Unified approach helps to reap rewards 
Liam Horan SOMETIMES the insights lie hidden deep in the forest, requiring a four-day walk through forbidding terrain, up the hill, against a gale-force wind that, as the song says, changes at half-time. Other times, they are right in front of your nose.
Something very significant happened in Ballinrobe last Tuesday. The Sale Day organised by the retail committee of the local Community Development Committee wasn’t just a big success, or a thing of merit or note, or something to merely revive drooping morale: it was a resounding, stunning, triumph that could well prove to be a seminal moment in the life of the local business community.
That big? Yes, that big. And, no, I had but a peripheral involvement in the organisation of it, so the trumpet I blow is not my own.
Why so big? Seth Godin says when people come together to make something happen, the community ultimately becomes more important than the project. It is in the genuine coming together that the magic and potential lies: the project they settle upon becomes almost incidental.
Once they come together in the proper spirit, and with a common goal, great things happen. It’s as if they can’t fail. The first project they champion might not shoot the lights out, but that’s almost incidental: governed by the right intentions, they simply move onto the one that does work. And the one after that, and the one after that, too.
If the process is right, the results will follow. Take your points, the goals will come.
What made the Sale Day in Ballinrobe work so well was the fact that traders came together and resolved to make something happen. Desperate times, and all of that mind-concentrating stuff. Ní neart go cur le chéile.
They tossed around ideas. A once-off Sale Day was mentioned. What if? What if everyone dropped their prices for a full day? Would this? Could this?
Might the collective weight of this approach – effectively grouping 80 businesses together under the one brand, The Town of Ballinrobe – catch notice and achieve the sort of critical mass that would be so elusive for an individual acting on their own? Could it turn the tide? Could it help the town out-flank the myriad counter-attractions (Galway, Castlebar, and Westport all lurk covetously) in its extended circle?
It might, could, should, would – and did. Mid-West Radio came to town to broadcast for the day, and this contributed to the sense of a mini-festival, a feeling further enhanced by the placement of an electric Buckin’ Bronco in the town car park, in deference to the town’s most famous ambassador, the Bullinrobe Bull, God bless his little, possibly weanling, soul. Whatever exactly a weanling is.
Mid West Radio’s presence was crucial. I have written here before about the necessity for the media to show some leadership in these times, to use their promotional capacity to good effect. If the media continue to merely follow the news agenda, doling out the blame wherever they can, they will lead us over the cliff. If, however, they get down and dirty to help local communities, they can have a powerfully positive impact. This was certainly true of Mid West on Tuesday last: where Mid West go, others follow.
So, anyway, I have outlined the building blocks of last Tuesday. The businesses came together. A great deal of promotion was done. Genuine discounts were offered.
Mid West and the electric Bullinrobe Bull added another dimension. The shops announced they would be staying open until 8 o’clock Tuesday night, to catch the commuters and others who couldn’t come out to play during the normal opening hours. How did it all pan out?
“It was almost like Christmas Eve in town today,” one trader told me at about 5pm.
“I trebled my usual Tuesday turnover,” another reported towards close of business. “Unreal,” concluded another. It didn’t make a huge difference to my business, because we’re not in the retail side of it, but it was great to see the crowd around town,” offered a fourth. Under the shadow of the recession, a new sense of community and hope has been established. There is talk of possibly opening late one evening every week to facilitate the commuters. Similar, high-impact days are planned down the line. There is a realisation that, despite all, the town retains some capacity to shape its own future. All is not lost. There is a way. And, if you ask me, that was a quite incredible result from one day in Ballinrobe – what might otherwise have been a slow, wet, November Tuesday in April could be the turning-point. Where there’s a will…
