In the lead up to Christmas you may have seen and heard the phrases shop small and shop local all over the place on social media. If so, did you wonder what they meant?
Well, in this blog I’ll explain what they mean to me. I’ll also show what a real difference you can make with where and how you spend your hard earned pennies, especially during this pandemic period – and our emergence from lockdown.
Shopping small and local matters as much now as it did at Christmas.
What makes your high street unique
What makes your high street yours, unique and memorable? It’s the independent shops, cafes and hairdressers where you get personalised service. Where they know your name and you can find that gift that you can’t get anywhere else. They make customer service a priority. Such businesses arranged click and collect during the lockdowns. They adapt to situations because they listen to their customers every day.
Who remembers heading to Da Paolo’s deli for dried pasta during the first lockdown because you knew they would always have some? Or grabbing a take-away coffee from Baristocats because it tastes so good. And you always have a little chat too even with your mask on.
DaPaolo Italian Del on Commercial Road
Well, these wonderful places also use local suppliers whose own business relies on the sales generated through these high street outlets. They may be home-based makers. Or they might have a small workshop somewhere and supplying a box or two of products on a regular basis enables their business to develop and expand in new directions.
From little acorns …
All sorts of things can build up from these small beginnings.My own business, dona B drawings, has benefitted from the support of the Central Library Shop in Swindon.
Since closing for the first lockdown they have been unable to order any more stock from me. It’s been quite a blow. But I’ve concentrated on increasing my online profile and have been lucky to get through last year with reasonable success.
Speaking of little acorns, for independent businesses in general, but for artists in particular, a big shop small-shop local mantra grew from the Just a Card movement. JUST A CARD is a grassroots campaign on a mission to encourage people to support, value and buy from artists, makers, independent shops and small businesses. Every sale, even just a card, is vital to their prosperity and survival.
Avoiding Amazon if you can
We all know that Amazon is there and wants to solve all our shopping needs – and sometimes needs must for us all. But, if you spend a little extra time you can find wonderful independent things online during the lockdown and often cheaper than you think. These are the sorts of gifts that people will remember receiving because they’ll never have seen them before.
So, shopping small and shopping local has wide-reaching benefits – for you as a customer, the local economy, the community, the local high street and more. Every sale, even a mere a card, is vital to someone’s prosperity and survival.
Top tips for shopping local
Find your locals When you’re out and about take notice of the tiny shops you often walk past and look them up online when you get home. If you can do pop along to local markets and community events. Check out any local Facebook pages or friends feeds as there will often be some suggested gems there. Use Not on the High Street or Etsy as a replacement for Google. These sites are great but do charge fees to the makers so look them up on there and then go to their own websites where they make more from your purchase.
2. Shop early Avoid pinch points in demand and delivery, reducing stress for you and the seller. So if you have a birthday coming up don’t leave things too late and shop from September for Christmas if you can.
3. Contact them If you’re not sure of the process or the options or delivery times get in touch and you’ll get all the information you need.
4. Shop often If you can please do return to shop with them again. That will make a real difference to their business and confidence. Build a shopping relationship with them which you definitely won’t find on Amazon.
5. Follow them Find them on social media and follow them, like and comment on their posts and share the ones you can. Put product reviews online and share the secret amongst your friends and family. If they have a Google listing leave feedback on there too. Or drop them a message to say how happy you were with their service. All that is a huge help and makes you feel good too.
6. Join them There’ll often be special offers or early access to new products or event bookings.
To get you started
And finally, to get you started, why not check out all the artists on the Swindon Open Studios website. They would love to hear from you having missed out on the open studios event last year. Fingers crossed for 2021!
And there’s more. There’s a Swindon Gift Market on Facebook too where you can reach out to lots of local creatives who can produce customised things just for you.
I’m hoping there might be a chance to arrange a Christmas pop-up shop in Swindon this year to enable you to find lots of lovely local things all in one place.
