Aardman Animations and Hargreaves Lansdown’s work in the community showcased at monthly Initiative meeting

At our April Initiative meeting we were delighted to be joined by our members - Aardman Animations and Hargreaves Lansdown – who shared details of two fantastic projects they’re working on, covering mental health and workplace diversity respectively.

The talks by Sean Clarke and Heather Cooper were part of a jampacked meeting agenda, which began with Bristol Chamber & Initiative President Richard Bonner and Mark Runacres, Bristol Police Commander from Avon and Somerset Constabulary speaking about efforts to respond to the recent unrest that has been taking place in Bristol city centre.

Richard Bonner – along with Chamber & Initiative Chief Executive James Durie - was one of 22 signatories of a letter condemning the violence on 21st March. The letter, which was published across local media, called for “positive action and hope” to rebuild our economy in aftermath of COVID-19. It continued “those who vandalised parts of our city and injured police officers….do not speak for Bristol...we have complete confidence in the approach taken by the police”. Bristol Commander Runacres spoke to help reassure businesses of all the steps police were taking to bring offenders to justice and restore order and calm in the city centre, working closely with support from Bristol's Business Improvement Districts, the City Council and many other partners.

With a number of local elections coming up next month, James Durie gave an overview of the work being undertaken across Business West to ensure that the voice of business is being heard as part of the political debates. ‘A Manifesto for Business’, which outlines 6 key priorities for the next West of England Mayor, was published this week and a special business & economy hustings event with the candidates is due to take place on 28th April, he said.

A manifesto is also in the pipeline for the Bristol City Mayoral election said James, before introducing Lord Lieutenant of Bristol Peaches Golding who spoke briefly about events in Bristol marking the 80th anniversary of the Atlantic Charter.

Aardman Animations Managing Director Sean Clarke began his fascinating talk by providing an overview of the steps the company were taking to prioritise mental in the workplace. He then spoke about a campaign Aardman had been driving to improve the mental health of young people and better equip them for the challenges of modern life. Spurred by the increase in student suicides said Sean, the engaging campaign had been cocreated with students and universities and targeted at a gen Z audience online via social influencers.

Heather Cooper, Chief People Officer at Hargreaves Lansdown followed Sean by overviewing the West of England Black Interns pilot. Inspired by the #10000BlackInterns initiative, the West of England Black Interns Pilot has been conceived to help transform the horizons and prospects of Black students, living or studying in Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire by offering paid work experience across a range of sectors in the region, supplemented by training and development. The initiative will be delivered in partnership with Bristol City Council and Bristol One City.

Ian Pond of CyclingWorks Bristol and Ann O’Driscoll of North Bristol SusCom were next to address members, laying out why employers should take action and encourage active travel to work. Active travel has a number of key benefits for employers they said, including better health and increased productivity amongst staff, reduced impact on the local environment, travel resilience, reduced parking costs and recruitment and retention benefits.

To close the meeting, Andrea Dell, Head of Bristol’s One City Office, talked about the One City 2021 priorities which include the creation of a new digital board, which brings city partners together to work collaboratively on a variety of digital projects.

One of the key issues the One City digital board focusses on – a problem which has been brought into sharp focus by the pandemic – is digital exclusion she said. John Bradford CEO of Digilocal is at the centre of this activity and he briefly described how since the pandemic began, 847 laptops had been given out to schoolchildren across city, with the one-thousandth laptop expected in the next 2 weeks. 30 charities and community partners across the city have been working together to facilitate distribution of laptops to young people Andrea said, and in the next phase they would be seeking out donations from corporate partners, having relied upon public donations up until now.

Before a lively Q&A session Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees said a few words on recent city centre disorder. A 30 minute networking session followed as usual.

Our next Initiative meeting is on Thursday 6th May and invites will be circulated shortly.