Item No: 7 (b)
Date: April 12th 2017
Report: Surrey Hills Enterprises Activity Report
Written by: Simon Whalley
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Purpose of Report
To update on Surrey Hills Enterprises
Summary
Staffing Update
Ros has continued to develop in both her marketing connections and with the leadership role in the interregnum between executive directors. We are very grateful to her for all the extra work she is doing in this difficult period. She now has the support of a sales and events executive in Stephanie King who has strong local experience with similar roles for Farnham Town and Surrey University. We are also now able to confirm that Wendy Varcoe MBE will join us as our Executive Director from 1st September. With her background of environmental work, local authority experience (ex-Waverley BC) and over 11 years as the enormously successful Executive Director of the Community Foundation for Surrey we are very excited to have recruited her special skills and detailed knowledge of Surrey and its philanthropic and commercial communities.
Surrey Hills Sculpture Garden
The Surrey Hills Sculpture Garden is open to the public from Sunday 30th April through to Sunday 4th June. With two private viewing dates this year on Friday 28th April and Saturday 29th April. SHE is working alongside the Surrey Sculpture Society to ensure the continued success of the event. We have a selection of events taking place throughout the Sculpture Garden including a celebrity book launch taking place on the 29th which will see 200 members of the public arriving to meet Nick Knowles and his new Vegan Cook Book and the Old Etonian Art Society have also booked a special evening on May 11th.
Surrey Hills Wood Fair
The confirmed dates for the 2017 Surrey Hills Wood Fair are Saturday 30th Sept and Sunday 1st October. We are keen to ensure that theme of the Wood Fair remains strong so are taking an in-depth look at the exhibitors we will be featuring at the event. We already have quite a few early bookings for stalls and the planning for developing the range of activities and entertainments is going well. A working group has been set up including Steve Wright from the Copice Group and Lee from Tillingbourne Brewery, first meeting has already taken place and site inspection is in the diary for 13th April.
Wood Fuel Conference
After much debate and discussion with key parties, sponsors, etc we have decided that the market for a purely Wood Fuel event is not there currently. We have decided to aim for a wider rural economy event in the Spring of 2018 (still within our 2017/18 financial year) but also linking to the 60th anniversary of Surrey Hills AONB.
Cow Parade
Plans are in place to promote the legacy of the CowParade including website and social media updates. Denbies Estate have kindly offered to give Mookay1 and Bunny Hop a home whilst the last 3 cows that have not sold will be featured at the Sculpture Garden and prospective buyers will be encouraged to place silent bids. Over £100,000.00 was raised for charities overall of which £26,500.00 was donated to the Surrey Hills Trust fund not including the donations from the 3 cows yet to be sold.
Food & Drink
Although the Food & Drink Festival at Coverwood was successful it did need the hook of the Cow Parade to attract sufficient visitors. We are currently reviewing the way forward and are getting strong support from Tracey Fairclough. She has agreed to help us develop an effective recruitment, event and member support programme in the food and drink sector and has ed the SHE Board. In combination with Ian McCulloch from Silent Pool, who is also now a member of our Board, and Tim Metson this sector is well covered.
We are also planning on collaborating on several events in 2017/2018 that promote the food and drink sector please see details below;
· Ockley Farmers Market - in talks with the organisers to see how we can support this event in more depth.
· Christmas Fair in collaboration with Merrist Wood.
· ‘New Look’ Merrist Wood Summer Show (2018) in collaboration with Merrist Wood.
· Surrey Hills Fayre (2018) in collaboration with Stephan Langton and Tillingbourne Brewery. Date TBC.
· We are also looking to work alongside Silent Pool to develop a special 60th anniversary gin.
Food and Drink is an important theme for Surrey Hills Enterprises and we are keen to ensure that our local producers are in the forefront of our mind and are promoted in all that we do. Much of the current interest in membership is also from this sector.
Memberships
Memberships are again key this year. Not only recruiting new members but also to deliver and support our current members ensuring that they see a true ROI. We are currently developing the membership package and offering and, with the recruitment of a membership sales executive, we are confident that we will be able to deliver on the 2017 target of 107 total members. Stephanie has hit the ground running she has made some excellent recommendations regarding the membership pack which has been updated and a campaign has commenced to recruit new and retain current members. The first members’ e-newsletter is scheduled to be sent out this week. We have recruited 2 new members since she joined, one at £250 and one at £1,000 and we have several leads in the process of joining. We are looking to hold a networking and introduction event in May which will introduce our current members to the new team and also perspective members can come and experience what SHE has to offer. This will be based in the Sculpture Garden marquee. Lastly, we are in conversations with several organisations that can help add value to the membership packages (including the Chamber of Commerce) to work out a mutually agreeable package that will benefit both parties. We are also developing a range of add-on services (eg support for grant applications; business planning; marketing; social media; etc) for our smaller members to help grow their businesses.
Recommendations
The Members are asked to:
Note the activities of the Surrey Hills Enterprises CIC