UKTI Polish Market Visit

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Monday 14th March

I left sunny Newcastle to start my journey to Warsaw with Sue Beverley, International Trade Adviser and a delegation of North East companies. On arrival I bumped into Carl Peacock from Explorer Group and we had a quick catch up about the company before I set off on my journey to Poland. Carl was jetting off to Slovenia on business to meet with suppliers. I joined my travel companions Justine Crozier from Learning Curve Group and Graeme Jordan STO Consulting t/a Graeme Jordan CV on the KLM flight to Warsaw via Schiphol in Amsterdam. We caught up with Sue Beverley and John Leggett from Nexstamp UK in Middlesbrough. After a pleasant flight we made our way into the centre of Warsaw.

After a short taxi ride from the airport to the Polonia Palace Hotel in Warsaw, we met up with other business colleagues Matt Henderson from Hasso Fasion Ltd, David Riley from Puzhou International Ltd , Zoe Woods from International House Newcastle and Konrad who is Business Services Manager for British Polish Chamber of Commerce. Konrad kindly took us to a traditional Polish restaurant called Ale Gloria and were treat to a polish delicacy, pieyrogi (dumplings) which were carefully crafted by a member of the restaurant staff whilst we watched! Konrad was a super host, giving us a brief history lesson on Poland and polish culture. Looking forward to tomorrow's Welcome meeting and networking Event later in the day. Oh and it's snowing which wasn't forecast!

Tuesday 15th March

Our day started with a welcome briefing from Paddy Ney and team at the British Polish Chamber of Commerce, giving us all an interesting insight into Polish Culture and history. Businesses had a chance to catch up with their chamber consultants before attending meetings with potential business customers. I had an interesting chat with Marta Tomaney who is Communications Specialist at BPCC and we looked at how we could best communicate export opportunities to our North East companies. A big thanks to all at the chamber for such a warm welcome to their country.

I tagged along with Justine Crozier from Learning Curve Group to meet with a school who had expressed an interest in their learning modules. We were very well supported by a translator supplied by BPPC. The discussions proved to be very interesting - let's hope they agree to working in partnership with Learning Curve in the near future. It all sounded very promising.



After returning to the hotel for a quick freshen up we all had the opportunity to meet with polish businesses at a networking evening courtesy of BPPC. Staff from BPPC were on hand to welcome everyone to the event and Konrad Kubacki Gave an opening remark. The hotel staff were very attentive and looked after all of our guests. The welcome speech was given by British Ambassador to Poland, Robin Burnett and each one of us was given the opportunity to speak to the captive audience about our business. Sue Beverley gave a great opening speech on behalf of UKTI - she has definitely done this before. The networking session was excellent all of the businesses making great connections and contacts with the hopeful result of new working relations in Poland. The event went on until after 9pm. We all stayed at the hotel for an evening meal and thoroughly enjoyed the food and excellent service given by the staff.

Wednesday 16th March

i met colleagues for breakfast and discussed the schedule of meetings for the day. this was a chance for me to catch up with emails and fallout contacts from the previous day.

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