By Chris McKenna, Director, Downtown in Business
Well, the past seven days have been a whirlwind, to say the least. We have transitioned the Downtown team across the country into home working and for the time being, lost a huge part of our activity, which is, of course, the events programme.
We’ll kick off with home working. At the beginning of last week, we knew it was only a matter of time that we would be working from home full time. We started the week with a strategy meeting with the exec team on what we would need to implement to make it as seamless as possible.
Since last Friday we have been working virtually and so far, it has been excellent. Our Head of Comms, Chris Wilcox has made it simple for the team to connect via Zoom and we kick off each morning with a team meeting and have regular contact throughout the day to keep spirits high.
Our CEO, Frank McKenna has been working tirelessly behind the scenes with local, regional and national government lobbying on behalf of the business community with a big focus on the hospitality industry last week and like us all, he is keeping a close eye on the Prime Minister and Chancellors’ announcements.
The rest of the team have been regularly speaking to our corporate partners and members which is ongoing, offering our support and advising them on the new things we have quickly implemented to ensure there is plenty of opportunities within the network.
We are of course working through re-arranging our vast events programme which we will keep you posted with and are taking this time as an opportunity to clean up some of our back-end systems.
In times of adversity, it is crucial we adapt and the Downtown team have been exceptional. We have implemented ‘The Downtown Den’ which I urge you all to get involved with. This will potentially change how we operate as a business moving forward.
I will end by saying how inspirational it has been to see everyone rallying round and supporting each other. We are shining a light on all our #BusinessHeroes on social media and there are far too many to mention here. I will, however, give a shout out to the three Metro Mayors who have represented Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham exceptionally.
Who knows what the next few weeks and months will bring. Whatever that may be, the gang at Downtown are here to offer our support. Stay Safe and Stay Home.
