Changes to the Supporters Subscriptions

In May, Silicon South (SiSo) launched the Mission 21 initiative, via Zoom, which many of you attended.

We outlined what we’d be doing to support businesses and people in the Digital, Creative and Tech sectors through the worst of Covid 19 and into, what we hope, will be better trading conditions in Spring 2021.

Since lockdown was announced in March 2020 SiSo has:

• Secured £450k of European funding to dedicate to supporting companies
• Supplied a range of development grants to various companies
• Hosted dozens of intimate director discussions over Zoom to help leaders support and advise each other through some challenging times
• Delivered a series of Q & A webinars examining how to manage the issues triggered by Covid 19
• Written up thought pieces to help businesses navigate recent changes
• Provided free, in-depth, one-to-one advice with business experts
• Launched a new accelerator programme to help those people looking to set up a new proposition right now to have the best chance of succeeding
• Maintained constant communications and lobbying with public sector bodies to promote industry interests in post-Covid strategic planning

We’ve had some amazing feedback about the impact of this work on Supporters: from forming new partnerships – to sharing office space; generating new business leads – to better focused business strategies. Covid 19 has, clearly, created a time of crisis, but I believe SiSo has played a part in helping many of our Supporters to navigate it with more confidence.

One other major change we made was to remove all charges for companies to become Network Supporters. We promised you a 100% discount until the Autumn. As Summer finishes, we’ve reached the time to review this. After the hiatus of April and May, it’s been reassuring to see clients and customers returning. Our supporter businesses seem more buoyant and confident, and have a clearer understanding of where they stand. As such, we’ve decided it’s the right time to remove that discount now.

The Silicon South Network can’t survive without your support and, in reality, nor should we want to. SiSo is designed to support the sector, so it seems appropriate that the sector demonstrates that the Network is something it wants to support. It’s the only way we can continue to deliver the support we are offering, in the long term.

We will apply a modest monthly charge from Thurs, 22nd October, as per the rates shown here. If that’s okay, you don’t need to do a thing – you’re already signed up and we have the details we need.

If you decide you can’t continue to be a Supporter, you simply need to login to your profile go to manage subscriptions and cancel the subscription. Your profile will be removed from the searchable directory and map of the sector, and you won’t be able to submit stories, events or post a job – but your account will not be deleted, so you can easily re-join at a later date.

We hope you do choose to continue to be a Supporter of the Network. Looking ahead, there’s so much more to come, as our small team continues to punch above its weight to deliver a constantly evolving programme of support.

Many thanks
Anthony and the Silicon South team