Unofficial support your East Dulwich business week

[Mark]

OK, what do people think of this:

An unofficial week in May where everyone uses only East Dulwich businesses (where possible)

Instead of going to Sainsburys etc you make a bit of an effort and just use the local shops.

Instead of going uptown to buy presents you walk to some of the local shops and give them a go.

Try out local shops you've never been into before (I might stick my head in the Irish shop just to see what it's like)

Instead of meeting your friends in the Westend, get them down to East Dulwich for a night out.

You don't use you car to pop to the shops. Walk and say hi to people on the way.

Try out a local restaurant you've never been to before, or go back to that one you had a bad experience at two years ago.

I have to admit that this idea has come about because of some unnecessary slagging off of local businesses and individuals on this forum that got out of hand and I feel bad about it and would like to try and make amends. Perhaps we could make it the 7-13 May, the week before the festival fair so we could discuss our findings at the fair.

There's no planning or preparation required and it's free. It's unofficial although if local businesses would like to run promotions for that week they're more that welcome to promote them on this site for free.

What do people think?

[TillieTrotter]

Really nice idea Mark, although I dont feel that people were being deliberately horrid to local business owners per se, they have got to take the rough with the smooth after all. I for one am up for your suggestion.(tu)

[Huguenot]

I'd do it after the fair, so we can promote it during the fair? We could put a flipchart up with the idea, and an invitation to visitors to the stall to sign up below...

[georgia]

I agree that some of the comments and language used has been a little over-the-top on some occasions.

I would be up for this as well - as we are meeting up for drinks on the 11th it might be good to see if any of the local business people wanted to join us so they can see what nice people we are really :)

[Ultraconsultancy]

Top idea Mark, and May is a good time for these kind of local focus weeks.

I'd say do it informally this year and get to work in February next year for a unified, co-promoted, late spring sales pitch.

Does ED have a Traders Association? Surveying and colating something a basic as a SWOT analysis can be enormously useful.

[Mark]

Thanks Tillie an Co. There will always be criticism at companies and their staff especially local ones that have face to face dealings and the forum's an easy place to vent that criticism behind the safety of the internet. Please, I ask people not to discuss this recent issue of criticism even if they think they're right and even if they think it's in jest. Sleeping dogs and all that.

Anyway this forum was created to be a happy place for the community and this thread is not about what's gone on, it's about raising the profile of all the local companies and what they have to offer for a week in May.

[SeanMacGabhann]

I like the original idea Mark and some of the subsequent suggestions - it's not a community if it's one way traffic is it?

Who knows, one of us might decide to open up a business around here and then we'd see how difficult it is so I'm all for supporting them. To be fair I always said if a decent butcher opened up I would only use local shops and I have pretty much managed that in the last 2 years (with maybe like 2 or 3 days excepted) but that still leaves loads of room for me to try places I haven't for ages

[spymum]

Kudos Mark, that is a brilliant idea.

I'm already buying things on the North Cross road and LL (the Arterie, gadgets from Moo two and the new Cook shop, harissa from EDD, ballet flats - Stella b, clothes and make up - from ED and Dr Boo, and other 'girly' stuff) where there is a choice between 'up West' and local. Local wins - people slag off the 'boutiquey' shops, but these are small businesses run by regular folk and I want them to flourish. Same goes for the pharmacy, the card shop, the cafes and restaurants - all of them really.

We are really lucky to have a 'proper' high street, where we can actually have mutual relationships and discourse with the shop owners - so lets get behind it!

spymum

(Blog: Posh Mum)

[Mark]

perhaps we could create some signs for the festival that say things like:

"Did you know on and around Lordship Lane at 6pm on a weekday you can buy:

pens, toys, furniture, plumbing supplies etc etc"

[bawdy-nan]

Sounds like a good idea.

I do it anyway.

There's very little I can't get in ED and, in the main, the shops and people who work in them are pleasant, knowledgeable and help me expand my culinary horizons. We do a Sainsburys shop about once a month for enormous heavy things and splash out on a cab.

