BNI in East Lancashire picked up two awards at the world’s leading referral organisation’s national conference this month.
Established over 30 years, BNI has over 200,000 members in over 70 countries worldwide. It works by organising weekly networking meetings for groups of businesses. Groups, known as chapters, use their combined network of contacts to find business opportunities and referrals for one another, using proven processes and systems to ensure the maximum amount of business is generated.
The organisation’s annual conference brought together about 500 directors from across the UK and Ireland at the Hilton in Gateshead on 9th and 10th June 2017, with an awards gala on Saturday evening.
BNI Lancashire East picked up an award for Growth with respect to the expansion of the three chapters in Accrington, Burnley and Blackburn. Adrian Meakin of Blackpool-based business Framing Incredible was also recognised with an award for his outstanding contribution as a BNI Director Consultant of the Blackburn-based BNI Infinity chapter.
BNI Executive Director Mike Holman, who heads up 27 BNI chapters in Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, said: “It was fantastic to see our Lancashire chapters represented so well at the national awards.
“During the conference it was announced that BNI UK and Ireland created over £517million worth of business in the last 12 months. I am very proud of Lancashire’s significant contribution to this – BNI in Lancashire was shown recently to have boosted the local economy by around £130million in the last six years alone.
“I personally am very proud to have been part of BNI’s journey in Lancashire. It’s very exciting that, nationally, the organisation is now talking in billions rather than millions, with a vision for the country to create £1.5 billion by April 2021.”
