Main Content

Melksham Town - asleep or awake?

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-10-21 06:00:32 - Graham Ellis

I'm writing this early - before six in the morning - and already I've been around Melksham town as it starts to awaken for another day, dropping off a Melksham Chamber of Commerce Update Letter through the letterboxes of all the businesses. When I checked all their details for the town map a couple of months ago, I promised an update on various issues raise, and now is a good time both to sweep around with a final update on some of those, and to start a new and more active approach from The Chamber that we have long since planned.

Melksham is dark. But it's active. The town's three newsagents are setting up shop. And people are walking and cycling through the town, down to "The Avon" or Cooper Tires as they are now, for the start of their shift at six. It's when you see the steady and significant flow that you realize just how important jobs, and these jobs, are to the town.

Some businesses have easy to access letterboxes. And I was able to pop my newsletter through their doors in a matter of a few seconds. Some have instructions on their front doors - "please leave post in door to side", and I cheerfully complied. Others have no letter boxes that I could see, are behind gates, have blocked their letter boxes or are so dark that I would need a torch to find them. I've taken the view that such businesses aren't encouraging local people who want to drop off a letter for them to get in touch - "business on OUR terms - when we're here" is the approach - and I'm not going to take a substantial amount of "prime time" during the day going around and forcing myself upon them. If you just happen to be a town center business in Melksham and haven't received the Chamber's fly, please follow the link above, or get in touch if you would like a printed copy of the same thing ;-).

We're moving more and more to 24 hour businesses - I already have overnight training inquiries to answer, and the post and written word have so largely been taken over (or overtaken) by the Internet. Receiving a cheque for course payment by post is still quite common (although it may hit terminal decline if we have a postal strike) but more and more people pay us by BACS or credit / debit card - and although credit cards especially cost us a significant fee, it means we're "open all hours", and we're able to work from the Hotel, from home ... or from Fareham, Lymington, Cambridge, Horsham, Larne, or any other place that we're giving a course.