So then – making a woody wild rumpus – this one is for all you nature lovers out there. Not so much yours truly then. I like the idea that nature is there – but am much less keen on engaging with it. As I often say – had I wanted to swab my decking so much (to get the bird poo of it) I’d have joined the navy. Anyway … moving on …
Wild Rumpus CIC is a social enterprise producing large scale outdoor arts events, most often in wild natural landscapes. We believe that when audiences engage together in the highest quality arts in the great outdoors, something quite amazing can happen.
… Further, we believe that arts and culture have a unique role to play in helping people to gain new perspectives on the existential threat posed to civilisation by the loss of biodiversity on a level never witnessed before.
Celebrate England’s Urban Forests With #YourForest
A new, exciting project about urban forests, woodlands and parks has just launched across England.
And Swindon is one of the areas the project is looking at. It’s brought together a network of community radio stations throughout England to broadcast a special series about urban forests and trees. All looking at how important these green areas to communities living in and around towns and cities.
You can listen to the series as it goes out, via their website – https://wildrumpus.org.uk/yourforest/. Or tune into your local radio station, Swindon 105.5, for more info.
As part of the project, Wild Rumpus are creating a unique sound map of recordings from local parks, woods or forests.
And they’re inviting YOU to get involved. They want you to go to your local area of trees, record a minute of sounds on your phone and then submit it to be part of the map.
‘Be transported into the heart of urban forests and woodlands in England through sounds recorded by the communities who live in and around them.
What does your local woodland, forest or tree-lined park sound like? What do you love about it? Go to your favourite spot – or discover a new one. And use your phone to record a minute of the sounds you hear.
Research shows that even just listening to the sounds of nature can have a positive effect on well-being and mood. Explore the sounds of nature from the comfort of home by clicking on a pin on the map.’
Data blogger makes daily sense of Covid for Swindon residents
Swindonian Clarifying Covid Data
The stream of numbers and graphs related to the Covid-19 pandemichas been confusing. But members of three Swindon Facebook groups have benefitted from Swindonian Craig’s efforts to clarify Covid data for them.
For almost 12 months, Craig Alexander’s updates have attracted an increasing following amongst those keen to make sense of the data soup and flood of commentary served up by different mass media sources.
Italian resident, but Swindon-born and raised, Craig attended Ferndale Infants and Juniors. He then went to Moredon Secondary and Hreod Burna Senior High schools. Craig is putting to excellent use his university background in economics, statistics and quantitative archaeology. With it he turns Covid infection rates into maps, tables and graphs. With those graphs he tracks the level of virus infections. And that gets a better picture of the local situation.
Craig has posted his contributions daily on the West Swindon Community Facebook page since early April 2020. And also, in more recent months, on Facebook’s Swindon Community Notice Board and the new Swindon Social Society Page.
Craig Alexander
The Italian job
Covid-19 hit Italy hard in February and March 2020. They went into lockdown weeks earlier than Britain. That meant Craig had time on his hands to apply his data and mapping skills in a new direction.
He said: ‘I’ve been living in Brescia for about a decade. During the early phases of the pandemic it was easy, through friends in Italian local government, to get access to data about new cases. I’ve been analysing and mapping data for 30 years. Pandemics are inherently spatial so it seemed sensible to map the spread of the virus”. Craig then discovered similar spatial data on the pandemic for England at coronavirus.data.gov.uk.
So he set about mapping the spread both for national and local levels.
A chance encounter
Through a chance online meeting with Roger Ogle, founder of Swindon Link magazine, Craig found an opportunity to share his pandemic analyses with other Swindonians.
He currently provides daily charts of new cases and cumulative cases for Swindon local authority. And, alongside that, more granular maps of data on moving seven-day windows of cases at the Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA). That’s an area of land defined for Census purposes that tends to house about 7,200 people.
Roger Ogle, who set up the West Swindon Community Facebook page more than four years ago, said: Craig’s voluntary commitment to helping people understand local levels of infection has been remarkable. During a confusing and stressful year it’s been even more so. His maps, graphs and tables, along with short analytical commentary, have enlightened group members. To do this every day since early April last year has been amazing.’
