Businesses in and around Richmond have been invited to an open meeting following a spate of closures in the area.
The Original Richmond Business and Tourism Association (ORBTA) says it is calling the meeting to help local businesses tackle the challenges they currently face.
The meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 13 at 6.15pm at the King’s Head in Richmond.
This meeting will be open to all independent business owners in and around Richmond, not only ORBTA members.
Organisers say the meeting will include an opportunity for businesses to discuss their experience of the current trading environment and to share their best practice.
ORBTA chair, Paul Harrison, said: ‘The recent closures generated a lot of publicity about the challenges that small and independent businesses face, but we also recognise that a number of local businesses are doing well despite these challenges.
“What we want to do is identify what measures they have put in place to continue to thrive and to see how these can be shared with other businesses.”
He added: “We know that there is a lot of good practice in Richmond and we have had some new start-ups recently.
“We will be pro-active in getting businesses together to learn from one another. The meeting in September will be a good start and we hope that local independent businesses will come along to find out more.”
In the longer term, the association is calling for a clearer strategy from local government to support small and independent businesses in the Richmond area, recognising the significant contribution that they make to the local community and rural economy.
However, the organisation says it is also keen to support businesses as best it can in the short term.
ORBTA said the September meeting would kick-off with a 20-minute taster workshop on social media/digital marketing run by Purple Creative Studio.
Purple Creative Studio will follow up this session with a free new monthly drop-in series called the Purple Surgery to be held at Purple’s offices on the Zetland Estate.
Businesses will have a 15 minute slot to chat about any digital marketing topics including, search engine optimisation, email marketing, social media marketing, website design, website editing, digital advertising and content creation.
ORBTA is also launching a new initiative in October to show customers how supporting one local independent business means they are supporting all the others that supply them or work with them. It will prompt conversations around what a healthy local economy looks like.
Details will be shared at the September meeting.
If you run a successful business and are happy to share your story, please contact ORBTA on info@orginalrichmond.co.uk
