Maria (00:02.108)
Hello, Alexa, and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. Thank you very much for coming on. How are you doing?

Alexa Volker (00:08.092)
I'm good Maria, thank you so much for having me today.

Maria (00:11.446)
you're welcome, honestly, this is a real pleasure because, well, as we're going to discuss later on, there were lots of exciting things happening that you can tell us about. So before we get into the juicy stuff, shall we say, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Alexa Volker (00:26.368)
Hi, my name is Alexa and I am the Business Improvement District Manager for Reading. I've held this role for just over two years now and previous to that I was Head of Operations for the Business Improvement District for about five years. So I've been in this role so to speak, working with the bid now for about seven years. I can't do the math unfortunately.

Maria (00:52.414)
No obviously as we're going to see as the podcast progresses the bid does some fantastic stuff for independents based in Reading. What do you like about, do you live in Reading first of all and if so what do you like about living in Reading or that you've discovered through your work with the bid?

Alexa Volker (01:12.756)
Yeah, so I live just on the outskirts about two or three miles away from the town center and Ridding's been home to me. Sorry Ridding's been home to me for about 25 years now and I have watched it grow and change over those years from when I first arrived back in 98 99, I think it was and I love I love the diversity of

I love the different shops, the different restaurants, the different streets, the modernism of our Abbey Quarter Business Improvement District, and then the heritage of the Abbey itself, our fantastic train station, and then a short walk away, you're at the Thames and you're in the middle of the countryside.

We literally have everything in one quite small place and I think that is what I love most about

Maria (02:21.318)
It's a fantastic place to live. Yes, I always say that I really like the canals. You're absolutely right. You can be in the town centre one minute and then just a few minutes later feel like you're in the country and swans and everything around you is beautiful. obviously you work for the bid and as we said that is Business Improvement District. That's what it stands for. Could you elaborate for everyone on the goals of the bid and the initiatives that you

Alexa Volker (02:31.133)
you, Sam.

Alexa Volker (02:48.414)
Yeah, sure. So the Business Improvement District is a geographical area of a town centre and for us, roughly, it's everything within the IDR, the distribution road. And what happens is every five years, all of the businesses get the opportunity to vote as to whether they want to keep the bid or not. And we've just gone through that process in February.

and received an exounding success results through our ballot. So we were really pleased with that and were so grateful for the support of businesses. And what they were voting on was our business plan. We have two business plans. We have one for Reading Central and one for Abbey Quarter. And they outline many of the services and initiatives and projects that we will be bringing to the town over the next five years.

That includes our business wardens. So we have currently two business wardens. We will be increasing that number who patrol the town centre seven days a week, working very closely with the stores on shoplifting and crime related issues. We work incredibly closely with the police and the CCTV operators to help support retailers and members of the public who've come into the town, maybe need us. They've done everything

helping fill out shoplifting packs to helping elderly people who may be lost, helping people who've fallen over, and one of our wardens even ushered a duck back to the canal. So they get involved with lots and lots of different things in the town centre and it's all around security and safety and a welcome presence. The other things we do are about trying to enhance the town.

So whilst the council does an amazing job on all the litter picking through the town centre, we then come in with all the flowers and the giant bunting which you'll see up in the town centre at the moment and the Christmas lights which we do obviously later in the year and then on top of that trails which we'll speak about in a minute to encourage people to come into the town centre and enjoy the town centre.

Alexa Volker (05:09.872)
We also do well -being events like weekly yoga and walking. We have a training brochure as well. So every month we have first aid training or mental health training or this week we've just launched our Fire Marshal training. We've got an online training portal as well called Seedle. So any of the businesses in the town centre can take part in this online training. Any member of staff.

who wants to maybe do a taster session in project management or customer service or learn how to use Excel. There's I think 200 and between 200 and 300 different courses online that people can take and it's all for free. It's all covered by the bid levy. So the businesses who have all voted for us to stay in all pay a levy on an annual basis and that is what funds all of this.

