A Scottish Gathering in London

There’s something special about getting the Scottish Business Network community together. Familiar faces, new introductions, plenty of laughter and conversations you’re glad you came along for.

Our London meet-up at The Shoap on Tuesday brought all of that together, with a warm Scottish welcome and an evening that reminded us how much good fun there is to be had while building connections.

Scotland’s home from home in London was a fitting setting. Over food and drinks, people caught up, met someone new and shared what they were working on. The atmosphere was relaxed and welcoming, making it easy to join a conversation and get to know the people behind the businesses.

That’s a big part of what makes these evenings valuable. An informal chat can uncover a shared interest, lead to a useful introduction or give someone a fresh perspective on an idea. It starts with people enjoying each other’s company.

The evening also marked an exciting next step for SBN. We launched Scottish International Week, looking ahead to bringing our community together to celebrate Scotland’s international connections and the opportunities those relationships can create.

We also shared our plans for membership and how we’re building the next chapter of the network. At its heart, this is about putting additional resource behind SBN so it can work harder for members, helping turn the goodwill and connections within our community into meaningful opportunities. We look forward to sharing more soon.

As always, we made room for people to share an ask with the community. Three contributions highlighted the range of interests and ambitions in the room:

• Susan Pym shared the London St Andrews Book Festival, bringing Scottish literature and storytelling into the conversation.
• Sapna Phillips introduced JinyBiz, her business supporting importers and exporters.
• Kevin McDonagh spoke about SMASH, his event bringing together some of the world’s leading Scottish contemporary artists.

Each gave the room something to think about, talk about and potentially help with. If you have a connection, an idea or a way to support any of these initiatives, we’d love to hear from you.

A big thank you to Greg Boyd and the team at The Shoap for hosting us, and to everyone who came along and contributed to the evening.

We’re looking forward to more London gatherings, more introductions and more reasons to get this community together. If last night was anything to go by, there’s plenty to look forward to.