On the buses!
Everyone over 60 is now entitled to a free pass giving free travel anywhere by bus after 9.30am (9am in West Oxfordshire). This means that we can encourage people from Oxford (and Witney and elsewhere) to make a day trip to Charlbury, and hopefully enjoy themselves and spend some money when they are here.
I'm planning to get a feature in the Oxford Times to get this going, and I'm also looking at church groups and other clubs/societies in Oxford that would welcome a trip out. But we need some incentives to encourage people to come.
For example (and these are ONLY examples, I'm not telling anyone what to do!):
• free local walks map and town trail from the bookshop and extra discount off books and Ordnance Survey maps
• special fixed-price over-60s lunches at the pubs (maybe The Bull some days, The Bell on others?), perhaps using sausages/meat from New Barn and giving customers a New Barn flyer to encourage them to call down there -- perhaps first glass of wine free?
• free biscuits with your coffee at the Ramble On cafe
• £x off a perm or gents haircut
• free packet of crisps or carton of juice with any sandwich from the Good Food Shop
• other discounts: so much off a purchase of over £20 worth of meat from New Barn Farm Shop; so much off your picture framing; etc.
These are just my thoughts, and if you are interested in joining the promotion, you'll probably have quite different ideas of your own. That's great. I haven't come up with ideas for everyone, either, so be creative and think how you can get more visitors over the threshold of your premises.
Above all, PLEASE REPLY ASAP AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. This will only work if we all pull together.
The above has gone as an email to all the shops and pubs in Charlbury. I'll keep you informed as to progress...
(1) Immediate response from The Bell: "yes the Bell is definitely interested...will need a couple of days to finalise". Thanks Fergus!
(2) Peter at the gents hairdressers does an OAP discount on Thursdays.
(3) Free local walks map and a half-price copy of
Charming Charlbury from Evenlode Books.
Jon
CBC appoints tourism officer
CBC has appointed Brian Murray as its tourism officer.
We see tourism as an increasingly important aspect of the town's business future, particularly attracting walkers and cyclists who will use the refreshment facilities and do some shopping while they are here, walk round the town and maybe visit the museum.
Brian is a professional tour guide and has excellent connections in the industry, as well as being chairman of the Charlbury Society.
Oen of his first tasks will be to investigate getting the town "Walkers Are Welcome" status, a move which should attract publicity in the local press and further afield.
We're all in business together!
Do you repair cars for a living? Are you a 'cleaning lady'? A writer? A university lecturer? A company director? A website designer? A shop assistant? A builder? An electrician? Do you work in metal, stained glass or wood for a living? Let's be clear about one thing that all these people have in common: they're trading their time and skill for money, and that's how they keep the wolf from the door – because they are involved in business. They're all part of the local business community. Do any of these people work for you? Then you are a vital part of that business community too.
Even you pensioners are in business with the rest of us.
Charlbury Business Community has a paid-up membership of about 50. Yet there are probably 300 people in the town actually running their own businesses. Yes ma'm, those weeks and months you spend doing research in libraries, tutoring, lecturing, writing books and articles... you're in business like the rest of us.
You're a receptionist or a shop worker or a bus driver? That's right, you don't run a business of your own, but you are very dependent on those who do. You contribute crucially to their success and, in the end, you help them to justify your earnings. You're another essential member of the business community.
So Charlbury Business Community is an organisation more relevant to you and your life in Charlbury than you may realise. Members constantly try to find ways of making Charlbury more attractive as a place to work. We meet with and learn from other people in other places who face some of the same problems. We liaise with local authorities, hold meetings with their officers and discuss planning, business, transport, waste and tourism issues, and we learn what they can do for us. We produce the Charlbury visitors' leaflet. We offer a meeting point for people who otherwise work in isolation and can provide useful contacts. And the Christmas lights and market wouldn't happen if it weren't for us.
If we weren't here, you'd miss us.
