A BEAUTIFUL DAY

Hello everyone

What a lovely weekend.  I took part in a wedding fayre yesterday and the footfall was low compared to previous fayres at the venue.  Sunny, warm weather is rare at this time of year, so people were obviously making the most of it.  Everything in the garden is growing so fast at the moment and blossoming much earlier than usual, I think spring has definitely sprung.

Just under four weeks to the first event and the raffle prize list is growing nicely.  In addition to prizes donated by local Godalming businesses, there will be L'Occitane, Molten Brown and Yankee candle goodies as well as handmade items.  I love candles, so might just have to buy a raffle ticket myself.

Getting an 'On the day' sheet ready to send out to stallholders, producing the tea/coffee vouchers and even better, I have produced the Surrey Independent Markets website: I used the Wix free website package and purchased the domain name, but then found to  link the name to my website I had to pay for hosting.  It is a good deal and the after-sales support has been brilliant - I had a few problems soritng everything out as I seemed to have created several websites!  Er, not too sure how that happened.  The website address is:

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

Do have a look - it is in the early stages now, but I plan to have details of all participating stallholders on there as soon as possible.

I have been trying to recruit a candle-maker/seller, face-painter and a musician for the first Godalming event.  Despite putting out requests on Facebook, Twitter and Streetlife I have not had any replies at all - I can only assume they are either so busy they are not interested or don't use social medial.   Such a shame as I think it would be so lovely to have them on board.

A quick post this week as still lots to do for the first event.  Don't forget to leave a comment and also your website link if you are a stall holder - all helps you get picked up in the rankings.

'See' you next week.

Jill

MOVING FORWARD

Hello everyone

I hope you have had a good week.  We have had some very odd weather here recently; apart from the now normal heavy rain, we had what appeared to be a mini-tornado yesterday!   Winds that bent trees over, heavy rain followed by calm.  Very odd.  Looks like the weather this week is going to be similar, but with some snow to break things up!

I have spent a lot of time this week contacting previous and new stallholders with details of this year's events in Godalming Borough Hall  and I am pleased to say that I already have bookings for all six of the events.  It was a little nerve-racking really because this is the second change of ownership of this business in a year and understandably people do wonder what the future will bring.  Thank you to those of you that have already booked, I will be in touch with each of you in the next week to confirm details.

Marketing and promotion of the events has begun: I have been promoting the events on Twitter and Facebook this week to attract both new stallholders and customers.  All Godalming events have been listed on Stallfinder and also on UK Craft Fairs; both websites are visited by customers looking for fairs to visit and by stallholders looking for events to take part in.

I am in the process of contacting local shops and businesses in Godalming to see if they will support the markets by way of advertising.  This could be by allowing me to place a poster in their shop window, having leaflets on their sales counters or other ways of advertising that will be mutually beneficial to the markets and the businesses.

One final new action this week is that along with a new owner, I have changed the name of the event company: as you know originally it was called Godalming Independent Market, then Independent Market and I am changing it to Surrey Independent Markets.  I know Anna wanted to add other venues to the list of markets and as I want to continue with this, I felt Surrey needed to be included in the name as the markets will be held in this county (although if great venues over the borders seem ideal, I will certainly check them out).  I am in the process of setting up a new website for Surrey Independent Markets and will post details on here once that is complete.

That's all for this week.  Don't forget to contact me if you would like to be a guest blogger on here - it is free and another way to promote your company, new product or range and freebies are always welcome.

Have a good week.

Jill