SAM Networking

Most networking groups are a room and a rota. SAM Networking is five rooms a week, an expo, a barbecue, a Christmas lunch and a charity programme, run by one person who is in every room.

The scale is the reason for the award. Five weekly groups (Huddersfield on a Friday, Halifax on a Thursday, Bradford and Leeds on a Wednesday, a Thursday lunch group and a Tuesday online group) means a member can find a meeting that fits rather than being handed one. Over 130 businesses hold seats, and the one-business-per-category rule is enforced, which is what stops a group filling up with six web designers and no plumber.

The Business Expo is the part that reaches beyond the membership. Eighty-nine exhibitor stands across three rooms, seminars running through the day, free parking, a free bag and a brochure so visitors can find who they came for. It sticks to its published hours, which sounds trivial until you have turned up to an expo at half past two and found it packing away.

The Summer BBQ has grown every year, with a live band drawn from the membership. It is not a marketing event. It is the thing that turns a room of suppliers into people who will pick up the phone for each other, which is the whole mechanism a referral network runs on.

July’s award is for all three at once: the groups, the expo and the barbecue.