Monthly Recap: January Edition
I thought it might be quite fun, and possibly interesting to keep an almost journal of what happens month by month of running my little eco shop and all the other things that go on around that! We’ll ease into it with a fairly short a sweet post for January, and I’ll do better at taking notes in February 😆
January is always a good month for myself. I know many dread it. It’s still cold and dark, everyone’s social and merriment meters are running close to empty. I have in recent years taken the new year as a real chance to embrace renewal. Maybe not in a resolutions way, but a quiet time to reflect and plan for the year ahead. It also helps that it’s my birth month, and amongst some lovely gifts I got an amazing hori hori tool.
It’s a fab bit of gardening equipment, almost like a multitool, and as the name might suggest, it originated in Japan. Part serrated cutting edge, part trowel with a handy depth gauge, I’ll be getting lots of use out of this once things get going again up on the allotment.
Speaking of which there wasn’t any action to report up on my allotment in January. The weather was horrendous for the first couple of weeks, and then something else always cropped up on my Sundays off towards the end. I can feel the days getting longer though and evenings slowly staying brighter so that means I can start to visit after closing the shop for the day, result!
I guess the biggest bit of news was from social media, where a rather unassuming TikTok went what I would describe as viral (compared to my other videos at least) and reached a staggering 28k views! This then lead to the Sustainable Living Starter Kit I’d put together for the new year selling out and being shipped out to all corners of the UK! I was truly staggered, and the boost in online sales certainly helped with what was a quiet month. The good news is it’s back in stock, and at only £20 it makes an awesome present for someone, or a treat for yourself.
Speaking of social media I also dipped my toes into stop motion! I don’t know if you’ve seen the bit in Parks & Recreation (an amazing sitcom, well worth watching if you haven’t already) where one of the characters is doing claymation and sends all day taking hundreds of photos, presses play and turns out he’s made a second of film (watch here)! Thankfully my attempts turned out longer than that and seems to be a fun way to show products off along with a bit of detail as to why they’re a good eco alternative!
Litter picking resumed after a short festive break and I was joined by four others to go and tackle a notorious area of Taunton, Creechbarrow Road aka around big Asda! It was horrendous, and would’ve easily provided enough litter for an army of 20 to pick up over the course of the 90 minutes we were out there. It often feels unending, and I wonder if we’ll ever see a day without litter in Taunton, a boy can dream!
I think the only other sizeable bit of news that happened during January was the relaunching of the shop VIP membership. the ‘scheme’ had been running for much of 2022 but it was time to revise and streamline the idea, so now there is a flat £10 per month membership cost, but that gets you a 20% discount on every purchase, along with Free Coffee Friday’s and other perks too.
So I’ll be trying to make these blogs and accompanying Youtube videos a monthly thing, and will be great for those who maybe aren’t on Facebook and other social media, I know I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the shop! I’d love to hear how your January went, were you in hibernation mode, or did you hit the ground running for 2023?