It Has Been a Busy Time for Visit Kelso and We Wanted to Keep You All Informed of the Progress

Newsletter – May 2017 It has been a busy time for Visit Kelso and we wanted to keep you all informed of the progress and plans for the months ahead. As you may be aware May is going to be a busy month with the arrival of the Kelpie Maquettes back in The Square around 10.30am on 12th May, they will be in place until Monday 15th May. This is the same weekend as Floors Castle International Horse Trials and the return of the Country & Western Weekend at the Border Union Showground, which makes it a particularly busy weekend. Some retailers will be opening on the Sunday and we would encourage as many of you as possible to open your doors and welcome locals and visitors to the town over this weekend. Visit Kelso will be working particularly hard over the coming two weeks to promote the weekend using social media. There will be a photography competition which will be driven through Social Media for people to enter. The competition will be to take the best photograph of the weekend, whether it be capturing the Kelpies on a sunny day in The Square, an action photograph of the Horse Trials or a fun photograph of the events at the Border Union Showground. The winning photograph will feature on the new Visit Kelso Website and will be kindly printed and framed by Focal Point Furniture. We hope you will agree this is a great way to get the people of Kelso and visitors to take some truly great photographs of the town. There are lots of other events in the town later in the month of May, which we will be promoting after this weekend to maximise on all the social media opportunities. If you have any special activity on this weekend – then let us know, we will help you to promote it – email : [email protected] Tour of Britain – 3 rd September 2017 The Tour of Britain will be returning to Kelso on the 3rd September, with the finish of Stage 1 in The Square outside The Cross Keys. Once again this is a truly wonderful opportunity for the town and Visit Kelso will be working with all partnership organisations to promote the event to its full potential. Over the coming months we will keep you fully informed of the marketing opportunities and activities. If you have any ideas or suggestions please feel free to let us know your thoughts on [email protected] New Visit Kelso website One of the key activities for Visit Kelso for 2017 is to improve the current website. We are pleased to announce that this project is now underway and we have appointed a supplier to design and develop a new website. This is truly exciting news for all as we continue to strive to showcase Kelso and this is a key part in moving forward. The project has just begun and we are anticipating it to be fully completed by mid July. We will keep you informed of our progress and over the coming weeks and hope to show you glimpses of the new site as it is developed.

Funding Update Visit Kelso has successfully secured funding in the last few months, Firstly, we were fortunate after extensive work to have our application for LEADER funding accepted.

KCT The voice of business in Kelso www.visitkelso.com | [email protected] Chairman: Alan Livingstone | Secretary: Nikki Allman This has provided us with funding to employ a Marketing Officer to promote Kelso for 15 hours per week which is partially funded by LEADER and partially by Kelso Chamber of Trade.. We are pleased to announce that we have two skilled individuals carrying out this role. Nikki Allman will be continuing with all the social media activity, general marketing & communications, PR and promotion of businesses who are members of Kelso Chamber of Trade and Visit Kelso. Emily McGowan has been appointed to share some of the hours and will be working to provide a strategic view in helping Visit Kelso move forward in the coming year. The funding is available for 12 months and we are working very hard to maximise all that we can during this period to ensure Kelso and the surrounding area is even more firmly on the map. Further funding was awarded recently through the Scottish Borders Council Grant Funding Scheme which will pay for 65 replacement hanging baskets for the town. This is wonderful news as most of the baskets were no longer fit for purpose. Overall over £3,200 was secured to replace them all with Kelso Chamber of Trade contributing also. Car Parking in Kelso Car Parking in Kelso continues to be an on-going issue and is continually raised, please ensure that you keep adequate parking for visitors and shoppers in the town by parking in the car parks. Annual Subscriptions to Visit Kelso It is that time of year again where annual membership subscriptions are due.. We will be notifying you of your renewals in May with payments due by 1st June. Visit Kelso continues to promote Kelso, and in the coming year with the additional support of the Marketing Officers, this will impact greatly on our ability to promote all the very best Kelso has to offer. The subscription fee will remain at £40.00 which is great value for money - this £40 includes membership to Visit Kelso, a listing on the Visit Kelso website, subsidised watering of hanging baskets, extensive promotion on our social media channels not to mention all the support and behind the scenes help the Visit Kelso voluntary group do for the town and surrounding area. The Visit Kelso group has just started to hold their meetings at different venues in Kelso to establish the needs of businesses and to gain vital feedback. The first new venue meeting was held at The Cobbles and the group took the opportunity to gain some feedback from Luca Becattelli at The Cobbles : “There has been a definite increase in visitor numbers particularly from fishing parties and people staying with local accommodation providers. It is a good example of a small town being able to be successful, we are very grateful for any support that we receive from Visit Kelso. In addition with the increase in popularity of Craft Beers and customers looking for good locally sourced food, this is certainly benefitting The Cobbles. After 20 years of being in business in Kelso, this is the first time that opportunities are being explored with the support of Visit Kelso and we feel it really shows the benefit if all the businesses work together to create success.

Social Media is and will continue to be key in promoting Kelso to the wider world. Promoting events and the town in general highlights how busy Kelso is and creates a sense that Kelso is becoming a ‘go to’ destination along with the likes of Peebles and Melrose” We hope you also feel being part of Visit Kelso is something truly unique.

KCT The voice of business in Kelso www.visitkelso.com | [email protected] Chairman: Alan Livingstone | Secretary: Nikki Allman KCT The voice of business in Kelso www.visitkelso.com | [email protected] Chairman: Alan Livingstone | Secretary: Nikki Allman