First Talkie of 2015 - SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED - Crowdfunding and brand building.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

Thank you for all the positive comments on our earlier Meetup and LinkedIn discussions about how to keep this group alive.

Your new organising team (including Niall Cook, Guy Potter and Wayne Fick) has been working hard at setting up the first talkie of 2015. We are now delighted to announce that three excellent speakers have agreed to join us on 12 March:

• Joy Haynes, director of the Norwich Puppet Theatre.

• Simon Middleton, branding adviser, author and founder of The Shackleton brand and The Great British Banjo Company Ltd.

• Ruth Anslow, TEDx speaker and founder of Hisbe.co.uk (an independent, ethical supermarket for everyone, which opened in Brighton).

They will be talking about their experiences running crowdfunding campaigns (principally Kickstarter and Buzzbnk, but also using angel investors) to launch projects and grow a business. This will include the importance of brand building online and offline to engage customers and investors.

This is sure to be a fascinating evening. There will be plenty of opportunities for asking questions. So do book early - and bring a friend.

Meanwhile, please put the following dates in your diary:

• Talkie #1 - Thursday 12 March at 6pm

• Talkie #2 - Thursday 11 June

• Talkie #3 - Thursday 10 September

• Talkie #4 - Thursday 10 December.

We have opted for the second Thursday each quarter so as not to clash with NorDev (which tends to be on the first Wednesday) and SyncNorwich (which tends to be on the third Thursday). We hope to hold two other ad-hoc events, perhaps in collaboration with these groups - we will let you know more when we can.

If you have any suggestions for future talkies - subjects or speakers - please let Caroline and me know. Ideally, we would like to have more than two or three speaker at each event.

Remember to follow @HSNorwich on twitter for updates.

Kind regards

Huw Sayer and Caroline Mayers

And the Hot Source team.