Monday was an exciting, but slightly nervous, night for us as we launched our business networking event 'An Evening With thebestoflutterworth'.

Our first event was held at The Greyhound in Lutterworth, with a lovely hot & cold buffet and (eventually!) a glass of wine.

There are lots of business networking events around these days - indeed, I go to quite a lot of them myself - so why start another one? Well, a number of reasons...

Firstly, here at thebestof we are all about LOCAL, so we wanted to start a group that focusses on enabling local business people to meet each other and find out more what we all do. And remember, thebestoflutterworth is not only about Lutterworth itself, but covers the rural area and villages around town, as well as other larger residential areas like Broughton Astley, Countesthorpe, Blaby, and so on.

Secondly, many business networks meet early in the morning, or at lunchtimes, which isn't convenient for everybody, so we prefer to meet in the evenings, in an atmosphere which allows everyone to relax a little after work and, whilst businesslike, have a little more of a 'social' feeling.

We are also keen to attract visitors that don't normally do formal network meetings, but who would come along because they would like to be a part of the local business community in a more relaxed way.

We want to give recognition within the local business community to those business who have been recommended by local people for the fantastic services they provide - on Monday we presented Best Business certificates to Esther Butterfield, of SRD Print , Peter Abrahamson of Abrahamson Foster accountants and Sarah Gagin of My Admin Support

And finally, some of the local councillors were kind enough to attend (including Lutterworth Town Mayor, Cllr Ray Perkins, and his wife Gill), so it's great opportunity for local business owners and the councillors to meet and chat in an informal way.

I think, on Monday, we achieved some of those aims! We certainly had several first-time networkers there, including the fascinating Mr & Mrs Daltry from Chevelswarde Organic who have been registered organic farmers since 1975 - long before it became fashionable! - and who make local wine from their organically grown vineyards.

Anyway, take a look at the photos - lots more on our Facebook page photos tab - and if you'd like to come along and meet other local business people in an informal and friendly way, then please do join us next time!

Our next event is a very special joint event at Catthorpe Manor, with our neighbours thebestofrugby, where we have one of the UK's top entrepreneurs, Nigel Botterill, coming along to talk to us about 'The 18 Secrets That Super Successful Business Owners Know And Do... (that most business owners don't know and don't do).' Come along and find out! Details are here

Thanks for reading.