• No super large pubs, or high concentration of pubs
• Water: by the sea, or a river, or a lake.

St Leonards is by the sea, and most of the pubs have closed down.

So, no excuses eh?

While we are on water, so as to speak, good luck to The Lido plan which should hear about funding very soon. Great plans, great project.

I went to a Town Hall meeting about marketing St Leonards last night. I didn’t know anything about it until a day or so before, so had no idea what to expect, but assumed it would be about marketing St Leonards. From my point of view, which I think is the SBA point of view, marketing St Leonards should have the aim of getting a higher footfall of customers in the area. What we want is an identity for St Leonards distinct from Hastings, and to use that to make St Leonards a destination in it’s own right.

The Council view?

Councillors and council officers took a different view. They think we should be happy to be included as part of Hastings, and pointed to the way they were doing this.

Things like forgetting to put us on the map going out in a new council publication. Things like giving us a whole page in that publication. (They couldn’t say how many pages in the publication, lets guess about 100. We get a whole page.?) Things like setting up a website which we could then leave for 2 years. (After which we presume the HBC officer in charge of cleaning cobwebs off websites might book us in, perhaps in 2015?)

What shall we do?

St Leonards doesn’t want independence, we aren’t going for Devo-max even. We just feel that promoting our own identity will be a positive benefit to any marketing, that some marketing will improve footfall and that being promoted as a suburb, even a nice suburb, of Hastings just isn’t enough.

Which means that we do it ourselves. To find out what you want, what you feel might work, how you feel you could contribute I have set up a forum on a website. The website is a suggestion for a St Leonards website, but there will be lots of other ways of marketing.

Thw website is here: http://thestleonardsonsea.co.uk/

The forum is here: http://thestleonardsonsea.co.uk/forum/

(You have to enter your name and email to use the forum. This is to deter computer made spam. Your details will not be used to spam you or given to anyone else.)

2011 Review.

With Bill Orton, a founding member, chairman and backbone of The SBA retiring in December 2010 we had to move on, elect new committee members and focus on where The SBA was going.

This was reviewed in the first part of 2011 with an important decision being made to formalize the structure with a new constitution. This meant being taken more seriously by official bodies such as Hastings Borough Council as we formally represented business in St Leonards from their point of view.

After consultations a new constitution was adopted and after that a new chair and vice chairs were elected. There are two vice chairs as Bill Orton has very kindly agreed to stay on with a watching brief to help smooth the way forward.

All this has meant upheaval and change. However the core functions of The SBA; traffic, parking, antisocial behaviour and rubbish collection are still the important core functions; all helping St Leonards businesses do business.

During the rest of 2011 The SBA worked on Christmas in St Leonards 2011, and future plans for St Leonards.

The SBA also welcomed Sylvia Bennett, vice chair of Gensing Forum to the SBA committee, forging stronger bonds between the business and residential communities of St Leonards. The first event we will do together is the Olympic Torch coming through St Leonards in July.

2012 Plans

As well as maintaining the core functions of The SBA we aim to start making St Leonards a destination shopping and leisure area. This might be an uphill battle given the apathy experienced with the Christmas arrangements, but a core group believes that we can’t rely on government, the council or fate to make things happen, and just might have to do things ourselves.

Plans include:

• Helping in the production of a quarterly Events Publication
• Establishing a website listing all businesses, events, attractions and excitement in St Leonards
• Helping in the guidance and establishment of new facilities along the seafront
• Helping the establishment of any new business, especially those that will increase footfall for all traders.

If you would like to help, have any ideas, can offer input of any kind we would be more than pleased to hear from you. Please email info@sba-online.co.uk and a committee member will get back to you.

Happy, and prosperous New Year.

I’ve been following the subject on a couple of threads on Business Forums and it seems most small business owners with a retail presence think she could have done better. (Polite version).

For instance one recommendation calls for less red tape, (who is going to disagree?), but another 11 recommendations call for more rules, more oversight, more bureaucracy.

Another recurring point is that she really doesn’t have relevant experience: she is a big agency person and TV star, not a high street trader, and she has never been a high street trader.

A third recurring point on the Business forums is that if we really want things to change we will have to do it ourselves.

At the last meeting the priorities to be addressed by the group were established as:

Create information on footfall business data, car parking usage mosaic of average shopper
Encourage loyalty and shop local schemes
Encourage traders to support the Shop Watch and Barwatch scheme
Improve signage in he area, create an area branding to market to the wider area
Develop events such as festivals, markets etc
Encourage the take up of business up-skilling
Work with TCM and Old Town on sharing good practises and resources
DevelopSt Leonards as a destination on the HBC and CSL website, direct link
Engage business representatives in area based structures
Continue to develop the SBA website
Seek to engage Black Minority Ethnic  businesses
Promote and develop the CSL evening economy
Market and promote CSL as a destination

The basic points are that the SBA has a shiny new constitution, a new committee and the newsletter, more importantly, tells you what The SBA does for the area.
We think more can be done and are working on a campaign, Cross Street, and trying to begin a large scale marketing plan to help bring footfall to the area.
All this is time consuming and costly, so we are trying to raise a kitty by charging a very modest membership fee.
If you have any suggestions as to how you might help the committee, other members with special offers or anything at al, please let a committee member know.
One thing members will now get is a good business and web listing: see samples here: http://csba.co.uk/businesses/business-services/
Have a look at the newsletter, ( and if you could help deliver it that would be hot), and let us know.

At the moment you can download it here, (word.doc), and here, (pdf)

This means we can get on with being the core body representing business interests in St Leonards, and contribute our input to HBC, and other various official and semi official bodies.

Watch this space…

More nominations would be great, especially from areas without any potential representation:
Kings Road: 1 nomination
Silchester Road: none
London Road: none
Norman Road: two nominations
Grand Parade: two nominations
Marina: one nomination
Other & freelance/homeworkers: none

Ideally it would be good to have at least one person from each area. There is still time!

http://csba.co.uk/forum/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=1.0#postid-2

Any comments?

We still need input, more now than ever, so see you tomorrow.

• Welcome
• Apologies
• Chairman’s Report
• Time for Change
• Working Group
• Communication & Consultation
• AOB
• Next meeting (to elect officials)