Dear Customers & Friends!
This is a bit of a different blog… It’s been a flipping tough few weeks especially with a two and a half yr old!!… 🙈
I had all of these crazy ideas of what I was going to do for work, how I was going to do online videos/blogs and get my head focused into ideas for our big return… however as we have all learnt, things don’t always go to plan!
At the start of the Covid-19 lockdown, many of us searched for strategies as to how we would cope both at home and with work. How do we entertain children? How do we keep our businesses afloat? Can I recover? I’ve dug deeper than ever before!
How we would deal with Social Isolation for a business that is in catering and weddings which are all evolved around love, friendship, happiness and social gatherings? It is really difficult to imagining everything being so quiet – and the thought of having weekends off!! It’s frightening!! 🙀
Having had lots of time off and especially having my partner as a musician,🎶 there has been lots of creativity and music in the house. It was during this time that I came across these lyrics from a Beatles song which were pointed out to me and they seemed very poignant..
“HELP!” – ‘And now my life has changed in oh so many ways…’ ‘…Now I need a place to hide away”.
The song ‘YESTERDAY’ – “… Where all our troubles seemed so far away” … couldn’t seem more further from the truth!
It got me thinking 🤔, as we start to focus on ways to cope, rather than how we can’t cope… and how we start to battle on through the upset and heartbreak, we are lucky that we can start to recover. We can recover on our personal journey and can help others who have found themselves in the same or similar situation. At Paisley Flour I’m lucky to have my team at the end of the phone, or a group message to cheer us all up and remind us what we have to look forward to when this ends. Funny GIF’s sent back and forth a a quick facetime when we all need a giggle. Some people don’t have that support, so I’m grateful for that on a personal level. 💖
But as a small business, we still need some love and support too to help us survive this terrible pandemic. We are fortunate to have an established reputation and lovely loyal customers who have supported us by ordering our Easter Roast Boxes, topping up their order with an Essentials Box and then there were our DIY Pizza & Brownie Boxes which were a big hit! 🐣
Without the support from these people, things may have seemed a whole lot tougher, so THANK YOU for supporting me! I know not every business has been fortunate enough to have that support.
As many of you may know, one of our main incomes comes from our wedding bookings, and of course, the wedding industry has been HUGELY affected. It consists of many families or ‘one-man-band’ businesses 📸 🎥 💐 🎻, who without these essential bookings are struggling to survive! We are lucky we can take on a few bookings a day, but it is having a huge effect on our cash flow and availability – not for this year but the start of next year and next wedding season. 👰🏼🤵🏽 A lot of people we work with are solo workers and can’t split themselves into teams and try and balance out the hit of this year’s losses…
Our ethos as Paisley Flour Catering includes supporting our local heritage, culture and the people who make up our communities, we have done just this by using our local suppliers wherever we can. We are fortunate to work alongside these small local businesses in and around our home town, and even are lucky to call many of them our friends.
To name a few and give special thanks:
Bewdley Farm Shop – For your local produce
Ellie Hooper – Handmade Rainbows – Helping the foodbank
Highbank Flowers – Providing florals for that special someone and producing masks & bags for the NHS
Bewdley Brewery – Wonderful Ales, especially for those sunny days!
Dan Jackson at Hodgehill – For delicious meat
Bewdley Farm Shop – For your local produce
Highbank Flowers – Providing florals for that special someone and producing masks & bags for the NHS
Bewdley Brewery – Wonderful Ales, especially for those sunny days!
Ellie Hooper – Handmade Rainbows – Helping the foodbank
Dan Jackson at Hodgehill – For delicious meat
Businesses in Bewdley had already had an awful start to the year with all of the floods and the town was practically cut in half, this place also relies on tourism, so please, when you shop – remember these fantastic small businesses that support you in our beautiful little town!! 😊
As our offices are temporarily closed, I am using social media to hopefully offer some catering solutions where possible. I would love you to keep using them, so please become our friend and follow us on Facebook (@paisleyflourcatering) and Instagram (@paisleyflour).
and so that brings me to my next idea!…
As a THANK YOU from us to the NHS we invite you to nominate an NHS HERO!
We are asking our customers and followers to nominate an NHS care worker to receive a FREE box of our Rainbow Cakes, sent directly from us to their nominated address!
We are due to go live with this at the end of the week, but if you are reading our blog now then please feel free to enter your nomination via the rainbow link now!
Be sure to include both your own and your nominee’s full name, with their home address (where you would like their Rainbow Cakes sent should they win), and a little blurb about why you feel they deserve to win!
You may wish to nominate someone you know working in a Covid-19 ward, maybe someone working within a maternity ward, in a care home, a mortuary, a call centre, or maybe an ambulance paramedic.
We are offering this giveaway as a little thank you from us, and as a chance for you to send someone a hug when they may just need it! 😊
*Please note by entering you agree to have your nomination shared on our social media platforms
Get your nominations in by midday next Wednesday 6th May 2020 and we will announce the winner shortly after.
‘We rise by lifting others’ – Robert Ingersoll
I know it’s not much in the scheme of things, but it is something that we can do to show solidarity with people risking their lives for ours! Hopefully, knowing that someone else is thinking about them makes a positive difference… It did to me! 😊
Emma x