Because Jayline is Closing: this is why I write this blog: DIY SOS Can you help?

 

Featured Image Professor Kim Cassidy press release Nottingham Trent University Professor Kim Cassidy, Professor of Services (Retail) Marketing and academic director of the National Retail Research Knowledge Exchange Centre (NRRKEC),

will be working with former Nottinghamshire County Council chief executive, Mick Burrows, and Timothy Richmond OBE, an experienced entrepreneur and Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. Kim is a retail expert from Nottingham Business School (NBS)and  has been appointed as an independent commissioner to help steer the growth of West Bridgford, a vibrant town centre in Nottinghamshire’s Rushcliffe borough.

Above, the lovely Jayline West Bridgford (website currently under construction).

Jayline is closing. Why? Rents? My partner came back from a meet up with some friends at the Test Match last night and asked me if I knew. No.

I started this blog because I love marketing and want to change the way stories about micro businesses are written, want to find ways of helping them write their own take on things and use interesting ways (letterpress and hand printing as well as online) to do it.

It’s a campaign really to help people reach more people, more of the time in an interesting way. I think that independents who come into West Bridgford should be nurtured and supported with an economic development plan that includes farmer’s markets, craft and design as well as services. Instead of when a restaurant closes down and the next restaurant coming into West Bridgford being an automatic thing there should be space to think: (here’s an imaginary conversation):

Rushcliffe “Ha…this independent restaurant has been so popular over many years that it’s created a whole new potential marketplace… the problem is, we’re only getting the big corporates in to fill the space. Why has it failed? Can we think about this space and the micro businesses that come into West Bridgford, the farmer’s market and the Craft Fairs, for example and maybe think about letting out this space as a semi permanent retail hive…you know the NTU Hive is phenomenally successful. Why don’t we look at how we can share best practice and nurture these businesses?”

Micro businesses ” Yes: you know there are so many of us, with so many stories about how things could be…we could support this initiative…we could really make this work”

Rushcliffe “We know, we’ve been thinking of ways to develop independent retailing for years but we forgot how much retailing knowledge and history is here in Rushcliffe. Sorry. Now Nottinghamshire’s a Unesco City of Literature we can really see the synergy in helping to write a new retailing story for our children and children’s children. When can we start?”

Micro businesses “As soon as you like. First of all, we need to see about Jayline?”

I was made redundant from a business development role in March last year and since then have gone back to brand work and developing a marketing project with micro businesses in Nottinghamshire. I run a blog: signsofanopencity which you’re reading now and am keen to write interesting stories that cut across life, work and issues in a constructive and capacity building way.

Here are some of the people I’ve met in the last couple of months. They are like you, full of life and hope and want a better tomorrow…….