Highlights of the NABMA Conference

For those of you that are thinking about joining NABMA or are members and have never attended a conference, I thought it might be quite useful to give a brief overview of the presentations that you can expect to see over the one and a half days.

A huge amount of work goes into getting the right balance of guest speakers, covering everything from policy, NABMA schemes and initiatives as well as presentations from inspiring markets and individuals.

After the formal welcome, the first speaker was Darren Henaghan, MD Borough Market, who gave a frank presentation on the day that terrorists attacked his market and the subsequent affect on traders, the market and the community as a whole.

Andrew McCall of ROI Team presented the results of his research on Management Models, looking at the various models available and their successes., whilst Patrick Knowles of APSE spoke of the NABMA pilot study to implement a national benchmarking scheme for markets

For the first time, four interactive workshops were introduced. These ran at the end of the day, giving delegates the opportunity to try two of them. These were well received, with Sean McGarel of Freeman Street Market commenting: “I thought the workshops were a great idea and got a lot out of it.”

The conference celebrated LYLM, youth markets, the Great British Market Awards and the British High Street Awards. It also highlighted some great market initiatives and working partnerships.
If this has whetted your appetite, the NABMA one-day conference takes place at the The Council House, Birmingham on 25 January. Visit the NABMA website to find out more. www.nabma.com/category/events/