We are consulting on plans for the Lighting Up Charlbury event in December. Sticking to the first Thursday of the month, this would mean December 4 for Lights On, the Craft Fair, Santa, music and shopping.
There would be a second late-night shopping evening on Thursday December 18.
Please let us know if these dates clash with anything you have planned.
Charlbury Business Community (CBC) should have a bigger say in the future of the town, it was agreed on March 12 at a meeting of representatives of CBC and the Town Council. The CBC will prepare its own submissions as part of the 'Local Development Framework', which replaces the Local Plan as the planning 'bible' for the area.
It is also seeking to work with the Cotswold Inter-Regional Partnership, a tourism and economy focused body which crosses local authority boundaries. There is potential for promoting Charlbury as a centre for appropriate tourism in West Oxfordshire and the Evenlode Valley. If a site could be agreed, there was agreement on the need for a new car park in the town,
(1) to relieve pressure on the Spendlove site,
(2) to provide parking for people working in the town (or visiting businesses here), and
(3) as the site of an interpretation centre indicating the walks in and from the town and providing information on local history and wildlife.
At present the visitor potential of the town is very underdeveloped. A County Council tourist map of the county doesn't even show Charlbury, and the list of museums fails to mention Charlbury Museum. With friends like that, who needs enemies?!
The CBC welcomes your feedback and comments.
The Charlbury Farmers Market is held on the Playing Close (opposite the Co-op), four times a year...
Forthcoming markets are as follows:
14 June 2008
13 September 2008
13 December 2008
Always a great opportunity to catch up with local friends and buy local(ish) produce. And don't forget to pop down into the "old part of town" for items from the gift shop (Cotswold Frames), the Good Food Shop, the pharmacy, the post office, the newsagents, the bookshop and even a coffee from the Ramble On Cafe.
Stallholders are from the Thames Valley Farmers' Market Co-operative and Charlbury's market is organised locally by Geoff Burroughs, Nick Potter, and Roger Watts. For more info, contact Roger on 01608 811559
If there is one thing we've learnt from the Christmas markets and 'open shops' evenings last December, it's that we need to prepare even earlier.
We're looking into the question of lights: since most of the lights on sale nowadays are LED and decidedly blue, we have problems maintaining the white (or slightly yellow) appearance of Charlbury's lights that has become traditional. We can't afford to buy everyone an 'approved' set of lights, let alone make them put them up!
But we can try and get more people to put up brackets and take trees. Although about 80 people put up lit trees last Christmas, there were some notable gaps, especially in Church Street where the town's patriotism in this respect runs a bit thin. We'll be sending information round much earlier this year, and encouraging more people to take brackets. They're £25 apiece but are very well made and last for ever.
It would be good to have more townsfolk among the stallholders too. It would be logical for us to be working with members on this, but not a single craftsperson or artist is a member of the Business Community. Maybe it is time some of you joined and had your say. Most shops are members and can take part in the planning process.
Oxfordshire Town Chambers Network initiatives
Our first New Year project is to start to develop a series of 'How to...' guides by drawing on the expertise and experience within the Network of tackling various challenges.
This project has kindly been funded via Oxfordshire County Council's small grants fund. The initial list of subjects for the guides is:
· plastic bag-free towns
· shoppers'/visitors' guide
· schools and business links
· radio ad campaigns
· town business festivals and events
· communication e.g. websites, email contacts, newsletters, pr
· business networking groups
· brown signs
...but we are very happy for you to suggest others.
The process would be to gather from those of you with experience of delivering/working on these kinds of projects some dos and don'ts (by meeting/calling/exchanging emails) and put them together in a series of easy-to-read, concise guides which we will then circulate to other members who might be interested in delivering such a project. They'll be in electronic format so that we can update them in the light of ongoing experience.
If you would like to offer your expertise on one of the above subjects or have another subject you think it would be of value to fellow groups to do a guide on, please let us know.
Click here to email Iain Nicholson at the Oxfordshire Town Chambers Network.