To interview Craig Alexander for press, radio, TV and online, contact him at: ArchaeoDataCam@gmail.com
Latest news from the Save the Oasis Campaign Council Meeting Accepts Labour Group’s Oasis Motion
26th March 2021
Council Meeting Accepts Oasis Motion At last night’s Full Council meeting, Labour put forward a motion. The motion requested that the Council leader, Cllr David Renard, work with the iconic leisure centre’s current owners to produce a report detailing a full building and works survey. The report would include costs for work needed. The Conservative administration accepted the motion and voted for it with one small amendment. The Council leader now has three months to produce said report. Failure so to do means he has to return to Full Council to explain why.
Needless to say, the Save the Oasis campaign is full of delight at the passing of this motion. It’s clear to us that this should have happened months ago but we’re overjoyed that it’s going to happen at last. It’s our sincere our hope that a full report into the state of the Oasis will allow all parties to work out the merits, or otherwise, of the various options.
As a campaign group, we couldn’t be more pleased with the positivity that emerged in the Full Council meeting. In particular when this has not always been the case.
We received much praise for our campaign and the steps we’ve taken to speak to engineers about how to save the original dome. While not wanting to get too excited, it feels like a clear and positive shift in direction for the town’s administration. They appear to now be receptive to the idea of retaining the landmark dome.
The campaign doesn’t view the dome andthe Oasisthrough sentimentality and rose-tinted glasses alone. We’re all-too aware of the potential difficulties but also feel that sustainable solutions aren’t impossible. We ask only that the council exhaust all such possibilities before taking any drastic decisions.
Last night’s unanimous acceptance, by the current administration, of the Labour group’s motion is, we feel, a big step in the right direction.
SWINDON ENTREPRENEUR AND CHARITY FOUNDER JOINS SOCIAL ENTERPRISE SUPPORTING YOUNG PEOPLE
Fiona Simpson Joins Platform Project Charity founder, Fiona Simpson, couldn’t be more thrilled to have joined the Swindon-based social enterprise The Platform Project. She’ll be support young people aged 13-21 to find work or take their next steps in life.
Fiona joined The Platform Project recently as a youth development manager on a part-time basis thanks to several new funding grants. Fiona has worked with young people in various roles, including co-founding a charitable foundation in 2016.
She explained: ‘I’m so fortunate to get the offer of a role working with Sadie at The Platform Project. It allows me the opportunity to share my passion for making a difference to the lives of young people. I’m so inspired by what The Platform Project has achieved so far.’
About Fiona’s new role
Fiona’s new role will help with the overall development of the internship programme. That’s where young people aged 16-21 attend the projects “training workplace” to do developmental work-experience.
The interns rotate around different roles and projects. They include a youth magazine, a digital media marketing agency, and even a self-employment project. They develop skills including:
Using Microsoft Teams
Pitching and presenting
Social media management
Website design
Videography
Client liaison
Time and project management all whilst working alongside industry professionals from partner organisations.
The practical, hands-on experiences help build CVs and employability skills. It also offers the opportunity for the interns to try out different career roles before they’re paired up with a mentor to help broker their next steps on the career ladder. This could include moving into work or even setting up their own business.
Fiona said: ‘Almost 90% of the students on the internship programme go straight into employment or further education. That happens because the range of experiences on offer focuses on getting them work ready.
‘But, if they don’t get employment at once, they ‘ll get further mentoring support. That support will guide them into an employment placement. And they all have the ability to earn their own self-employed income as well. Our programme aims to produce professionals who are as pandemic-proof as possible!’
Sadie Sharp and the Platform Project
Sadie Sharp, founder and managing director of The Platform Project said:
‘We’ve grown so fast since we launched. We’ve only been able to achieve that growth because we’ve had the right people working with us. The scale of the issues for young people around employability and creating opportunities has never been greater after Covid19. And we are keen, with Fiona’s appointment, to take our youth enterprise projects to more schools to help tackle the challenges presented by the pandemic.’
To find out more about The Platform Project internships, or to become an employer partners, visit: www.PlatformProject.co.uk