Maria (06:07.41)
That's amazing. I I love the story about the warden ushering the duck back to the canal, but it never ceases to amaze me just how much effort it takes because obviously we could go into town and someone can go walk through, have a lovely day in town. But like you said, to have wardens to keep it going, to make sure things like, know, packs have been filled out, that if someone falls over, there's someone there to help them. There was a huge amount of effort that goes on behind the scenes. Now you mentioned Reading Council there.

Before, could you just outline a little bit more on where the bid sits in with Reader and Reading Council and the relationship between the different bodies?

Alexa Volker (06:44.254)
Yeah, of course. So Reader is our umbrella organization. They are more involved with inward investment and marketing. We sit under Reader as part of the Reader portfolio. The council then sits separately to Reader. We are funded completely separately. We are governed completely separately. But we sit in a very lucky position in that we work incredibly closely with them.

So we have really good links with our licensing teams, our highways teams, our homelessness teams, where we are invited to be part of the work that they do and assist them and they assist us. None of what we do is done in isolation. We work incredibly closely with the council and the police and our street pastors.

as well as our late night venues and our night time economy, everything that we do is done in partnership. So it's great that we can put up the bunting or we can put up the flowers or we can put up the Christmas lights, but actually none of that happens without the council assisting us with access or the police assisting us with intelligence or whatever it might be. So we have some very, very good and close working relations with those stakeholders.

Maria (08:13.551)
Fascinating. when you're working with businesses within the town centre, what sort of, I know we've covered a couple, but what sort of challenges and opportunities do you normally come across in them?

Alexa Volker (08:25.972)
I suppose one of the things is trying to raise the profile of the town, raise the profile of the town to visitors, but also to locals. know, local people who've lived here many years might have their well trodden route from the bus or the car park to, you know, their Marks and Spencers or Primark or whatever it might be, but might not know about shops that are opening up in all the little roads.

amazing independent shops that we have. And one of the opportunities is raising that profile of those smaller businesses to those local people who come in once a week or once a month for them to maybe go off of their well trodden route, but also for the visitors coming in who are new to Reading to understand that we have some incredible independent businesses. So I think that's a challenge and always will be trying to change people's perception of a place.

and also change people's habits really. So yeah, I suppose that is one of the challenges of this.

Maria (09:31.926)
Now you hinted earlier at the opportunity to do that is through things like the trail, which obviously at the moment we have a trail going on at the moment, so could you just give a bit of an outline to that? Because at the moment it is myths, isn't it, like mystical creatures, but last year I believe it was dinosaurs. So where did this come? I the thought of having Stegosaurus or something in the of the town centre is not the first thing that would come to my mind. So could you give us a bit of background to the trail?

Alexa Volker (09:50.162)
Yeah.

Alexa Volker (10:00.212)
Yeah, absolutely. So as part of my role, I'm always looking for activities or reasons to try and get people into the town. And I'm very lucky to be part of a much wider group of bids around the country. are only one of about 360 bids, I think, across the country and of all shapes and sizes. And I'm really lucky to be part of a group

we learn from each other. And the idea of trails came up last year, Easter. And we did a small trail in the town centre where we put little stickers in the windows of shops and we printed maps and we saw quite a number of families taking part in this. And I thought, well, let's try and make that a little bit bigger. So in summer last year, we brought the dinosaur trail into the town centre.

And for licensing and copyright purposes, we can't say that it's Lego, unfortunately. It is plastic bricks, but you can decide what they're made of. We can't advertise it as that. But we brought the dinosaur trail into the town center and were blown away by just how many people took part in it. And

We only had the trail for two weeks and then all these people in the third week after had gone saying, no, we'd missed it. You know, they'd missed out on the opportunity. So this year we decided we would extend it. So it's on for three weeks and we've gone for a medieval fantasy trail. So around the town centre we have, it's about, there's loads of little ones and big ones, I think in total, there must be about

40 odd models of all different sizes around the town centre, ranging from little like stone ruinic tablets, which are in Keely's, which is a fantastic family run framing company on Kings Road, all the way up to a dinosaur, which is in the Oracle, which weighs almost a ton. And it's fantastic. We installed it last Friday, actually a week ago today.

Maria (12:23.39)
Do you mean the dragon?

Alexa Volker (12:23.94)
and the dragon yes yeah the dragon so what did i say sorry okay

Maria (12:29.384)
dinosaur I think. No, is one I have seen. I need to go and see the others but I walked into the town centre and by the way last year the dinosaurs, I don't know how I missed them. I think I must have just not gone into the town centre for two weeks because how I would go into the town centre and miss a dinosaur I do not know but I didn't even know what happened last year. So walking in there and seeing that dragon I was like wow it's amazing.

Alexa Volker (12:48.434)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alexa Volker (12:56.008)
Wow, Yeah, so the dragon in the oracle is, he, yes, it's a he. He weighs almost a ton and it's been set up so he is fighting the knight. So the knight and the dinosaur go together. And then if you go upstairs in the oracle, you'll see the huntswoman and the princess and the unicorn.

And yeah, the trail map is available at the Oracle, at Broad Street Mall, and at the train station. And we've also dotted them around at different places. If you pop into Eclectic Games, you'll see the dragon whelps, and they are baby dragons. And they're all throughout the store. And they've all been given names. So the lady who owns Eclectic Games has named all of the whelps. And it's just good fun. You know, it's just good fun.

and free for families to come in. When we were installing the dragons on Friday, an elderly gentleman came up to us and he was so excited because he had taken his grandchildren around to see the dinosaurs the year before and he was so pleased to see us installing the new ones so he could take his grandchildren around again. And then on Saturday we came across these two older ladies on their own, no children, these two older ladies.

doing the map, doing the trail on their own. this type of installation really awakens people of all ages and being able to, and I say force in inverted commas, but force them to go into different shops and down different streets that they wouldn't normally go to has really helped us raise the profile of our independent businesses because we've got, I think, eight or

of the 16 or 17 installation hosts are all independent businesses. So it's just, yeah, just trying to help them as much as possible.

Maria (14:59.782)
think that's great and the idea of the trail is brilliant because as we know people like things that they're familiar with so obviously if they've never been into a shop they don't want to but if they've been into the shop once even if it's just for the trail instantly that opens in their mind I've been into that shop it's familiar I can go in there again so you just need that initial thing that initial contact to let them know okay now it's part of my my normal walk or my routine

Alexa Volker (15:24.04)
my routine. Yeah, just an incentive, yes.

Maria (15:28.22)
What is your favourite item on the trail at the moment?

Alexa Volker (15:33.396)
I think I really love the Griffin. The Griffin is in Broad Street Mall. It's massive. And it was one of the ones that I helped install. And I think you sort of become attached to them. know, they become sort of yours. And it's this great big Griffin with these huge wings. And he's quite beautiful, I think. He's really beautiful. But the whelps as well in Eclectic Games are lovely.

There's an amazing table and chairs and food in Beadle and Chrome. And yeah, it's just wonderful. I couldn't choose, but I think the Griffin. I think

Maria (16:16.543)
Now it's really niggling on me. How did you install them? Obviously you weren't there putting the bricks together for this one turn dragon.

Alexa Volker (16:23.954)
No, no, no, no. So they come ready -made and they are installed by a team from the organization. And then myself and my team are there as well. So we get up early on a Friday morning and go and wheel all these Lego, not Lego, plastic bricks around, bricks.

Maria (16:50.27)
Yeah.

Alexa Volker (16:52.126)
We're going to wheel all these bricks around and set them up. We try and do it before everybody comes into town. But this time, because it was such a big installation, we were slightly late. But it was lovely because then people got to see us doing it and that then just raises the excitement level. yeah, it's fun and it's all of us doing it together, which is just a great fun time.

Maria (17:20.35)
Have you seen much? Obviously last year you said it was successful. I know we're only part way through it now. We're about a week into it now, aren't we? So what has the feedback been like for this

Alexa Volker (17:30.994)
Well, we printed a thousand maps and we thought that we would be okay. And we came back in after the weekend. it had only been open three days and many of the host businesses were wanting more maps because they had run out. So yeah, it's, it's, there's been a lot of people in three days.

