From Best Years to Butterflies 🦋

Newark Business Club Meeting Write-Up 7 August 2026

Around 70 businesspeople from Newark and the surrounding areas gathered at the YMCA for Newark Business Club’s August meeting. After the Club’s Chair, Emma Holden, welcomed everyone to the meeting, the roving mic travelled around the room, giving everyone the opportunity to introduce themselves and their businesses.

Meeting Sponsors – Your CVS

Louise Casey, Chief Executive of Your CVS, gave an interesting and informative insight into Your CVS’s services, which support people in many ways in Newark and Sherwood, Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe. Its online volunteer centre at notts.getvolunteering.co.uk offers over 100 vacancies for volunteers throughout the area. The organisation’s mission is to create, support and develop a strong and sustainable community sector. Through the Best Years Hubs, Your CVS provides a welcoming community service to support older adults aged over 65. Hub members meet each week to enjoy a varied programme of activities, including quizzes, games, chair-based exercises, walks, lunches and day trips.

The Best Years Hubs also bring flu vaccinations and other healthcare services to people in the community. They also offer help, advice and support on a variety of topics, including pensions and benefits, with Your CVS working in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau, councils and other organisations to deliver these services. The 15 Best Years Hubs that operate each week have had a hugely positive impact on the lives of older people.

Combating loneliness and social isolation, they are vital for their mental health and well-being. Over 78 volunteers support these hubs, including volunteer drivers who provide transport for people to access them. Another important service offered by Your CVS is the Butterfly Service, which is part of the end-of-life together services in mid-Nottinghamshire. Your CVS volunteers provide home-based support to people at the end of their lives and their families. This can be anything from picking up a prescription to giving family members a break.

To raise vital funds for this service, the first Butterfly Ball will be held on 26 September at Thoresby Manor. It includes a cocktail reception, sponsored and provided by Not My Monkey, a three-course dinner and live entertainment from The Wild Tonics. Sponsorship opportunities are available for local businesses. Contact Emma at shopnewarkltd@gmail.com for more information and book your tickets online at shopnewark.online.

The Business Card Draw

The business card draw was next on the agenda. The winner of a business write-up in the club’s write up was first-time visitor Andy Butcher of Safe Skills Training. Regular attendee Louise Rumble of Newark Emmaus Trust won the write-up in the Newark Advertiser.

2 Minute Spotlight! 

This month, the spotlight shone on Lauren Robinson, an independent financial advisor affiliated with Richstone Park Financial Planning. While Lauren is based in Newark, she offers independent and impartial financial advice to clients throughout the East Midlands, tailored to each client’s specific needs at the current stage of their financial life.

As well as helping clients to navigate pensions, personal and business investments, inheritance tax planning and other matters, Lauren is increasingly offering financial protection advice to business owners to secure their future.

Contact Lauren at lauren.tinker@richstonepark.co.uk

Who Gives a Book?!

Atomic Habits by James Clear was the business book of the month, recommended by Louise Casey of Your CVS. Helen Wheatley of Travel Counsellors won a copy of this book.

Five Quick-Fire Questions to Improve Your Presentation Skills

Andy Nisevic of One Degree Training and Coaching answered Emma Holden’s quick-fire questions on how to improve your presentation skills, giving valuable advice based on over 20 years’ experience of public speaking.

One of the biggest public speaking myths is that you have to be perfect when giving a presentation or speech. Everyone makes mistakes and mistakes endear you to the audience, showing that you are human. There’s no need to be perfect when presenting. You just need a story to tell.

When preparing for your presentation, decide what your purpose is. Is to educate the audience, sell a product or service, or achieve something else? Use that as your starting point and reverse engineer from there. Don’t over-prepare. If you follow a strict script, you’ll sound detached and you may fail to connect with your audience.

When delivering your presentation, speak to the people you want to connect with. Think of what they need, deliver that during your speech, and get people to take action. The biggest mistake is trying to please everyone. If you try to do that, you are unlikely to be memorable.

Confidence comes from experience. The more presentations you deliver, the more confident you will become. However, it’s normal to be nervous before a presentation and that never goes away, no matter how many presentations you deliver. So, never let nerves prevent you from delivering a presentation in the first place.

Club Connections

During this relatively new section of the club meetings, members share the connections they have made at the business club and the impact they have had. This month, members spoke of excellent customer service and friendships formed. All the unsung people who come to the business club every month were also celebrated.

Events

Events for businesses include:

• Business Support Surgery: For impartial advice on moving your business forward, book a free one-hour slot with business advisor Dawn Fear at Gusto House, Collingham on 10 September. Slots between 9 am and 4.45 pm are available.
• Turn Newark Pink – Make everything pink in your business from 28 September until 10 October to support Cancer Research UK. Find out more at: fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/unite/turn-newark-pink
• Newark Dining Network: Combining business networking with supporting local independent restaurants, the Newark Dining Network is a wonderful way to connect with other business owners in a relaxed environment. The next meeting will take place on 14 October at Baseri Nepalese and Indian Cuisine on Castle Gate, Newark. Book your ticket on Eventbrite.
• Events organised by local charities include:
• The Dragon Boat Race, in aid of The Children’s Bereavement Centre and Beaumond House Hospice Care, will take place on 13 September at Riverside Park in Newark. Take part, volunteer or come along for a fun family day out. Find out more at: www.newarkdragonboatfestival.co.uk

Member Spotlight

Andy Butcher – Safe Skills Training.

Safe Skills Training is a UK-based clinical, emergency and workplace training provider specialising in practical, competency-focused training for healthcare, social care, education and workplace teams. The company’s aim is to improve the skills, confidence and preparedness of professionals through realistic, hands-on training designed around the needs of individual organisations and the people they support.

The company provides a broad portfolio of clinical courses covering complex care and essential clinical procedures, including tracheostomy care, PEG and enteral feeding, ventilation, suction, catheter and stoma care, medication management, venepuncture, diabetes care and palliative care. It also offers mandatory training, workplace and specialist first aid, and dedicated medication training for schools. Courses can be combined, adapted or developed as bespoke programmes to reflect an organisation’s equipment, procedures, service users and operational requirements.

A key differentiator is Safe Skills Training’s focus on genuine competency rather than attendance alone. Its CQC-compliant competency pathways use classroom simulation and practical assessment to prepare staff for final, on-site competency sign-off, supported by appropriate documentation and observation frameworks. Training incorporates realistic scenarios and equipment to help learners develop confidence that can translate directly into practice.

The business is led by Registered Nurse Andy, whose extensive frontline experience spans critical, community and high-acuity complex nursing.

Find out more at: safeskillstraining.com or contact Andy at andy.butcher@safeskillstraining.com

Next meeting

Join us for the next meeting of Newark Business Club on 4 September at the YMCA, beginning with tea, coffee and informal networking from 6.45 am.

We are delighted to have support from Patrons for 2026: Gusto Group|GXO in Partnership with Currys|Barcode Warehouse|PeachyEvents|Radio Newark

Write up by Roz Andrews of RA Writers For Hire/RA Book Editing / Photos supplied by Nicola Auckland Photography.