Jenny Chapman, Business Editor of the Cambridge News, went to see a vegetable farmer to find out what it is all about.
The idea of a business exhibition in a cathedral may seem a touch “overturning the tables in the temple”, but when you hear what is planned to take place in Ely Cathedral at the end of next month, well, it is nothing short of inspired.
The cathedral has decided to get behind a new group in the town which wants to emphasis the importance of business to the wellbeing of the community, and to this end is giving free use of the building over a number of days for the exhibition, culminating in a Celebration of Business event.
This will include a keynote address by Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership and of the UK Commission for Employment & Skills, and from the Bishop of Ely, Stephen Conway.
Not much has been broadcast about all this, yet more than 90 businesses have already signed up to exhibit in the cathedral, and such is the interest the organisers are considering setting up a marquee in the cathedral grounds to cater for the overflow.
Chairman of the new group, Ely Cathedral Business Group, is Tom Green, chief executive of Spearhead International, a vegetable farming business headquartered in a portable building plonked in a fen near Swaffham Prior, but the nerve centre of a business with operations across Eastern Europe.
Perhaps more to the point, Spearhead, of which Tom’s family firm Green’s is now a part, operates in the same way as the John Lewis Partnership, with the employees owning the business.
So, this grand celebration of business – from tiny one-man band to major multiple – has been triggered by a need to highlight the importance of industry and commerce as a force for good in the community.
“There has been a lot in the press about the greed and recklessness that has led us into the global financial crisis (not in my pages, I point out),” Tom says.
“Now we have an opportunity to show, in contrast, what good business is doing.
“There is a vast untapped well of goodwill among the business community, which is hidden largely because business people are hard at work doing their jobs, and now, more than ever before, this is exacerbated by the internet and email, which mean many business people are becoming more and more isolated.”
The last week in May is their chance to get together, with the cathedral hosting the business group from Friday 25 to Thursday 31.
Is all this unique?
“I am not aware of something of this nature taking place,” Tom says, “but here in Ely it is based on historic precedent – 1,300 years ago the cathedral was at the centre of all local commerce.
“I want people to go away from this event saying ‘wow, I didn’t expect that – and in a cathedral – and meeting so many interesting people – I didn’t expect to come to a business networking event and to be so stimulated’.”
He is quite evangelical about the whole thing: “There is more to business than the profit and loss account, but there needs to be more than a warm feeling coming from this event, we are hoping for some really positive initiatives.”
Such as?
“Some of the established businesses involved will be offering mentoring to start-ups; we want to get real business people going into schools and colleges to talk about careers and work experience; and we want the celebration in the cathedral to become an annual event.”
The idea has certainly taken off, with big names including Marshall, John Lewis, The Shropshire Group and Grovemere Properties already on board, as well as Spearhead and the News; but Tom wants to make it clear that there is nothing exclusive about the Ely Cathedral Business Group, and that anyone can become a sponsor or join in. Mind you, he didn’t name any banks.
The celebration covers every sector and from across the region, and, despite the name, it is not about faith, although Tom is a lay canon of the Ely Chapter, which means he is a member of the cathedral’s board of directors.
It’s difficult not to mention what went on outside St Paul’s not so long ago, the Church being given a lot of grief about links with business, but, as Tom says, the Church played that one all wrong, and, anyway, the Ely idea had been muted before the tents went up.
The bishop’s talk on May 31 is called “Church, Capitalism & Community – conflict or co-operation”.
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