NEARLY THERE

Hello everyone

Hard to believe this time next week we will have completed the first Godalming Independent Market of this year.  Still lots to do, and the butterflies are beginning to take up residence in my stomach.

As well has having over 30 fantastic stallholders at the event, there are lots of great things taking place on the day including face-painting by Artyfacial and balloon modelling by Mr Magic.  Some great news, the Mayor and Mayoress of Godalming will be visiting the event with their daughter at 11.30 am.  It will be so good to have them there and I am sure if will encourage lots of new visitors to join us.

Posters and flyers are still being distributed and this morning I put up the brand new colourful banner outside of the Godalming Borough Hall:

As the hall is immediately opposite Waitrose's car park which is also used by people going into the town centre,  the banner should create a lot of interest.

I have advertisement in Wednesday's edition of the Surrey Mirror and Friday's edition of the Surrey Advertiser.  Despite this being an online world, many people do not use the Internet and if they do they do not always use it looking for events to attend, so newspapers are a great place to let people know about the GIM events.

I was in Godalming during the week dropping off flyers to shops and was so pleased to meet Poppylocke who works in the Godalming Art shop.  Poppylocke was the first blog follower here and it was great to meet you and looking forward to seeing you next Saturday.

It's back to the grindstone now: floor plan to finalise, flyers to be posted, bookings to confirm for the remaining events this year, as well as a million and one other things that I have probably forgotten.

If you read this blog do come along to next Saturday's event, it is going to be a lot of fun and there will be so many fabulous things to buy.

Jill

WHERE ARE THE CLOWNS?

Hello everyone

I know it is an odd title and I haven't really been looking for clowns, but I have been looking for entertainers to take part in the April event.  Easy peasy you would think?  No, not at all - out of the six I have contacted so far, only three have replied.  I have to assume they are so busy they are not interested, or just can't be bothered?  Very disappointing really.  The good news is that one of the entertainers that did reply is the one I have booked - so not all disappointment really.

The Surrey Independent Markets website is now up and running and contains details of all of the stallholders taking part in the April event:

http://www.surreyindependentmarkets.co.uk/

Flyers and posters have been sent out to all stallholders who are helping with promotion.  Flyers and posters are currently being distributed/displayed in Chilworth and they have already been distributed in Mytchett.  Over the next two weeks more 'paper advertising' will take place in Compton, Farncombe, Binscombe, Shackleford, Godalming and Normandy.  I am in the process of preparing an advertisement for the Surrey Advertiser which will go out on the Friday prior to the event.   I will also be visiting shops in Godalming and Farncombe town centres asking them to display a poster in their windows and hand out flyers to their customers.  This, together with the flyers taken by helpful friends and the stallholders, means appx 5,000 flyers will have been distributed.  Wouldn't it be lovely if all recipients of the flyers came to the April event?  Okay, half of that number will be fine as 4,500 might be rather cramped in the Borough Hall.

Back to the website now as I am going to being adding photographs of the April event stallholder's work over the next week or so.  As all you website owners know, building your site is a long process - worth it in the end though.

Have a great week everyone - if you would like to be a guest blogger, please let me know.  If you live locally to the Godalming events and would be happy to help hand out some flyers for us, please get in touch.

Jill