Today’s Fakenham Fair was well attended and the event was great fun. Lots of stalls, bouncy castles, local organisations and demonstrations – and the weather was very kind too!

Fantastic work by Kick Start and the Fakenham Area Partnership – well done, guys. Here’s to a successful full-blown Fakenham Carnival in 2011!!!

My little office in the centre of town is looking a lot more upmarket these days. It’s all thanks to Debbie Osborn, a talented local artist and designer (and blogger) who has provided me with some of her original artwork to hang on my walls. They’re really eyecatching pieces - I’ll bet lots of visitors will be asking where they came from when they drop in to ‘talk websites’.

Keith, her other half, is a pretty fine local photographer. One of his prints – a cracking seascape in the sunset –  is also adorning my office. How bad is that?

So you see, it’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know Thanks very much indeed guys.

What are you doing tomorrow? Did you know that it’s the Fakenham Fair? Well, it is. From 2pm – 6pm in Millennium Park.

“Rides, inflatables, stalls with toys, crafts, games, food, classic cars, bows & arrows, you can even come and build a wall! “

The running order looks like this…

• 2.00 Football
• 3.00 Punch & Judy
• 3.30 Tae Kwon Do Display
• 3.50 Basketball Display 
• 4.00 1st Acadamy of Dance Performance
• 4.20 Magic Show
• 4.45 Fakenham Bowmen Display

… but may be subject to change.  Then in the evening, there’s the disco…

8-11pm Family Disco, Community Centre, tickets £2.50 on the door, under 12′s FREE

There’s a car I see when I’m walking to work – somebody’s having great fun with the paintwork.  A few weeks ago it was covered in text. Now it looks like a cave painting on speed! Brilliant stuff.

A couple of signs I’ve spotted over the last few days. Who makes this stuff?

That’s the first phantom comma I’ve ever seen, plus a probable record for the number of phantom apostrophes on one sign. Impressive!

Have you seen one of these in the wild yet?

How cool is this? It’s a funky purple eco-friendly jute bag bearing the message…

“Fakenham. Bloomin’ Lovely.”

It was designed by year 10 pupils at Fakenham High School for the Fakenham Area Partnership, who obtained some funding for the project via a bid to  ‘Awards For All’.

The bag is 100% recyclable and will be sold through local markets and retailers, plus schools, community groups and the Tourist Information Point. A Farmers’ Market postcard/calendar will be placed into each bag to underline the “shop locally, eat healthier, live sustainably” message.

Want one?  They’re £3.50 each. Find them at…

Corders Budgens
Lawnwise & Leisure
Fakenham Heelbar
Fuglis
Get Smart
Sweets-n-things
Secrets
NewsKlip
Fakenham Garden Centre

And they’ll also be available at…

Chemstop
Whichcraft/Witchcraft?
Amie’s – Hairstylist
Fakenham Racecourse
Tourist Information Point/Library
Connect Office

Fakenham: Warnings for moped riders – Local – Lynn News

Good to se the SNT focusing on this. The behaviour of these riders who seem to hang out in the car park next to Tesco has been extremely annoying at best and at worst, an accident waiting to happen.

If you haven’t been to Fakenham Surgery recently, you may not have seen their leaflet explaining what their proposed new building in Clipbush Lane will look like. Here’s an artist’s impression…

Looks impressive. If you’d like more details, the leaflet says that their newsletters (from which this is taken) can be obtained at the Surgery Website

The town of Fakenham seems to be in a bit of a state of flux right now – at least the shops in the town centre are. That shop next to our town sign which I originally described as a ‘bathroom shop’ and which then morphed quietly into a clothes shop is now on the march. A bright yellow display of balloons adorns the windows, with posters stating that the shop will be moving (see photo inset). It all seems very strange. Anybody care to start a conspiracy theory?

Local shoppers love bargains, but local business owners don’t go for them!

In the past, I’ve talked to somebody at Fakenham Chamber of Commerce as well as Kick Start Fakenham about a local shopper loyalty scheme, but nothing has so far become of it.  I think the Chamber has also recently and independently discussed an idea like this, but maybe somebody needs to give it a nudge and/or get some feedback from the local public…

I think the town’s traders could do with some kind of mutually-beneficial loyalty scheme. Something which would reward local shoppers by giving discounts or special offers and which would, in turn, keep some of their trade in the town rather than see them shop further afield.

I have had some ideas already, having mulled it over for the best part of a year. What has rekindled my ideas now? Well, I was speaking to another business owner from this area yesterday and we were comparing notes about local advertising and promotion. His thoughts were (and my past experiences bear this out) that local businesses are usually very reluctant to promote themselves – even if the method offered is extremely inexpensive or even free! They’re not at all pro-active when it comes to publicity and many smaller businesses in the area will happily admit to being complete technophobes – not at all helpful when somebody like me is trying to convince them to promote their businesses online!

We came to the conclusion that if local businesses could be shown an obviously consumer-driven scheme, they’d be more likely to see the advantage of promoting themselves through it. Our reasoning was that they’re historically used to being consumer-led and would react to a more traditional idea that shoppers would want to use.

So… I’d like your ideas. If you’re a shopper, what would convince you to use a local business rather than one from Norwich or Lynn? If you’re a Fakenham trader or shop owner, do you have any ideas to make a scheme like this work?

You can leave comments here on my blog or email me via steve (at) wensum.net. Alternatively, feel free to give me a ring at the office on 01328 856688.