Marketing Charlbury

Wed 25 Feb 2015, 09:58

There hasn't been a date set yet for a second meeting but we said we'd have one around a month after the first - i.e. mid-March. I've been (pleasantly) overwhelmed by the number of people asking to be involved so am currently setting up a discussion mailing list to keep it in some sort of order!

Wed 25 Feb 2015, 08:50

The Charlbury Neighbourhood Forum, the Town Council-appointed body for developing a plan for the future of Charlbury, is interested in the issue of making local residents more aware of what services are available from local businesses of all kinds following comments received through CNF consultation events held so far. As a member of the CNF's Community working group I would also like to attend the next meeting - I too would like to know when this is due to be held. Thanks.

Thu 19 Feb 2015, 21:20

Hello all. when's the next meeting?

Fri 13 Feb 2015, 11:09

Just wanted to say that it was lovely to meet everybody that attended the inaugural Marketing Charlbury meet.

Looking forward to the next one.

Fri 23 Jan 2015, 19:59

All these ideas are great and Tony is right---it is a lovely area and different from the tourist honey pots. The WODC tourist people do a pretty good job (or they used to) promoting the Oxfordshire Cotswolds---a good name because those two words ensure many 'hits' on search engines (not sure if that makes sense but something like that !).
Very much disagree with the comment by a lady in the article about Charlbury in the Witney Gazette this week---saying that in the time she's been here she has seen Charlbury decline from 'a vibrant community' almost into 'a dormitory town'. If you look on this excellent website we have an amazing number of organisations and far from declining the number of these organisations is increasing. Some have emerged over the the last few years---Voices Unlimited, Speakeasy, etc. and some are ones that have been revived---the Debating Society, the WI and some are just going on---CADS, Cricket, Football, Bowls etc. etc.Also the dormitory town slur is a misnomer I think. It has come to imply a dead sleepy place and I don't see that as a description of Charlbury. A town with a railway, reasonably near a city, is bound to attract people who work in the city, let alone London but, as I have said before, it's not where people work that matters but how much people put into their community when they actually are here. Many Charlburians who are retired or who work 'away' have done a huge amount for this town.

Fri 23 Jan 2015, 19:44

Several years ago, when I was chair of the Charlbury Business Community, our committee tried to encourage local businesses to take advantage of advice and networking facilities offered by the district council. I attended a couple of very interesting meetings and presentations, and there were all kinds of professional advice and assistance on hand.

I think I'm right in saying that just two Charlbury businesses attended, myself being one of them. None of the Charlbury pubs or eateries felt the need to go, despite some one-to-one encouragement. In all, probably around 80 local businesses were invited.

I'd also make the point that Charlbury could do well to advertise its entertainments more widely too, though perhaps audiences are generally large enough!!

Fri 23 Jan 2015, 18:03

Great idea. I think we could boost the @Charlbury account - at the moment it's mostly just used by the website auto-tweeting events every morning. I'll look into 'multiple tweeter' solutions (GroupTweet et al).

Fri 23 Jan 2015, 17:13 (last edited on Fri 23 Jan 2015, 17:26)

Happy to help set up and run a @VisitCharlbury Twitter account (or similar) if content can be generated by others too. Or maybe just boost the @Charlbury account?

Fri 23 Jan 2015, 15:59 (last edited on Fri 23 Jan 2015, 16:00)

Richard you can count me in on this -as you say we join anything. In fact I would like to get the Cotswold AONB to help us promote this region of the Cotswolds which I am sure they would do. There is a lot to offer and it make a nice change to the usual tourist haunts

Fri 23 Jan 2015, 12:07

I'm regularly in contact with the tourism officers who run the OxfordshireCotswolds website and twitter account (I run the publicity for Riverside and Cornbury Music Festival) so may be of use to you! Clearly, I also have contacts with other local websites/newspapers/magazines. I'd be happy to come along to a meeting to offer a few pointers.

Thu 22 Jan 2015, 10:44

As the thread about the Bull began, I happened to notice the top entries in my Twitter reader:

This is the Oxfordshire Cotswolds Twitter account. It's promoting businesses (by 'retweeting') in Woodstock, Burford, Filkins and Kingham.

I'm sure they'd love to do the same for Charlbury. But that requires us to give them something to retweet - something to promote - and right now we're not doing that.

I'd like to get an informal group of people together to work on promoting the town and its businesses to visitors. If you have marketing, design or copywriting experience, or you run a business that would benefit from increased visitors, even better. (It would be especially good if we could engage some volunteers other than the usual suspects from the Town Council who are on everything!)

If you're interested, post here or drop me a line (via a site message or at info@charlbury.info), and we'll sort out a first meeting.