Chamber celebrates second most successful year in its 177-year history
Dr Kelly and Pauline Wade pictured with the commemorative flag which was received in recognition of the donation of a biplane to the Royal Australian Air Force in 1918.
THE Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce is celebrating the second most successful year in its 177-year history after unveiling an excellent set of trading results.
In the last year, the business support and lobbying organisation, led by its members, but run by a small dedicated team of staff, earned over £130,000 profit on a turnover of circa £3.5-million.
Chief executive, Dr Ian Kelly, who is the longest serving Chief Executive in the UK Chamber network, with 20 years in charge at Hull & Humber, said: “These are quite excellent results bearing in mind the Chamber is not configured to make money. However, the Chamber is now a multi-faceted and diverse group of businesses in itself and we will plough these profits back into providing more activities that will help Humber businesses grow”.
The Hull & Humber Chamber can trace its origins back to the merchant adventurers of the 14th and 15thCenturies, but today exerts its influence far beyond the Humber Estuary. Chief Executive, Ian Kelly was, for example, invited back onto the Board of the British Chambers of Commerce last year for a second term to help with the Heseltine agenda on localism. He is also on the British Chambers, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and UKTI Partnership Board, which aims to meet Prime Minister David Cameron’s target of Britain growing its exports to £1-trillion by 2020.
Dr Kelly said: “Our International Trade Centre is a thriving five star service, now taking on more staff to handle new contracts and ever-increasing documentation work for UK companies. We are fortunate to have an International Trade Director in Pauline Wade who has unparalleled experience in helping UK exporters into new and developing markets. These can be anywhere in the world – so far this year, the Chamber has taken trade missions to Denmark, Trinidad, Malaysia and Singapore, with India and Turkey missions currently underway. Another trade mission will also be heading out to Malaysia again in January 2015, while locally, we will be supporting events on export opportunities to South East Asia and China in the New Year”.
The Chamber’s Acorn Fund, which in July celebrated its 10th anniversary of providing finance to fledgling local businesses has created over 4,400 jobs in the area and works with its sister company, Chamber Enterprise, to help prospective entrepreneurs get established and onto the first rung of the business ladder. Manager Peter Sykes and his team have shown the way, guiding and advising them through the start-up stage and helping them to take their first tentative steps into the wider business world.
The team based at Beverley Road, in Hull and Port Offices in Grimsby, also hosts the HullBID team in Hull, which works in close partnership with Hull City Council on improving the trading environment, safety and entertainment experience in Hull’s City Centre. Along with Chamber Training which helps around 350 people into apprenticeships every year and the normal course of lunches and events activity, the Chamber is itself a small business, but with a big agenda.
It’s all a far cry from the near insolvent position the Chamber faced back in 1995 when Ian Kelly took over following internal rows over mergers, name changes and working with the then Government quangos like Business Link.
Dr Kelly said: “One of the great things that the staff and I feel about the Chamber, is that we hold something special “in trust” on behalf of both the previous and next generation of business leaders. For example, one wonderful story of how the Hull & Humber Chamber is unique was when it became the only Chamber of Commerce in the country to buy a biplane for the Royal Australian Air Force in 1918 as part of the Great War effort! The story goes that the local business community wanted to do something special and different, so raised the money for the aircraft. The Chamber was in turn presented with a commemorative flag, which hangs in a frame in the chief executive’s office to this day.
The Chamber’s illustrious 177-year history is all part and parcel of what today, remains a special organisation, which is keeping airborne in the winds of change.
