Birmingham’s Unique Network (BUN) celebrates 2 years of bringing Birmingham businesses together at hospitality venues across the city. Founded in July 2021 by Unique Venues Birmingham in partnership with Sheila Kelly-Trow, BUN strives to create a vibrant network for Birmingham businesses to network, share expertise and raise their profiles. The well-connected businesses joining BUN each month represent sectors including creative design and marketing, investments and wealth management, recruitment, charities, and legal services, to name just a few. The breadth of knowledge and experience shared at BUN events is testament to the richness of Birmingham’s business sector and the outstanding range of industries who work in and around the city.

Alex Totman, Throgmorton Associates Wealth Management and regular BUN attendee, said:

“BUN is one of my favourite networking events in Birmingham. Sheila and the team always fill the room full of great people. Everyone is always so welcoming, and I have had great conversations and built strong business relationships with attendees”

Natalja from Noels Bar & Restaurant on Waterfront Walk, said:

“Networking is all about people. With BUN events you always know that you will meet interesting, professional people over the relaxed lunch organised by real experts in their field. BUN was a real game changer for a small family business like Noel’s. It was a great opportunity to host this busy networking event in May. This allowed the restaurant to get more publicity on social media and great new connections from the local businesses. Attending BUN events for over a year now, I have noticed that it is always buzzing with new faces as well as has a good number regular attendees. As a host venue we could not fault any step of the booking process it was smooth and efficient. We look forward to hosting the next one.”

Lunch BUN events are held monthly at different hospitality venues across the city, showcasing the many fantastic food and drink venues the city has to offer, bringing together a vibrant mix of business people to share in their skills, knowledge, and mutual support of each other. Each event offers informal networking, a sit-down lunch and prize draw with prizes donated by local businesses. Each event also has its own event sponsor which is an opportunity for a local business to showcase their expertise whilst creating new relationships. BUN have partnered with Elonex to facilitate the event sponsorships with exposure across key locations in the city.

Craig Upton, Bond Wolfe Media and two time sponsor of the BUN event, said:

“We are very happy to sponsor the September BUN networking event. As one of the most influential and key networking events in the region, it’s always beneficial to associate the Bond Wolfe brand with BUN networking events.”

Sheila Kelly-Trow, co-founder of BUN, said:

“The first two years of BUN have been fantastic, and the success the networking events have had not only for BUN itself but for all those who have attended the events and formed great working relationships. We have seen some great partnerships as a result of the Lunch BUN events and we look forward to continuing to facilitate great business networking in Birmingham.”

Suzanna Reid Barreiro da Silva, Managing Director at Unique Venues Birmingham and co-founder of BUN, said: 

“We are proud to have created a business network with a different way of doing things and to have grown our network to attract so many varied businesses from all sectors across Birmingham. Many of our members have benefitted from direct and indirect business referrals as a result of our events which demonstrates the quality of the connections being made and business relationships being formed.”

BUN have many future plans including the launch of their brand new Educating BUN events, with the first being held at Unique Venues Birmingham on 13th September 2023, with Adrianne Carter ‘The Face Whisperer’ as guest speaker for the event. There are also further social events in the pipeline, after the success of last year’s Hits of Motown with Roy G Hemmings, a fantastic evening of live music.

To find out more about BUN and their calendar of networking events visit: https://birminghamsuniquenetwork.com/