The Bolton Manufacturers Group hosted their 12th event at the Reebok Stadium in collaboration with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Business Bolton, NXO and Bolton Wanderers Community Trust. on 30th October 2012.

The event brought together the Bolton manufacturing community for an evening dedicated to  funding opportunities, finance options, guest speakers, great food and most importantly a fantastic atmosphere.

The event certainly met our expectations and more with everyone engaged with each other from start to finish, sharing stories and relaxing into the warm enviorment.

We had stands from the best of manufacturing supporters, including; Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), UKTI, Groundworks, Unite with Business, Jumpstart, Business Bolton, GrowthAccelerator, FW Capital, Close Brothers, Access to Finance, UCLAN - DigitME and PMD Leasing.

We shared a number of statistics with the local community on the evening that proved that manufacturing is still very much a big player in our local economy and the British economy:

What is the current population of Bolton? - 276,000 
What percentage of people employed in Bolton are in Manufacturing? - 18%
How many manufacturing companies are trading in Bolton? – 400+
What is the current GVA per employee in the manufacturing sector? -£49,000
What percentage of UK exports come from manufacturing? – 50%
For every £100 spent on training in manufacturing what is the average return for your business? - £124
What percentage of all UK R & D is in manufacturing? – 75%

Soon after the event Sophie Drozda, Director, IFS Labratories Ltd said: "I would just like to say on a personal level, its great what you are doing and it’s an absolute credit to the Bolton Community and Businesses. I will be spreading the word on this. It was profoundly interesting to realise the potential of manufacturing in the UK and how we all need to encourage and enhance this. Looking forward to future events."

We encourage you to take the advice from the event and join us in promoting all the great things that are happening in the manufacturing sector. Share your good news stories and put manufacturing on the map!

Promote your good news on your websites, promote your news on here, get your staff excited about the future and get them talking about it, talk at events, bang on the door of the local newspapers, contact industry related magazines ............. just do it!

Gary Sheader
(Chairman, Bolton Manufacturers Group)

Our first Social Media for Manufacturing Workshop on Tuesday 16th October 2012 was a huge success. Naomi Timperley delivered a hands on session focused on winning business via Twitter and every business enjoyed the content.

We learned how to set up a good profile, how we should engage with others, who we should be following, how to use lists, finding new clients via the search facility, the benefits of some of the external Twitter applications and lots of great nuggets to accelerate our Twitter success.


Naomi scored an awesome 9.6/10 from the feedback forms and received some great feedback from the Manufacturers Group:

"A must for any business, at any level." Des Pate, Managing Director, Glastex Ltd

"Thank you again to Gary for a great event and thank you to Naomi for a great presentation and some unknown knowledge. Well recommended." Danny Dwyer, Indespension Ltd

"Thank you to Gary for introducing us to the group and to Naomi for a fantastic presentation." Karen Brooks, Director, IFS Labratories Ltd

"Some great nuggets to let us play at a higher level. What a guru Naomi is!" Ian Sterritt, Managing Director, Martec of Whitwell Ltd

Please contact us if you would like to be part of the next Workshop.