Maybe the local businesses would like to do a joint promotion - with a treasure hunt card to be stamped or something like that

[Jeremy]

As I've pointed out before, local shops are all well and good, but it's not always possible to make use of them if you don't work in the area. However, this could work if local businesses agree to stay open until maybe 7 or 8 pm for the week.

[Mark]

I agree Jeremy, perhaps that's something that the shop keepers could learn from us

[blinder999]

does anyone know anything about those 'local currency' schemes - some sort of tokens/money that can only be used in local shops?

[bawdy-nan]

Blimey blinder - are you proposing the independent state of east dulwich?

[Nero]

Perhaps a job lot of jute bags could be got to be given to shoppers/traders to try to reduce the use of placcy bags? Nero

[bawdy-nan]

Or why not another week during which we all ask ourselves "do I really need to buy it". Maybe we could all do something to invest in the local community that doesn't involve spending money - I'm sure there are plenty of community resources that could do with a lick of paint, bloody good tidy up, guerilla gardening? Maybe the good traders of SE22 would like to support such an initiative?

[snorky]

bawdy-nan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Or why not another week during which we all ask

> ourselves "do I really need to buy it". Maybe we

> could all do something to invest in the local

> community that doesn't involve spending money -

> I'm sure there are plenty of community resources

> that could do with a lick of paint, bloody good

> tidy up, guerilla gardening? Maybe the good

> traders of SE22 would like to support such an

> initiative?

Agreed.

lets not get caught up in this facile greedy spending circus that seems to dominate peoples lives . Do you really need that Alessi corkscrew for ?35 ?

Buy a bush

paint a wall

plant some insect attracting plants

Use that ?35 in a more useful way

even be selfish

A designer corkscrew , contrary to popular opinion, does not make you a more rounded and likeable person - its just means you have fallen for the hype and the marketing.

go to Lidl. Buy a ?3.99 corkscrew and with the spare ?31, buy a case of acceptable Chilan red to go with it.

a far better investment .

[Ko]

It would be great if Somerfield was better stocked in the evenings/Sundays. If you go at either of these times, a lot of things are sold out.

Having said that, Somerfield is much, much better since the revamp.

I'm all for supporting local business. LL has a great variety of shops.

[Jamie]

Great idea, mostly try to do this anyway.

Maybe someone could open up an evening shop combining SMB, Cheese Shop, small gifts section and some other items. Open only from 6pm - Midnight every day?

[Jeremy]

Jamie, I think that a once a week "late opening night" along LL would be a more practical idea...

[monica]

Southwark council have money in their coffers for reinvesting in areas of southwark.East Dulwich have ?5000 at their disposal to help enhance the local area.So for instance Bellenden area put the money into hanging baskets cleaning up the bellenden area by painting public areas,as its already been suggested here.

LL do have a traders association and all the traders have a good relationship with each other.

Ideas always bounce back between the traders about how to enhance the community and they do have schemes going on,although usually around xmas.

Traders also encourage somerfields to join in with local initiatives and they do join in as and when.

[Ultraconsultancy]

A locally agreed late night is a top idea - most places find Thursday gets the best results.

If it reaches a tipping point it then becomes somewhere people go to as the destination for their mid-week top up; nothing succeeds like success!

If you have someone around who can do a bit of local rag PR [what? in ED?] it is easy as pie to punt it to the locality as a good news story.

Apologies for the slightly mixed metaphors.

[Amelie]

I suspect that the reason the shops on Lordship Lane do not open until 7 or 8 is that their licenses and/or leases don't permit them to.

[Ultraconsultancy]

Amelie - that would surprise and shock me. Do you know if this is true?

[Amelie]

I don't know it for a fact but most licenses and/or leases for commercial premises have quite specific do's and dont's in them and it is not uncommon for opening hours to be included, premises leased by commercial or public landlords do this. If someone from the LL traders reads this perhaps they could shed some light on the lack of a late-opening shopping night. I have also noticed that LL is always nearly completely closed for business on bank holidays and New Year's Day, whereas in Central London these are some of the busiest shopping days around; is this through local choice or some sort of stipulation?