Photo by Sophia Baboolal on Unsplash
The Brag Basket is open! This one is for September 1-3, 2017. Bring your good news, big or small, to share with everyone.
What can you share in the Brag Basket?
- introduce yourself
- share some great news from this week
- celebrate progress, even baby steps
- congratulate a friend
- applaud for each other
- confess your undying love for rural places
Want to see some past Brag Baskets and read some past contributions? Here’s the archive.
How do you join in?
Below this post is the comment section. Add your good news there.
Reading this in your email? Hit reply.
Don’t like to brag? Just share some good news for someone you’re happy for. It’s a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.
Thank you Becky for what you do! I especially enjoy your seeing obstacles as opportunities and not as challenges.
I grew up in a small town in the Southern Illinois. My dad had a small retail business. I worked my way through school greeting every customer – many by name. Dad celebrated 40 years in business and now one of my siblings continues the operation.
It saddens me to see once thriving downtowns and businesses curl up and die but I’ve also watched them thrive. What’s the spark that starts it all? The answer: Becky’s pixie dust. You know and understand what to do to bring people (back) downtown. Thank you for sharing! In my personal experience, events are one of the best ways to reintroduce the community to downtown (again). Let event-goers walk the sidewalks. Catch up with friends. See available commercial and residential real estate. Peer through the windows. Create an appreciation of the architecture. Meet new people. Most importantly, remind them downtown is a fun place and that they should be supporting local businesses.
A consistent schedule of events with pop up businesses can get things rolling. Over time entrepreneurs will see potential and restaurants, shops, bars, lounges and other activities will appear. It’s the consistent programming and the traffic that events bring that can help fuel a rebirth.
I’ve been fortunate to own my own business and work in a very special area of economic development – tourism – the marketing and management of destinations (downtowns). To help people understand what’s involved, I’ve also written and published two “Secrets to Successful Events” books on how to organize, promote and manage events and festivals.
P.S. Love your YouTube videos … public spaces brought to life and derelict and burnt out buildings cleaned up, shored up and used, although often without the roof and all four wall.
Thanks for your kind words, Lynn. I agree that events are a powerful tool for downtowns and we tend to overlook the potential of even tiny simple events to bring people together.
Bringing back the ‘good old days ‘ . Some of us remember the Sears Roebuck catalog . Our wish book . I talked to an ‘oldtimer ‘ in Abilene , Tx. recently and he was remembering the excitement of going down to the train station to pick up the recent arrival from the Sears warehouse in Dallas . Amazon, Ebay , and etc . are the new Sears . So what’s new ? Local retail around here ( Dallas ) is disappearing only to be replaced by more restaurants . Does anyone cook at home these days ? . Maybe we don’t need a ‘downtown ‘ anymore ? Is social media is becoming our community . Where do people gather together naturally ? Random thoughts …….thanks for reading . Jerry Johnson
Jerry, small town downtowns are or have the potential to be that gathering spot you pine for. Thanks for always sharing your thoughts!