Networking events around Redhill
When I meet new local business people through Redhill Micropreneurs I'm quite often asked about local networking events. Having written lists for people numerous times I thought I'd actually publish one here for a change.
Networking events do seem to come and go over time but we're fortunate to have quite a few long term and excellent networking events in the East Surrey area. Here's my current list, in no particular order.
Redhill and Reigate (R&R) Connects takes place every two months and is just open networking for a couple of hours. Morrisons and varying sponsors provide a free bar and canapés. These events are very well attended, normally 50 - 100 people and often towards the upper end of that range. They're slightly more "suit and tie" than most of the others on this page.
Learning Lunches are free monthly events run by Reigate and Banstead council and include a business topic presentation and open networking with a free lunch. They're generally good events with attendance in the 25 - 50 range.
(Update: these events are no longer running.) Dorking Rugby Business Club is a monthly evening networking event. Although it's a paid event, the revenue is donated to the community Rugby Club. Most of the event is structured networking, with time allocated to explaining your business to your table and for other discussions. Attendance is around 20+.
Heavenly Networking is a monthly open networking event. Attendance is free with paid refreshments. I'm yet to try this one but I've heard good things about it.
The Family Network is a wider networking group that organises regular events, although currently they're mostly a bit further afield than others in this list.
Their are also excellent local business guilds, where the meetings double as networking. Each sometimes also run additional events.
There are a number of local "referral" events ranging in style from very strict with referrals being counted and achievement required to much more relaxed groups that include business discussions and support elements. I'm not a fan of the strict versions and unfortunately I'm not aware of a website for the friendly ones, but let me know if you'd like more details.
There are also a couple of business event listing sites that cover this area:
- Networking in Surrey
- Coast to Capital (this used to include lots of networking but seems to have less these days)
Last but not least, there are a couple of local-ish business membership groups that run networking events: