Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is a cornerstone of continuing membership of many professional societies. In recognition of this requirement on many of our members, BCN organizes a series of CPD events throughout each membership year. All our CPD sessions are run either by members, or by business professionals that have been recommended to us. We endeavour to be topical – for instance, BCN arranged two successful CPD workshops to introduce social media concepts for business to our members. Our 2011 CPD programme covered the following topics:

• Jan                  How to make your company appear bigger than it actually is!
• Feb                  What works when marketing independent services?
• Mar                  Activity Review and Objectives for the new financial year
• Apr                  Excel Spreadsheet Techniques
• May                 Logical and Emotional Decision making
• Jun                  Coaching Others
• July                  Problem Solving
• Sept                Social Networking Half-Day course
• Oct                  Social Networking Half-Day course
• Nov                 Performance Management

Visitors who attend BCN initially as a Guest, and then move on to become Members, have commented that they see a big membership benefit from the continuing professional development sessions that we provide. Members’ attendance at the CPD sessions is covered within their annual membership fee – there are no extra charges.

BCN is committed to running at least one CPD session per meeting, and on some occasions that has stretched to several shorter multi-disciplinary sessions.