to live and work. They are a group of local businesses that recognise our responsibility to the greater community.

Redhill - enhancing Redhill as a place to live, work and do business.

Reigate - a local united voluntary voice from the business community, promoting commerce, events, activities and opportunities for the benefit of Reigate.

Horley Association of Traders - HATs is an open group that all traders and members of the public can join.  They continue to drive awareness of Horley as a town and to promote local business growth.

In this week’s #ReigateBansteadBusinessChampion campaign, we are shining a light on the resilience, determination and creativity demonstrated by the independent businesses in our borough – as well as their support for the local community.

Many of our businesses are busy working behind the scenes on their strategy for when lockdown eases.  Others have had to completely re-think their business model in order to survive and to keep serving the communities that rely on them.

This week’s champions are:

Inside Out Health in Reigate - an independent health food shop that has been pulling out all the stops to develop their home delivery service and can now offer free delivery to most of the borough, providing wholefoods, nutritional supplements, natural skin care products and advice.

The Garibaldi Community Pub in Redhill, which has transformed itself, first into a community off licence and now a pop-up grocery store to help meet local community need.  They have also partnered with #MyRound for customers to donate a drink to #NHSHeroes when they reopen.

The Epsom Bakehouse in the north of the borough has ‘proved’ (forgive the pun) that anything is possible by taking their bread-making courses online in addition to creating free live weekly bake-along sessions and a vibrant online community for home bakers.

Winterbotham Darby in Merstham Redhill has been making generous weekly food donations to the @mersthammix community hot meal service as well as @reigatebanstead Community Support Centre.

We want to say thank you to all our local businesses going the extra mile:

Click on the heading for last weeks #ReigateBansteadBusinessChampions ....

Free courses are available through a new online platform hosted on the gov.uk website, called The Skills Toolkit. The new platform gives people access to free, high-quality digital and numeracy courses to help build up their skills, progress in work and boost their job prospects.

These are the skills which are highly valued by employers and sought after in a wide range of jobs. With more people expected to be working and studying remotely in the coming months, the platform offers a great opportunity to learn new skills to help to get ahead online and gain the knowledge we’ll all need for the future. The platform also offers employees who have been furloughed an opportunity to keep up their skills development while they are at home.

Click heading for more..

If you have been instructed by the government to close your business in line with the Covid-19 guidance or you have chosen to close, it is a good time for you to review your security to reduce the chances of your premises being targeted by opportunist thieves, or your business being subjected to cyber attacks.

Secured by Design, the Police Digital Security Centre and the National Counter Terrorism Security Office have put together the Top 10 Security Tips for Closed Business Premises, the Top 10 Cyber Security Tips for Working at Home and the latest Counter Terrorism advice.Read leaflet

Supporting our business community has never been more important.  The Government has set out a package of measures Coronavirus business support website.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) support is available to employers and the self-employed. You may be eligible for loans, tax relief and cash grants. Use this business support finder to see what support is available for you and your business.

Reigate & Banstead Borough Council has paid £19,180,000 to 1,446 eligible businesses within the borough as at 30 April.

On 27 April, the Chancellor announced a new loan scheme - the Coronavirus Bounce Back Loan - to help small and medium-sized businesses affected by coronavirus.

• The scheme will go live from Monday 4 May 2020 and cash will be released within days for eligible businesses. 
• Businesses can borrow between £2,000 and £50,000.
• The government will guarantee 100% of the loan and there won’t be any fees or interest to pay for the first 12 months.
• Loan terms will be up to 6 years. 
• The government will work with lenders to agree a low rate of interest for the remaining period of the loan.
• The scheme will be delivered through a network of accredited lenders.

Find further guidance and application details on the Coronavirus Bounce Back Loan website

Reigate Business Guild who provided a very generous donation of £1,750 towards local foodbank efforts co-ordinated by Reigate & Banstead Borough Council at The Harlequin Theatre.  We are so very grateful and this will make a big difference to local families.

Fidelity Investments, Kingswood were able to help Reigate & Banstead Citizens Advice by providing 12 months of technology so the service could continue remotely. 

FREE one hour bookable sessions for 1-2-1 conversations with one of a selected group of business experts. The sessions will be running online from 8am to 8pm.

The sessions will be confidential and can be offered as either video or audio calls to suit you. If you require support in another area please complete this online form and one of the Coast to Capital team will respond.

They will ask,if you are willing for us to share your concerns with Government to help influence business support provision moving forward but this is optional.

Find out more

Reigate & Banstead Business Support Grant Do you have a business based in the borough with less than four employees? Are you looking to grow?  Why not apply for our Business Support Grant of up to £1,000? 

Successful business grant applicants will also receive one year's membership to Enterprise Nation. 

Do you need start-up funding for your business?  Struggling to get funding from a mainstream provider? Have a look at responsible finance provider Fredericks Foundation, who may be able to help.

• Coast to Capital - information and support
• Creative Entrepreneurs has a useful Covid-19 resource page
• Enterprise Nation  are updating their page every hour for SMEs.
• FSB -information and support
• Surrey Chambers of Commerce - Information Hub
• The Institute for Chartered Accountantscoronavirus section
• The Institute of Directors Corona Virus Support Hub

Reigate & Banstead Borough Council has a section dedicated to coronavirus information. It includes a section for businesses and information for residents.

Are you receiving support?

Surrey Chambers of Commerce, working in partnership with Hampshire Chamber of Commerce and Sussex Chamber of Commerce, are asking you to help us understand how the recently announced Government funding is able to positively impact and support your business during the Coronavirus outbreak. 

Your replies will be treated confidentially but will help the Chamber and partner organisations to shape further support and help us inform Government of the effectiveness of their strategies Please click here to complete the survey