Members of Weymouth and Portland Chamber of Commerce came together for its last business breakfast of the year.

The chamber met at Safewise Weymouth last Tuesday, where members were treated to a cooked breakfast.

Chamber president Andrew Knowles welcomed members before Safewise Rob Hattersley gave a presentation.

Mr Hattersley said: “I have been wanting to invite the chamber to this community facility.

“We’re an independent charity. We opened our Bournemouth centre in 1998 and have been working with the fire service here since 2012.”

He continued: “Our mission is to provide an immersive learning experience to put people in a real environment to give visitors the skills and confidence to live active, successful and safer lives in the community.

“We’re not the health and safety police. We want people to be more active, to do more, but to be aware of the risks.”

He went on to discuss how Safewise is not focused solely on children but on skills for life and that it’s looking to expand the programmes it offers.

Mr Hattersley said: “Here, we are very lucky with our two centres – the community centre and the learning village around the back. We have already got the road, but eventually we want a building with scenarios, including a shop to learn about budgeting, to reduce packaging and to encourage healthy eating.”

He added that there are plenty of opportunities for businesses to get involved, with some already making use of its meeting rooms and advertising on its streetscape.

Paul Appleby, director of EXO IT Services and Third Byte, then spoke to the chamber about cyber security.

He said the scammers were “everyday life people in a business with a room, tables, chairs and phones and they’re based all over the world”.

He added that they target “everyone, but especially bright young people who think they know they’re safe”.

Mr Appleby went onto share his top tips for keeping personal data safe, including saving files to the cloud so they are backed up.

He also suggested members invest in paid-for antivirus software, claiming those which are free, only have a 20 per cent success rate.

He added: “Small businesses give me more work to do than anyone else. If you’re a one- or two-man band and you get into trouble, give me a call. I’m happy to be helpful. Most people who don’t do IT don’t do it right.”

A tour was given by Sarah Easby, education officer at Safewise.