Fwd: North American Collaborative Holiday Campaign! + other SOLE news!
Chuck Lynd
I am forwarding this email from BALLE regarding their (and our) commitment to a collaborative Holiday Campaign this fall to support our small businesses in central Ohio. I hope to see many of you tomorrow, Sat Sept 10, at the Hilliard Festival. We will have a table downtown from 10 am - 5 pm, as will SBB, the Small Business Beanstalk. Do you have your SBB Community Card? If not order it online at thesbb.com and learn about new companies that are signing on everyday with deals for local customers.
Tom Lasik is leading this event for SOLE in Hilliard and he is intending to start a Sustainable Hilliard group there. If you live in or near Hilliard stop by tomorrow and talk to Tom!
SOLE will have a table at the Independents Day Festival in downtown Columbus next Saturday, Sept 17. We're celebrating everthing LOCAL - music, art, and our entrepreneurial culture in Cbus! Check out the website and plan to come downtown to Pearl and Gay streets from noon to midnight!
We need VOLUNTEERS to spend an hour or two at our exhibit tables tomorrow and next Saturday - if you can join us, please let me know by replying via email <chuck...@gmail.com> or call my cell at 354-6172.
I like the signature used by BALLE Network Director, Alissa Barron -
Locally Yours,
Chuck
--
Chuck Lynd
Support Our Local Economy Initiative
Simply Living Board Member & Interim Director
Columbus OH
614-354-6172 (cell)
From: Alissa Barron <ali...@livingeconomies.org>
Date: Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:36 AM
Subject: BALLE Announces a North American Collaborative Holiday Campaign!
To: Alissa Barron <ali...@livingeconomies.org>
Dear BALLE network leaders,
We are excited to announce a
collaboration between BALLE, AMIBA, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR),
the networks of the New England Local Business Forum (NELBF), Oakland Grown, and the Asheville
Grown Business Alliance -- and all other networks who'd like to participate! -- dedicated to creating a shared 2011 holiday campaign to support local businesses.
This is
an augmentation of BALLE’s National Buy Local Week efforts, which will still take
place November 25 – December 4. Through this collaboration, we’ll also have
additional holiday campaign resources for your community to make your own.
We also have information below and attached about our collective position on American Express’s Small Business Saturday.
Please read on!
Our primary goals for a shared holiday campaign are:
- To significantly increase the visibility and effectiveness of our respective individual holiday campaigns,
- To collect in one place the best holiday campaign resources from the front lines of this work to speed and spread innovation, and
- To support collective efforts taking place throughout November and December 2011 – that is, the entire holiday shopping season.
What we're developing:
- A shared website that collects the best ideas, strategies, and tools for promoting local businesses around the holidays. This will include “best of” resources like Shift Your Shopping, Plaid Friday, Buy Local Week, and America Unchained; information about what communities are doing this year to promote their local businesses; and tips and tools for consumers who want to support our collective work. A pilot version of this website will launch around late September, and the full public version will be available November 1.
- A webinar on October 6 to launch the campaign, tour people through the draft website, and share ideas including social networking and PR strategies for successful 2011 holiday campaigns. This webinar will run for 90 minutes, starting at 1pm ET / 10am PT. Mark your calendars now and plan to join us; call-in information is forthcoming.
Ways to get involved:
- By September 14, we need your best ideas for what to call this umbrella website/campaign! The branding should have a broad appeal for a range of BALLE and AMIBA networks, as well as other local business coalitions, be hip and memorable, and transcend regions and political ideologies. Email us to get a list of current options and to share your ideas!
- Plan to participate in our October 6 webinar, share your best ideas once the website launches, join the conversation we’ll be hosting on our social media platforms, and help us spread the word!
- Send us your favorite past campaign materials you want to share. We’ll add them to the resources provided on the umbrella website.
- For the hard core among you, join our weekly campaign planning calls in September and October on Thursdays at 12pm ET / 11am CT / 10am MT / 9am PT, each lasting one hour. Email Erin Kilmer-Neel for information.
Official Position on Small Business Saturday
We also wanted to let everyone know that we were approached by the organizations creating Small Business Saturday – American Express and their contracted publicity and partnership development consultant, Women Impacting Public Policy (a DC-based NGO) – about endorsing Small Business Saturday. Conversations had been underway for several months about a shared holiday campaign when we were approached by AmEx, such that our planning was temporarily slowed while we considered Small Business Saturday.
After conversations with AmEx and WIPP, collecting input from many networks, and consideration by our board, BALLE has decided not to endorse the Small Business Saturday campaign. AMIBA, ILSR, network leaders in New England, Oakland, and Asheville have also decided not to endorse. We know some of you have been approached about endorsements. We encourage all our networks to come to their own decision about participation in Small Business Saturday, but to do so with full information and eyes open -- the attached information should help with that.
We anticipate our shared holiday campaign, with tested innovations and models created by networks across North America, will provide you with valuable resources to catalyze your best holiday campaign yet!
Locally yours,
Alissa Barron, BALLE
Franzi Charen, Asheville Grown Business Alliance
Joe Grafton, New England Local Business Forum, Somerville Local First
Laury Hammel, New England Local Business Forum, SBN Boston, and Cambridge Local First
Erin Kilmer-Neel, AMIBA board and Oakland Grown
Karen Marzloff, New England Local Business Forum, Seacoast Local
Jeff Milchen, AMIBA
--
Alissa Barron
Co-Managing Director & Network Services Director
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)
Eastern Regional Office
PO Box 5731, Takoma Park, MD 20913
Direct: 1-240-317-2247
Main: 1-360-746-0840 x109
Email: ali...@livingeconomies.org
Skype: alissa.barron
The 9th BALLE conference, Place Matters, was amazing! Check out all the video and audio of the conference at http://www.livingeconomies.org/socialmedia