Where to start with 2023? At the beginning!

In January I sat down with a very fancy new Goal diary and a spreadsheet, determined to plan 2023 to the nth degree (and tame my impulsive side a bit!)

It started well, thanks to my Chirpy team, we came up with lots of ideas about what we wanted to achieve during the year, some new, some building on existing things and some old things which we knew worked well.

In January to March we got off to a flying start, with Workshops, Makers in Residence, Fiverfest, Chirpy Chats and even a stock room tidy. I was part of a Retail Event Panel meeting some great industry contacts too. I diligently filled in my Goal diary with what we’d achieved - quarter 1 done and dusted.

April - June, Q2, a bit like the difficult 2nd album! A slow start and a quiet Easter. But as Spring turned into Summer (and the Goal diary got lost under a pile of papers!) I was determined to turn it around. In May I was part of the Breast Cancer Wear It Pink Launch which kicked off our fundraising for the year. To make it easier to shop local we opened on the Bank Holidays (2 out of 3 were worthwhile) and on Sundays when the Chapel Allerton Market were on.

The highlight of June was attending a new trade show, finding 5 new cards suppliers and being asked to judge the Henries (the Oscars of the card world). Lowlight was loosing 2 friends to cancer so keeping busy was the best think to do. We ran 5 workshops, welcomed Annika for work experience and ran a busy double points event.

Summer arrived, or actually didn’t as July was cold and wet, not conducive to shopping unless you sell umbrellas (which we started to!) As our customers were off on holiday in August I went back to planning, launching our Autumn Workshop programme, stock preorders and even our Christmas baubles. Escaping for a couple of days I celebrated my mum’s 80th birthday by the sea.

The sun eventually came out for the Chapel Allerton Festival and stayed out for the rest of September bringing customers shopping. This year’s annual visit to Top Drawer to buy my Christmas stock proved very successful (& expensive) finding some great new suppliers. The Brick Vases and Sweary Pencils have proved a huge hit! Our collaboration with Heyy Cards to celebrate Thinking of You Week helped us raise £250 for Breast Cancer Now so all in all a successful end to Q3.

The golden quarter - October to December. With lots of new stock arriving and preorders proving a very successful strategy October proved to be a good month. Fiver Fest turned into Magic Tenner (blame inflation!) encouraging everyone to continue to support their local high street.

It seems that every year Christmas prep starts earlier, but we always kick off ours with our annual Chirpyversary. This year we celebrated 7 years with a great evening shopping event and busy weekend of offers. Our Chirpyversary, and the fundraising done at college by my daughter. helped us take our total to £600 which will allow us to sponsor a Breast Care nurse for the next 12 months.

Another month, another judging panel! In December I was honoured to be a judge for Gift of the Year and look forward to see who wins in 2024. Despite a little blip (no one wants a bad back in the busiest month of the year) December has proved another busy month. It was great to finally have a Late Night Shopping event with most of the other indie businesses in Chapel Allerton, hopefully an annual event and welcome lots of people to our Christmas workshops.

So what does 2024 have in store?

Will I try again with a fancy Goal Diary (wonder where I put it?!) or will I grab a nice notebook from the Chirpy shelves and scribble my ideas (disclaimer I’ve already started doing the latter) I’m playing around with collaboration ideas, bespoke products, better gift bundles and of course more fund raising ideas. I might even try and get a week in the sunshine (not just on the north east coast!)

If 2023 was a fair ground ride it would be the Pirate Ship (which I’m not a fan of) and I’m hoping for more of a Waltzer (my fave) in 2024!

But first up, better tidy that stock room again and have a bit of a January Sale …