First Chalk Chat - if you missed it, here’s what happened
Missed our first Chalk event on Thursday 3rd March? Want a recap of what went on? Then you’re in the right place. Here’s the lowdown.
Well, what happened?
The Chalk Chat event was split into three parts:
1. Background and aims
2. Discussion groups on aims
3. Feedback and open discussion
Garry James introduced and compered the event, outlining our three aims...
Donna Fielder outlined our initial work towards education, including chats with schools and careers advisors and our Chalk careers page on our website - as well as the newsletter itself, which aims to educate all of our community on others in the town.
Joel Fielder proposed his thoughts on Chalk as a business owner: how his focus has evolved from survival at the start of his career to thinking more longer term as he and his business mature, how Eastbourne needs to diversify to remain prosperous.
As we've seen from recent events, society can change quickly if we need it to, so the event was about finding out how we can work together to bring this about.
Will Callaghan from TechResort/Friendly Digital also spoke about the background of attempting to get such a community together in 2015.
In attendance were representatives from most elements of our local digital community:
Businesses: Booksy, Carrot Events, Fountain Digital, Friendly Digital, Lightning Fibre, PRG Marketing Communications, Switchplane.
Business Support: Eastbourne Chamber of Commerce, Edeal, Locate East Sussex, Your Eastbourne Business Improvement District.
Education: Eastbourne Education Business Partnership, East Sussex Careers Hub and Enterprise Network, TechResort, The Big Futures Show, University of Brighton coordinator.
Governance: Caroline Ansell MP, Josh Babarinde (Councillor), Stephen Holt (Dept Leader of Eastbourne Borough Council).
Many thanks to all those in attendance and who sent apologies, as well as to Bodega for hosting.
What came out of the discussions?
There were plenty of useful points that came out of the discussions on the aims:
Aim 1: Change the perception of Eastbourne (a marketing challenge)
We need more data on the size of the problems.
We need to be proud of our strengths, which is a whole town effort.
We should encourage people to live and stay here, not just visit.
The average age in the town is just 43.
There are plenty of good schools, gardens, parks, The Downs and the seafront to attract people here.
We should aim to change the perception both inside and outside of the town.
We should remind people there's a place for them here, encourage people to come, and capitalise on our successes.
A key message is: although salaries are higher in London, you can't buy the lifestyle that Eastbourne offers.
We will create a comparator infographic comparing costs in London to costs in Eastbourne.
We should explore tech incubator spaces so that people know Eastbourne is the town for opportunity.
Aim 2: Provide a supportive network to help grow talent locally (an education challenge)
We should aim to match schools and businesses together.
We should let young people know that there are more tech companies in Eastbourne. More businesses should go into schools and let them know this community exists.
Young employees from the area should go into schools and talk about how they followed their dream and found work locally.
Businesses should work with the Careers Hubs, let them know what they can offer.
Students should be given more opportunities at a younger age, including project management courses. This all adds to their CV.
Businesses should sponsor Coding Clubs at TechResort to help reach children with tech at a younger age.
We should aim to change the perception of tech too; it isn't just the guy fixing the computer, but people behind apps and websites too.
Ultimately, there should be more dialogue between schools, colleges and businesses to make more effort with the young people of the town.
Aim 3: Recruitment (an HR challenge, supported by the other two aims)
Businesses in attendance agreed that recruitment and retainment of talent are their biggest challenges.
As a Chalk community, businesses also want to know who they can refer work to locally when it doesn't fit their remit/capacity.
The parents in the room also want to see opportunities for their children as they grow up and look to find work in the town.
If our recruitment pool is too small in Eastbourne, some would consider satellite offices in London in order to meet their recruitment needs - although the lower Eastbourne wages do help businesses survive in a competitive market.
There are also challenges around remote working and people having more access to London wages.
What did the politicians say?
Caroline Ansell MP spoke of two wishes:
1. A digital directory with a jobs board. (We have a digital directory here, and will work on a jobs board.)
2. Holiday activity programmes for those on free school meals to open up opportunities. There may be funding available for this.
Josh Babarinde spoke about his commitment to aim 2, so that people growing up in Eastbourne can see their futures rooted in the town. We should be a town of the 2020s and beyond, riding and catching the wave. We should explore funding through angel investors and grants. We should work together to create a digital strategy for Eastbourne.
So, what happens next?
We will allocate an aim to everyone who attended the meeting so that there are subgroups working on each of the challenges. We'll be in touch individually about this. If you weren't present but wish to work towards one of these aims, please reply and let us know.
Representatives from each group will feed back to the main strategy group and we will put together a digital strategy, whilst addressing small tasks as we go.
We will create a London vs Eastbourne costs/quality of life comparator.
We will create a jobs board. Send us your vacancies.
Let us know of anyone missing from the digital directory.
Everyone, please encourage sign-ups to the Chalk newsletter to share this digital community as far as possible - staff, company owners, freelancers, students. The sign-up button is at the bottom of our homepage.
Consider what YOU can contribute. Share your ideas with us.
Thank you, everyone, for helping us to get this off the ground.
Now, LET'S DO THIS! 💪
