Norfolk Day 2021: How we celebrated in style – all week long!

Our Norfolk Day Networking and Buy Local Norfolk tour throughout last week was a huge success. We want to thank everyone for their support and encouragement!

If you didn’t already know, Norfolk Day is spearheaded by Eastern Daily Press, BBC Radio Norfolk & The Evening News, celebrated annually to share and embrace all the things we love about Norfolk!

Norfolk Day presented us with an obvious opportunity and Buy Local Norfolk jumped at the chance to raise the profile of our local, independent businesses.  With restrictions lifted, we were determined to lead the way to encourage people to discover what is on their own doorstep.  With this in mind, we knew it was time to take Buy Local Norfolk on Tour around our amazing county! 

Who did we visit on our tour?

We spent Tuesday 27th July to Sat 31st July on the road visiting over 50 of our lovely members and other local businesses. We have been so inspired and motivated by everyone we met and loved getting to know them, learning about what they do and shouting about their businesses on social media as we went!

Did you get a Norfolk Day Selfie with us? We have a fab collection of BLN On Tour selfies and videos which we have been sharing on our Instagram profile. Go and check it out to see if you can spot yourself or someone you know! 

Thanks to Example Marketing for creating the Norfolk Day Selfie Frame for us – we love it! 

Norfolk Day Networking

Norfolk Day was the perfect time to return to in-person networking giving us even more chances to catch up with local business owners!  The event was well attended, and lots of chat, fun, good food and drink was had by all!

Thank you all to everyone who joined us and special thanks go out to the kind generosity of the following people who helped make our return to in-person networking such a blast. 

Extra big thank yous go to:

• Katharine at College Farm for hosting us and for making delicious homemade cakes for us all to enjoy
• Boudicca & Norfolk Brewhouse for donating lots of lovely beer!
• Vintage Partyware who provided fun and entertainment with their vintage garden games.
• Glynn Burrows, BLN chairman and owner of Norfolk-Tours, who stepped in at the last minute to provide cheese scones and sausage rolls, wowing us all with his baking skills – did you know Glynn is a trained chef? We do now and may have to make more use of these skills in future!

Our usual monthly networking resumes Wednesday 4th August at Buoyancy Bikes in Wroxham, you can view more details and book your place here.

Why did we do it?

We fully support the Norfolk Day campaign as it helps to signpost and encourage people to learn and discover things about Norfolk that they might not usually be exposed to. The EDP were also very encouraging of our plans and included our activities in their Norfolk Day must-have guide in the run up to the day.

For us, a big part of what makes Norfolk such a wonderful place to live, work and play is the fact that there are so many independent businesses in our county. 

We continually work to raise the profile of our member businesses and always advocate buying locally because we know that this directly invests in the future of Norfolk by:

• circulating more money within the local economy
• creating more jobs
• creating opportunities and encouraging innovation
• tourism – bringing more money into the county
• reducing our carbon footprint
• helps keep Norfolk’s Unique Character!

Even more than that, buying locally can be good for the soul!  An independent business is much more likely to want to connect with their customers, to greet you with a warm smile, remember your name, really listen to what you want and go the extra mile to make it happen for you. Why? Because they are people who also live in your community and care about the people who keep them in business.

Many independent businesses found ways to support their communities throughout the pandemic in various ways, despite struggling to stay afloat themselves. You can read some of their stories here.  We need to remember who stood by us during our times of need and now, more than ever, as restrictions have been lifted, we need to use them or lose them.

We have loved getting to know so many local businesses in person, we hope you will too!