Open North Foundation Webinar - Organisational change in a difficult environment.   28th October.  8.30am - 10.00am

This event offers lessons in top level policing including major challenges and crisis management which will be helpful to the business community.

Themes include:

• doing the basics brilliantly
• focussing on mindset
• innovating

The ONF was launched in July 2020 and is essentially about North East businesses helping NE businesses more impacted by Covid with their recovery.  Qualifying beneficiaries are defined as any NE business which can demonstrate it had a future pre-Covid, has been impacted by Covid, and that targeted assistance could help secure its future. Assistance is by way of cash grants (range £1K to £5K) and/or free mentoring and training courses.  All involved give freely of their time in addition to demanding day jobs. It is a not-for-profit limited company, really a social enterprise. Not a penny raised goes to anything other than qualifying beneficiaries.  Please visit https://opennorthfoundation.co.uk

All funds and support services have been raised within the NE business community and offered for free albeit subject to strict criteria (see website). We delighted to offer this first of three free Wellness workshops with our new partner Bethany Ainsley. Mental health remains a huge issue for us since the Covid outbreak and the ONF have embraced it as a key area of support for North East employers and employees.

The Advanced Manufacturing Forum (AMF) is a membership network which connects manufacturers and engineers, providing support to drive sustainable growth, innovation, best practice and collaboration with our members.

A community of passionate industry experts, we work with our members, strategic partners, and associates to grow the North East manufacturing and engineering sector.

The AMF offers a range of services in partnership with industry experts to encourage collaboration, champion best practice and facilitate knowledge sharing – all with the aim of creating success opportunities.

Please visit https://advancedmanufacturingforum.co.uk/ and feel free to join us and many others making the North East a better place for manufacturing and engineering businesses.The Advanced Manufacturing Forum (AMF) is a membership network which connects manufacturers and engineers, providing support to drive sustainable growth, innovation, best practice and collaboration with our members.

Stephen Watson QPM

Stephen Watson is amongst the most experienced senior officers in the country having joined Lancashire Constabulary in 1988. He was appointed to Merseyside Police in 2006 on promotion to Chief Superintendent, where he initially headed up the force's Strategic Development Department. He subsequently served for 3 years as Area Commander for Liverpool North, one of the largest and most challenging Basic Command Units in the country.

In 2011, he was appointed to the Metropolitan Police as Commander for the East Area, with responsibility for all aspects of operational policing across nine London boroughs. This dynamic and diverse area is home to over 2.3 million Londoners and he held command of 6,250 police officers and staff with a total operating budget of £325 million.

As a qualified firearms and public order commander, he regularly performed Gold Command roles in a number of high-profile policing operations and critical incidents, including a fatal helicopter crash in central London and in working with partner agencies across East London so as to restore public confidence in the aftermath of the 2011 riots. As a senior member of the 2012 Olympic Command Team, he was awarded the Commissioner’s Commendation in recognition of his role, which involved the planning and delivery of all territorial policing across London throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Stephen became Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police in May 2021.

Mike Barton

Mike Barton served as a police officer in Lancashire and Durham Constabularies for 39 years. He was Chief Constable in Durham from 2012 to 2019 and was recognised for his contribution to UK policing with a QPM in 2012 and the CBE in 2019.

Mike led new ways of tackling organised crime through challenging traditional ways of policing and recognising ‘people who do big bad things do little bad things’. In this way everyone in the police family have a vital role in tackling serious and organised criminals. Durham was recognised as a leading force in tackling serious and organised crime, managing offenders and developing crime-fighting software. 

Mike challenged the creeping narrative that the public sector could only deliver less with less. Durham delivered more but did it in partnership with unlikely people, unlocking the power of communities to make their own neighbourhoods safer.

He has received the Tilley Lifetime Achievement Award in Problem Solving and he was also recognised for excellence in Evidence Based Policing with the award of the Peel Medal by Cambridge University. In 2017 he was made communicator of the year in the North East.