What can I “tweet” about?

April 04, 2013   StaceyP   No comments

If you are stuck for ideas on Twitter and not seeing a difference in followers/ retweets it may be because you need to engage with your followers more, here are some great ways to engage with your followers:

• Personal messages work! Add the occasional tweet about you and your personal life, however make sure that you don’t tweet the entire day about what you do and what cereal you had as followers will quickly become fed up.
• No matter what people say, retweet works! You should retweet what you feel is interesting to you and your readers!
• Engagement is not optional anymore, ask your followers questions and always reply whenever you can. People don’t like getting ignored especially if it is something to do with your company or a question.
• Want recommendations? Or want people to interact more? A great way is to hold contests and competitions, offer exclusive discounts/benefits to your followers and watch them build up!
• It’s okay to send tweets about your company, after all you want to get some leads right? You can post tweets about your business. However make sure you don’t go overboard, you want to have a ratio of at least 1:5 so that potential customers stay interested
• You can also tweet a twit pic of your business. If you’re in the cafe business why not tweet a picture of your daily specials to draw in the customers?

Now you know everything you need to start engaging with your followers! If you know more, why don’t you share with us by leaving a comment?

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March is the season for roads to come up!

March 23, 2013   robertz   No comments

While the daffodils and primroses seem somewhat reluctant to flower this March, the cold hasn’t stopped roads from opening up, surrounded by bollards, temporary barriers and traffic lights.

It used to be a joke about councils using up budgets at the end of the year to repair roads, but this is no joke and it seems to be happening across the country, not just in Devon.

When in Berkshire last weekend, I took a diversion on a local journey I was making, because of a road closure, to find the alternative road also closed for resurfacing. Back in North Devon, roadworks have appeared all over the place. Now, if they were repairing potholes or putting right damage caused to surfaces by extreme weather, this would be welcome, but this doesn’t always seem to be the case.

In Ilfracombe a new road island has appeared this week.  It is a nice road island and helpful for pedestrians, although in the grand scheme of the road network it is a lower priority than the hazardous conditions on some nearby roads which have been damaged by cold and wet this winter. These are likely to cause damage to vehicles, for which compensation could be claimed, and could cause accidents.

I suspect local authorities will say that their maintenance programmes do not allow them to switch resources from projects already planned, but I think it is time they should. When public finances are under pressure, we need to make sure that our councils are spending money wisely on work that is needed. I’m not sure they are doing this with road maintenance budgets.

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Spring is here – seeds have been sown!

March 18, 2013   Kevin Woodward   1 Comment

I have a greenhouse full of seed trays all planted out!

I spent the weekend – not all of it but at least a couple of hours – getting my first batch of seeds going.

We started off with tomatoes, cherry ones as well as the tried and trusted “Moneymaker” – these have been started off in a heated propagator along with a variety of chillies called “Fresno” and to make sure the propagator was full we put a half a dozen pots of basil in as well.

In the greenhouse we also got going some kale, some cabbages, some runner beans and in some long root trainers, some parsnips.

I also planted out some garlic cloves!

So, in my household, spring is here, the next task will be to get the beds in the veg plot & poly-tunnel cleaned out to make room for all these plants when they start sprouting – that’ll keep me busy!

Do you garden? Have you started this years plants off yet?

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Awake in the early hours!

March 04, 2013   Kevin Woodward   No comments

I am on kidding watch!

This is the second time in 5 days!

We breed pygmy goats and it is kidding time & so far things are not going to well :-(

We have a small herd of pygmy goats – 4 breeding nannys, one retired nanny, two kids from last year (a wether & a nanny), two wethers & two stud billys. Our four nannys are Fizz, Fudge, Flo & Breeze and all four were put with a stud around 5 months ago, and we wait now for the nannys to give birth. They have no particular time of the day when they give birth, unlike our llamas who will nearly always do it in the morning between 9am & 11am, and so when the process starts we need to keep an eye on them.

Pygmy goats are not the greatest kidders, they often need intervention, from bad presentation by the kid (they are supposed to come out as if they are diving out, front feet first with head in between), to a nanny that just cannot do it! We are not experts in these matters and are happy to get the vet to come out, but as they can take an hour to turn up it is important that we call them at the first sign of trouble.

Last week, Fizz had to have a c-section as the kid had come out head first, and unfortunately the kid did not survive & today we are watching Fudge closely as she has started & is a little over weight (just how do you stop a goat from eating). We have had the vet out twice to her already (it’s going to be a big bill this month) and he assures us that everything is just going along fine, but while he suspects that it will be 12-24 hours before she kids, we are not taking any chances and are taking it in turns to keep an eye on her.

I have the 1am – 4am watch & am sitting in my office which is next door to the goat she (I can hear her gentle bleats), so time to write a few blogs, catch up with the news & to keep my fingers crossed that everything will be alright!

The things we do for our animals!

 

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A break from Working Home Alone

February 28, 2013   StaceyP   No comments

One thing I don’t enjoy about working from home is that I can feel isolated and forced to stare at the same four walls all day, I find this distracting and it also doesn’t help me to generate good ideas or repeat business.

I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as lonely but my job still requires connecting with different people all of the time. When working from home gets too much for me I utilise a local hot desk service in town, sure I have to pay to rent the desk but it is in a very different environment from working at home, everyone needs a break – don’t they?

