Below are some of the most frequently asked questions about joining and how membership works. We hope the answers listed will help you to understand a little more about the group and how rewarding membership could be for your company.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for a friendly more detailed conversation about joining. Our email is thepmg@outlook.com or message us through our contact page, linked here:
We have a number of criteria that firms need to be able to fulfil in order to qualify for PMG membership:
Location – Firms need to have a site operating within the Plymouth Travel-to-Work- Area, that is, within one of the following local authority areas: Plymouth City; or (what was formerly known as) Caradon; West Devon, South Hams or Teignbridge districts. (Applications from outside of this area e.g. Torbay will be also be considered but the applicant must realise that we are essentially a Plymouth-centric organisation and meetings will tend to be held in the City).
Classification of Business – The firm must be engaged in manufacturing in its broadest definition, ie anything including production, R&D, design, and engineering services.
Growth: Be able to demonstrate growth in turnover over time.
Investment: Provide evidence of investment in the business.
Reputation: Achievement of quality standards.
Training: A commitment to training/skills development.
Representation: The leading nominated representative should ideally be the Managing Director or at least a fellow director of the Company.
We have various levels of membership subscriptions: depending on the size of your company.
Fees are reviewed annually at the AGM and tend to rise with inflation.
To find out more about membership fees and payment structure please contact us at thepmg@outlook.com.
The simple answer is – as much or as little as you want but remember the more you put in to an activity, the more you’re likely to get out.
All meeting attendance is entirely optional although if you’ve decided to join we would hope that you will want to get engaged. Having to send your apologies to have to miss a meeting is not a problem! In a typical year the PMG will hold at least one meeting a month, often more – it’s up to you which ones you choose to attend. Alongside member meetings, we hold significant events like the Early Careers Fair and our Apprenticeship Awards.
The PMG is not just for MD’s and business owners, it’s also for specialists such as your health & safety expert or your continuous improvement lead. Again, it’s up to each member to decide how far they want to drive down PMG engagement in their firm. We appreciate that you are (hopefully) busy in the workplace and that has to be where your priorities lie. Small firms especially will struggle to cover all the subgroups that we have meeting regularly.
There will also be a number of surveys conducted through the year. These will be on a range of topics everything from: your satisfaction with your membership to what you think of the roads and rail and air services and where you are in your Net-Zero journeys.
We also contact you regularly with updates and useful opportunities which you may want to share with your colleagues.
It’s a cliché and we mentioned it above but you get out what you’re prepared to put in! At the very basic level by being a member of the PMG you can rest assured that your manufacturing interests are being well represented locally and regionally. If you have a particular opinion on something you can use it to help influence local policy.
The principal reason why people join is to network with other similar like-minded folk – professional business people with a manufacturing background. We offer endless opportunities to meet with colleagues from across the local area. We also keep you well informed. We are constantly inviting guest speakers who are experts in their particular field be it employment or health & safety law; resource efficiency matters or government grants.
In recent years we’ve hosted after-work events, often with an Inspirational Speaker to give us their valuable insights to pertinent topics in a relaxed social atmosphere. This is an excellent opportunity for networking too as we are joined by other members of the area’s business community.
Our membership is concentrated on Plymouth so most of our in-person meetings are held within the City. We also hold meetings via online platforms to enable engagement without travel.
We do have firms joining from across the Plymouth travel-to-work-area – anywhere from south-east Cornwall to West-Devon; the South Hams; Teignbridge, Torbay and Exeter so we will occasionally good practice sharing visits to these members’ sites too.
First and foremost we discuss what our members want to discuss. We recognise the need to make things relevant and timely. We often have external speakers attend who are specialists in their field. They might be professional service providers – lawyers or accountants or they might be from the FE or HE sector or senior officials or politicians from local or central government. Quite often we simply like to talk amongst ourselves because there is so much to learn from one another.
The PMG seeks to engage with members at the highest level. The main nominated lead representative for each member firm should be the MD or owner of the business. We do accept fellow senior directors as appropriate. Continuity of representation is important because it helps bond members together and to build trust amongst the group. Within the thematic subgroups each firm can nominate its own specialist(s). Sometimes within smaller firms this may still reside with the MD.
