News
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The guest speaker at this year’s Hub-in-the-Pub was Mark Mitchell, of Mitchell Motor Group at Cheshire Oaks. Mark described his business career, his Christian calling and the links between them. His first entrepreneurial activity was selling a litter of hamsters for 10p each, moving on to selling repossessed motorbikes from his student digs in Leeds and, just a few years after graduating, opening his own petrol station. He now has a large car dealership with franchises for Lexus, Mazda and Skoda.
Mark’s Christian life also began to crystallise early, at a youth camp when aged 11. His faith has guided his business life since then, and he places great emphasis on supporting the family life of his staff. His website famously shows ‘at home with the family’ as the Sunday opening hours for the business. As he commented, ‘being a Christian in this business means you can make a mark.’ With his encouragement, many of his staff support World Vision, to sponsor children’s health and education in the developing world, and the company sponsors a number of staff each year to travel to Africa to see the work done at first hand.
Mark has numerous other interests and is Deputy Lieutenant of Cheshire and in 2019 will be High Sheriff of Cheshire. He supports Street Pastors of Chester, an organisation which provides practical support (friendship, conversation and bottles of water and flip-flops) in the early hours of the morning to people coming out of clubs and bars, perhaps a little the worse for wear. The audience at the Hub took a collection of £435 for this charity.
We would like to thank Mark for spending the evening with us, and also David Hughes and the Plough for providing a venue and sandwiches for the event.
