Hi! Creating this so we can all share and discuss ideas for driving business on Last Fridays, Ladies NIght Out. Annual Sidewalk Sale, Small Business Saturday as well as Every Day Things We Can All Do To Support One Another. A pro-active forum where we're helping and assisting, not just complaining. The town and HAC can only do so much. Let's be in community together! I'm sorry if this doesn't include other parts of Hillsborough...we need focused forums to drive business to all parts of town. So if you want to begin that forum, I encourage you to do so and I'll join in there as well.
To get this started, I'll just let folks know that South Churton Street and Margaret Lane retailers met earlier this week to discuss how to get more action going on our blocks during Last Fridays because for the past several years its pretty dead. Folks stay on the North Side of the street where events and vendors are set up on the old courthouse lawn and then cross over at the corner of Churton and King to get to the bars and art galleries on North Churton and West King. WE didn't meet by ourselves to begin a new group or dis-include anyone. We were at the bigger merchant meeting the week before and thought we'd meet just to work on Last Fridays as a smaller group because it seems so hard to get folks to attend the merchant meetings (for many reasons...casting no negativity here). BUT, we invite you to do this with too!! If we all do it, I think more retail will find themselves busy again on Last Fridays, not just the galleries.
We decided:
To all be open 5 - 8 on the mail Last Friday May thru October. We will make Last Fridays an all day affair for our shops with a Last Friday theme from open until close on those Fridays rather than just what the town and HAC promotes. (Some businesses will remain open until 9 pm as well, but 8 pm all agreed to.)
To put things out front of our businesses on Last Fridays to make the street look lively and open and excited to invite people in.
To post more on Social Media and cross post and tag each other sharing each others specials and happenings for Last Fridays.
To check in here on this Forum often (bi-weekly) to post what is on-going with our businesses so we can join in, share, and/or assist each other.
To read more about the specifics of what we're doing, I've put it all below:
We all decided we will be open on all the regularly supported Last Fridays -- May - October -- and do things outside of our shops to make our blocks look alive. A table with balloons and flowers and info on our shop or a table with activities for kids or sidewalk chalk for kids to draw or a table or rack of clothes...we will all make our side of the street look festive and welcoming. This includes Anne & Arthur, Margaret Lane Gallery, ReInvintaged, Hillsborough Wine Shop, Vesta, Carlisle & Linny, Saratoga Grill, and 108 Churton. We are also looking into flags that we put out just for the day and night. We have Margaret Lane Gallery to draw people just coming for the art, and we now have The Rookery which I hope will be of help, but we don't have all the galleries and clustered restaurants like North Churton and West King. We hope all might want to make their places look festive and many already do. But many of us on South Churton, including my own shop, stopped opening on Last Friday as it was a waste of money and time. We've all decided to give it another shot and see if we can't build up more activity this year. Our hope is it will help not only our block but everyone open and involved with Last Fridays.
We're going to ask permission of the town to let us put up magnetic sandwich signs at W Margaret & Churton and W King and Churton with info on our businesses and arrows letting folks know our specials for the night and to come check us out. If this is something all the businesses would like to participate in, then we need to all band together to buy the boards and volunteer for putting these up each month at the beginning and end of each night. We're not trying to dis-include anyone, so chime in if you want to do this to.
In addition, we're all going to do more social media supporting one another. So if Dual Supply posts a thing they're doing for Last Friday and they send it to me or tag me in their post, I'll reshare it. Likewise, if I tag Anne & Arthur or Melissa Designer Jewelry, they'll reshare my post. ideally, we can all tag each other on all of our events and specials and every day postings and share each other's posts and show a outward affinity and respect for each other that shows all our client bases we want to support our community at large. I'm not pretending any of this is easy, but taking part in this will help us all. (If you do not know how to use FB or IG to post and cross post and tag, just reach out and we can help you--it's hard at first but I promise it gets easier. But it does take at least 20 minutes a day.)
Okay, that's it for now.
Town budget cuts and chamber employee shortages mean that we really all have to get reinvolved again. We can't be just about our own shops if we want Hillsborough to shine. We don't have time to shop, dine, or drink at each other's establishments as we're all bogged down in owning our own businesses. But we can try these other, small things that night create a bigger pie and larger piece of that pie for all of us.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to everyone commenting and chiming in. And echo chamber helps nothing. It just creates another void.
Kind regards,
Lindsley
Thank you for the great first meeting! I'll keep brainstorming and we'll get things rolling!
Thank you for getting everything started! Please don't forget 108 Churton! A Little Something is not only not on our block, but they are closed. 108 Churton (Donna and Jane) appreciates all your efforts!
If we are tagging each other, it would be helpful to know -- and have in one place -- everyone's social media tags. And have them in a way they can be cut and pasted into posts instead of having to be individually typed in. I wonder if we can set something like that up under the resources tab.