On the anniversary of two years of lockdown in the UK here is a view of what we’ve been up to over that time. Work from home, work from office (#WFH) and a bit of work from anywhere.
We have now added new offices in London to the existing base in Reigate, Surrey. This seems counterintuitive for some people as many talk about closing offices. Edale has had some great adventures through this torrid time and some memorable achievements.
In the week up to the UK lockdown on the 23rd March 2020, we were in Worcestershire doing some workshops with some start-up businesses. We moved to a hybrid delivery for the 18th March session with a few people already on zoom and a few at the kiln coworking space. Who knew that we would be living online for such an expanse of time.
Space2Waves Epitomises what we did during lockdown in that an internationalisation program was moved to digital delivery where we were helping maritime and space companies with their planning, development and connections into the United Arab Emirates and South Africa. Our initial activities involve workshops with regard to doing business in these two markets and one-to-one coaching. Additional work then involved fact-finding to identify local corporate that could do business with the cohort members. Further, we then added a virtual matchmaking showcase. And now we have a plan to deliver a virtual trade mission through online delivery in May 2022.
Year-end saw us take desks in London. We also managed social media for Santa Landing and Sleigh through the streets of Reigate and Redhill. This charity work raised £16,000 for good local causes and was a nice thing as omicron spread through the country and allowed people to come to their front door for festive cheer.
February 2022 saw the return of travels and business planning. Through the month we visited Miami, the hub for financial services into Latin America and Abu Dhabi planning for business expansion and development of new projects. Nice to see an airport busy again.
2021 saw us move our business support up with us now working in over 20% of the LEPs regions in England.