by Jonny Dyson Property Consultants » Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:19 pm
The BID is helping this year, as otherwise there would be no way that we could afford to close the road etc. They also match funded the summer event or that would not have gone ahead. The difficulty is that the BID is simply not designed to continually shell out tens of thousands of pounds in order to keep these events going - at some point they have to stand on their own two feet. In the past the Christmas event has been organised in its entirety by two people - myself and my wife. Unfortunately my full time job at John D Wood & Co is more and more demanding in terms of time, and therefore I simply cannot devote the time to the business network as I have been able to do in the past.
The Wimbledon event is held on the common so does not need anything like the funding because there is no road to close. They also charge for entry. We did debate whether to hold it on Wandsworth Common at one stage, but as we are supposed to represent the interest of the shops of Northcote Road, that wouldn't work either.
Many events like these charge people for entry or attract major sponsorship, however we can't charge people to come onto Northcote Road and I'm afraid that despite years of me trying, we simply don't seem to be attractive enough to those sponsors. The council do help in terms of manpower, but they are as stretched as the rest of us. It is ridiculous that we have to pay around £25 to suspend each parking bay, even though parking is free on Sundays, but that's one that people need to write to our MP or councillors about - I'm sick of begging and not even getting a reply.
Again, I would make the plea on this site that if there is anyone out there who knows how event sponsorship works, and would be interested in helping, please just drop me an email at the address on the post above!!!
The reality is folks that if no-one is prepared to put their hands in their pockets or come up with a funding plan, then both the Christmas and the summer events will die, and no doubt everyone will complain about 'the good old days' like they do about the loss of independent shops they never spent any money in, instead preferring the 'convenience' of Amazon or the supermarkets instead. Sorry - soap box rant over, but you get my drift...!!!
Jonathan
The BID is helping this year, as otherwise there would be no way that we could afford to close the road etc. They also match funded the summer event or that would not have gone ahead. The difficulty is that the BID is simply not designed to continually shell out tens of thousands of pounds in order to keep these events going - at some point they have to stand on their own two feet. In the past the Christmas event has been organised in its entirety by two people - myself and my wife. Unfortunately my full time job at John D Wood & Co is more and more demanding in terms of time, and therefore I simply cannot devote the time to the business network as I have been able to do in the past.
The Wimbledon event is held on the common so does not need anything like the funding because there is no road to close. They also charge for entry. We did debate whether to hold it on Wandsworth Common at one stage, but as we are supposed to represent the interest of the shops of Northcote Road, that wouldn't work either.
Many events like these charge people for entry or attract major sponsorship, however we can't charge people to come onto Northcote Road and I'm afraid that despite years of me trying, we simply don't seem to be attractive enough to those sponsors. The council do help in terms of manpower, but they are as stretched as the rest of us. It is ridiculous that we have to pay around £25 to suspend each parking bay, even though parking is free on Sundays, but that's one that people need to write to our MP or councillors about - I'm sick of begging and not even getting a reply.
Again, I would make the plea on this site that if there is anyone out there who knows how event sponsorship works, and would be interested in helping, please just drop me an email at the address on the post above!!!
The reality is folks that if no-one is prepared to put their hands in their pockets or come up with a funding plan, then both the Christmas and the summer events will die, and no doubt everyone will complain about 'the good old days' like they do about the loss of independent shops they never spent any money in, instead preferring the 'convenience' of Amazon or the supermarkets instead. Sorry - soap box rant over, but you get my drift...!!!
Jonathan
