Last night saw the return of our ever popular Networking4 event, this time with a festive twist! We teamed up with Vin-ed, Libbserve and Essentially Worthing to host our quarterly event at The Burlington Hotel and it was even more successful than the last; with one of our newest members saying:

"Great evening, a really good turnout. Great to see such a good spread of different business people" - Darren Crabb Wealth Management

With over 80 businesses attending the room was bustling and full of people enjoying the evening and networking hard! Although the room was noisy, Melanie was there on hand with the trusty Worthing and Adur Chamber of Commerce horn (thank you Tina for the loan) to keep the crowds under control. Although at times it was difficult, we knew that the hustle and bustle meant that relationships were forming and a lot of business was being passed.

To break up the networking and to add that festive twist we had some entertainment courtesy of Neil Libby from Vin-ed and Libbserve. He brought along two bottles of sumptious wine and commandeered a wine tasting event full of interesting facts, which everyone enjoyed! This was then followed by more networking over a cheese and wine platter served to us by the extremely helpful staff from The Burlington Hotel. If you were left thirsty for more Neil will be holding a wine tasting event on the 21st January, click here for more information.

During the evening we had a special appearance from the Lady Mayor of Worthing, Councillor Ann Barlow who was on hand to help present the certificates for our business members. These included Sheila Hall of Clear Computing who hit a huge 150 testimonials for their business! Balik Spa, Darren Crabb Wealth Management, Razzamataz and Dinkycinno were all presented their certificates for being recognised as one of the best businesses in Worthing and receiving over 5 testimonials each. Saving the best until last, life time achievement award winner Peter Bennett of Bennett Griffin who received his certificate for reaching 100 testimonials on thebestofworthing site!

Darren Crabb partner of St James Place with his team of riders including Darren Ford of Affordable Security, Mark Price of MK Windows and Michael and Dayne spoke about their cycle ride across the South Downs Way on the 12th and 13th November for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Dayne Blackburn (who we found out was the runner up in the fab British Racing Championships) presented the cheque of £2,500 to Melanie on behalf of the Teenage Cancer Trust. St James Place have also matched this amount £1 for £1 and so have donated a further £2,500 to their chosen childrens charities. We would like to congratulate the team again on this fantastic achievement!

As per usual prizes were given for best networkers in the room. Along with us, Vin-ed, Libbserve and Essentially Worthing we would like to give a special thanks to facemediagroup, South Coast Golf and The Cavendish Hotel who donated last minute prizes. There were too many winners to name you all, so a big congratulations to those who won! As usual we did our business card draw at the end of the evening and the winners were:

Libbserve - who won a full page advert in Essentially Worthing

Sheila Hall of Clear Computing (who always seems to win!) won two tickets to a Vin-ed wine tasting course

New members to thebestofworthing Balik Spa won an online banner on thebestofworthing site.

Wilkins Chimney Sweep - who won a set of business cards from facemediagroup

Graham Vaughn our very own HR expert who won a 30 minute golf lesson from South Coast Golf.

The whole evening was photographed by the loveable Graham Franks who took some great shots from the evening! A big thank you to him for doing this for us and if you would like to take a look at his website click here. For the full picture gallery take a look at thebestofworthing facebook page by clicking here.

So, if you didn't make this event, make sure you don't miss the next one! We've already planned our 2012 diary of quarterly networking events and we have three venues booked already. But don't just take our word for it below are some of the great comments we have received already...

"Really, really good night! Met loads of business people and the wine was good too!" - Lady Mayor of Worthing, Councillor Ann Barlow

"You all worked really hard, the event was really good!"

"Great night as always, it was a roaring success!"

We hope to see you at our next event in March 2012!