While “hot-desking” is a big change of scenery for me when I get fed up at home, I have found it has drawbacks:-

• A hot-desk is not the place to take your client if you want an in depth private conversation
• It is nice to connect with other local business people but when you have a tight deadline to meet people hovering over you and asking you questions is distracting
• I am used to the flexibility to work as and when I want to but if I utilise my local hot-desk service it is only open 9-5 on Monday-Fridays

Some of the benefits I receive from utilising my local hot desk service – (apart from supporting a local business) are:-

• A speedy internet connection and Tea/Coffee made especially for me!
• I can ask other business people for their expertise
• A meeting room I can utilise if needed
• Professional printing facilities

Another great thing about working away from home is that It gives me the opportunity to network with other local businesses, really spreading the word about my own business.

By getting feedback and opinions on the services I offer, can help me to improve and build on my own business. If I get to a dead end in my work, would like some help or just need a chat to break up the day, I can enjoy the company and inspiration of my new found co-workers!

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I have a new door!

February 26, 2013   Kevin Woodward   No comments

Actually I have two new doors, a new front door and a new back door!

Why? Well we have lived in our house for over 10 years now & have painted our windows and doors every two years, but despite our best efforts the doors have started to rot – they let the weather in along with cold draughts and for all our best efforts our hallway & kitchen get cold, so we have got new doors.

In some sort of strange way, I am hoping the doors pay for themselves, not only will they add value to the house, but the amount of money I spend on heating the house will go down (offset no doubt by a price rise, but I still hope I’ll save some money) plus the doors won’t need painting as I have got some composite doors (not upvc but some sort of solid composite material) that will outlast my tenure of the property!

Next task will be to see if I can get some green energy into my building to save me even more money!

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Are your inspirational tyres worn out?

February 22, 2013   robertz   2 Comments

In December I had to buy two new tyres for my car because the treads had worn right down. I’d got a lot of mileage out of them, but they could no longer grip the road so well. I feel better knowing that my car is more likely to respond quickly when I press the brake pedal.

It’s a shame I can’t do the same for the many inspirational quotations that flash past me on the Internet. Phrases that once seemed gripping, now seem flat and dull, worn down through constant repetition.

Take Jerome K Jerome, one of my favourite writers, who has been reduced to a quotation machine on Twitter. I wonder what he would have said about this?

It’s a bit like the Jane Austen entertainment machine. How many people know that she wrote books? Now she’s just another franchise.

What thrills me is to read original thoughts or a fresh take on a topic. I want to read tomorrow’s quotations today when they have just hit the road and have all their mileage ahead of them.

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Back to the grind stone!

February 13, 2013   Kevin Woodward   No comments

I found myself saying this today, odd really as I have never really felt that working from home here in North Devon is a grind.

I actually enjoy doing what I do, the flexibility of it all, the variety (what with the animals, the infrared heaters & the bean counting), but for some reason I felt the need to say, am back off to the grindstone.

Maybe it’s the weather, it is a bit cold wet & wintry out, maybe I have been doing too much of the same thing, or maybe something or someone is getting to me! Not sure really!

Still, I’ll sort everything out later & head off to the pub for a beer!

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Family Matters.

February 11, 2013   Elaine Isaac   3 Comments

It’s my sons birthday today, he’s 11 and really misses his 2 sisters who live away at University and college. Although the one at college gets home most weekends she couldn’t this week so he thought he wouldn’t see either of his sisters near his birthday. How wrong he was!

His eldest sister arranged to come home as a surprise to see him, this was organised a few weeks ago and was quite difficult to keep a secret, but I managed, but what I really want to tell you about is when we went to meet her from the bus. Son doesn’t usually want to come to South Molton shopping with me, so I had to make the excuse that there was something important I needed him for related to his birthday – he named it the mystery birthday surprise. Once there, he kept on at me ‘Where are we going? What’s my surprise?’ We were stood up the street from the bus stop, and when he saw his sister get off the bus ran up the street straight into her arms, he hadn’t seen her since the Christmas break. The look of joy on his face and his reaction ‘So this is my birthday mystery!’ was wonderful. I felt so proud of my family and on reflection no matter where your family are and how often you see them, family certainly matters to me.

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Half an acre of employment land per #NDevon parish!

February 09, 2013   Kevin Woodward   1 Comment

At the Economic Forum held earlier this week in Bideford we discussed the Local Plan – we have to comment on it by 15th March & it can be found on both the North Devon District Council & Torridge District Council websites.

What was interesting is that businesses, not just residents, are needed to comment – the plan is after all a plan to grow North-ern Devon (dislike this term myself) and to do that we need jobs, inward investment, houses & importantly “employment areas” – where are these new businesses going to go?

One of the aspects that made me think was that some of this employment areas will be on greenfield sites – once the land is allocated, new businesses will be able to get planning permission far easier than on brownfield sites, particularly as the cost of cleaning up the mess that is already there needs to be taken into account – contamination was one area that creates a barrier to wanting to take over a brownfield site!

This plan does not include rural development, it only includes the major towns, Bideford, Torrington, Barnstaple, Ilfracombe and the like (are there many more?) and each town has to build so many houses, have so much employment land, recreation land etc…, but it doesn’t yet include rural development – that comes later in the process, but the villages and rural parishes will have to come to the party!

A suggestion, and it was only a suggestion, that each parish will have to come up with employment land – let’s say half an acre each – as well as housing to support the jobs that this land will create!

What do you think – is it a good idea to extend the development of the area in both the towns & the more rural villages, or should it be left to the towns to absorb the anticipated growth?

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