
Halloween, Bats and Tweetchat?
I think it might be Halloween soon… The Horsefair event has always been popular, but the organisers have this year extended the fun across the town. See posters around town and a Wisbech Witch poster in participating shops so on Saturday, between 3pm and 5pm, bring your goody bags for trick-or-treating! You can then climb Spider Mountain, see Creepy Creatures and don’t forget to ask for a balloon model – what will you ask for? I’d go for a bat! We’ve been on a couple of bat evenings this year, part of the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT) events. They are an organisation looking after some of our almost-redundant churches, using them for alternative events. There’s a bat hunt on all this week at St Nicholas’ Chapel, St Ann’s Street, King’s Lynn. It’s a fun children’s activity (daytime, so no actual bats, don’t worry!) It’s a good way to see an unusual building and to help keep all these community buildings going. Have a look at the CCT’s website and find one local to you, I went to an event (with live bats!) in Parson Drove recently, for example.
I found out about the CCT via Twitter which I use for news, events, sharing ideas and more. It works really well if you follow the right people.
Small businesses can find it useful to connect with others like them (geographically and within their areas of expertise), and, as one of the reasons I write this column is to support and promote local independent retailers and creative people, I recently ran the first Fenland online chat (called a Tweetchat) where we all send tweets with the same “hashtag” in it – in our case #fenshour – and then when we search for #fenshour we can see everyone’s tweets and learn more about each other. It can be used for direct marketing, but it works well for making connections and then finding ways to work together. Individuals are welcome too, to find out about local trades, people and places so encouraging a “circular economy” – benefiting the local area and therefore yourself.
If you don’t understand Twitter but would like to, look out for my classes, it’s fun and easy, honest!
Red Barn Creative – supporting indie businesses and creative individuals – www.RedBarnCreative.org.uk