Maria (17:51.09)
So a thousand maps nearly in what, three days -ish.

Alexa Volker (17:55.42)
Yeah, and we've got it online on our Visit Reading website as well so people can download it from there. yes, it's been really good. With these things, they're always, I say slow, and we've done a thousand maps already, but with these things, they build momentum because when your friends have been to see it, then you go to see it and then your friends go to see it. So yeah, we're putting it out on our social media and we're putting it out through different...

different channels and obviously speaking to you guys. So yeah, hopefully it'll just get more and more busy.

Maria (18:31.152)
I'm sure it will. And if you do it year on year, I with every event, once people know, they expect it and look forward to it the following year and then the buzz gets built up and they wonder what is it going to be this year. So it's definitely for the long run, isn't it? It works, but it's definitely a long -term commitment.

Alexa Volker (18:37.884)
do bigger and bigger

Alexa Volker (18:44.473)
It is. And we're already thinking about what 2025's installation will be. yes, it takes a long time. Yeah.

Maria (18:52.53)
It takes, as we said before, takes a long time to actually plan and yes, I'm not surprised. So yeah, I'll have to have a conversation with you about what you're planning for next year. So obviously this is only on for, as we've said, three weeks. Many congratulations already, by the way. If people listen to this podcast episode, obviously after the three weeks, obviously they've got the next one to look forward to, but what other things can they look forward to or how can they find out about other activities that you're doing?

Alexa Volker (19:01.935)
hahahaha

Maria (19:21.436)
during the year.

Alexa Volker (19:23.294)
So, mean, What's On Reading has got a lot of what we do listed on there all the time. So I would always say What's On Reading must be your go -to for things in the town centre. We have got, so the fantasy trail will be on until Sunday the 18th of August. On the 10th of August we have Carnival of the World which will be taking place in Broad Street.

and that's an amazing parade of carnival type of costumes, music, fire eating, all sorts of things. It's amazing. It's really, really amazing. We have a vegan festival on the 21st of September. We're going to be doing a Halloween trail. It'll be smaller than the fantasy trail, but we'll be doing a Halloween trail around the town centre.

We're hoping to do a Diwali parade, we're just planning that at the moment. Our Christmas light switch on is always the third Saturday of November, so this year is the 16th of November. We will have the German food market in place from then as well. And then on Saturday the, and I'm just trying to remember, Saturday the 7th of December, we will be doing our lantern parade.

And this is something that we are, this will be our third year. So in the weeks leading up to that, people will have the opportunity to go and make their own lantern. And yeah, it'll be great. It'll be lovely. It'll be really lovely.

Maria (21:04.382)
Gosh, you're so busy. I mean, I've organized events and just doing like one event, like just this event, you think, okay, that's you, you're done for several months, but you are clearly, you know, foot on the gas for everything that you do. So that's just, yeah, that's just brilliant. So do you have a key takeaway that you would like to leave our listeners with? If you could leave them with one thing, what would it

Alexa Volker (21:14.184)
All the time all the time.

Alexa Volker (21:27.457)
I think Reading isn't what you expect it to be even if you've lived here all your life. We have a university student who came around with us, she's doing a placement and she's lived here all her life and we took her just around town doing all the models and she said to me afterwards, she said, wow I've seen so many places I didn't know existed and

In that moment I just thought that's brilliant because hopefully you will then tell your friends or tell your family or know to go back to these different shops, you know, that people just don't notice. So I think the key takeaway is reading is not what you expect it to be. Actually it is so much more, so much

Maria (22:15.918)
that's just a perfect way to leave this episode. So Alexa thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Many congratulations again for well this trail and all the work that you do and yes I look forward to catching up with you again for the next trail next year.

Alexa Volker (22:21.012)
Thank you, Maria. Thank

Alexa Volker (22:29.694)
Definitely, call on us, we would be loved to be

Maria (22:34.366)
Excellent, thank you.

Alexa Volker (22:35.553)
Wahey! No problem! No