Our next event in the theatre is our first National Theatre production War Horse followed by Fleabag the week after.
Our next ballet is the perennial Christmas favourite Bolshoi Ballet’s The Nutcracker. Tickets available from www.shaftesburyartscentre.org.uk
Sat 12th December cycle with Rudolph and his antlered team this Christmas. Partcipiants must have registered in advance giving their names and ages plus contact details (see poster below). Pay on the day £12 family of five or £5 per person.
Testimonials. How often do you read them before purchasing a product? I would hazard a guess and say a
lot! According to research by Nielson 92% of consumers trust a recommendation from a peer and 70% will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know, highlighting the need to collate, gather and use your business testimonials. Testimonials play a big role in building a brand, developing credibility and loyalty, customer service but also for search engine optimisation.
Testimonials provide your customers with a voice, and allowing them to express it increases customer engagement and interaction as well as loyalty. Businesses with testimonials will rank higher in search engines as both Facebook and Google favour businesses with testimonials (recommendations).
According to MOZ’s Local Search Ranking Factors Survey (2018), online reviews could make up 10% of how Google (plus other search engines) rank search results. Some businesses choose to use platforms like Trustpilot and Tripadvisor to collect and collate their testimonials, where they are awarded stars or a
satisfaction percentage. Whatever you use the process is super simple but the benefits are huge to small businesses.
Ask for testimonials: Using your social media, email marketing or even directly asking, encourage customers to leave testimonials of the service/product they received. Emphasise how easy the process
is and avoid using language like “write a review” which makes it sound like a chore. Instead, opt for ‘leave a review’.
Share your testimonials: Again using social media et al, share with your customers what others have had to say, make the testimonials work as a marketing tool.
Include CTA in your paperwork: Adding call to actions onto all correspondence, email footer, website footer, compliment slips, invoices, receipts, reinforcing the importance.
Make your testimonial obvious: Have a page on your website, even if that’s a link to your Google testimonials, be proud and show off.
So if you want to rank higher in searches, develop your brand and increase your customer base make sure you are utilising and collecting testimonials everyday.
By Joanne Dewberry – https://joannedewberry.co.uk/
Martin Cowan
In Memoriam
Another year over, the worst one yet without friends and family and missing you so much. Thinking of you this Christmas time, the 20th one where you’re not here.
Love forever,
Mum, Ken, Michelle, Dave, Chloe, Liam, Holly, James and Elena xx
Have you made your Will? Has your Executor made a Will?
We all need to make a Will. There is absolutely no argument against that advice. Some argue that they accept how their estate will be distributed under the intestacy rules so there is no point. There is a point. Dying without a Will will mean that you haven’t appointed an Executor to deal with your estate. This is a crucial element to your Will as it will not only ease of the administration of your own estate but also any estate that you may be executor for.
This is because there is a term called the Chain of Executorship. For example, if Finlay appoints you as his sole executor but you die before completing the administration then your executor will be able to deal with not just your estate but also complete the administration of Finlay’s estate. Good. However, if you don’t have an executor appointed then the chain is broken. Bad. Your estate administration will initially be more complicated than necessary. It also means that the administration of Finlay’s estate has to be delayed until the appropriate person entitled to take the grant applies for it and obtains it.
This is costly in terms of additional estate fees and a potential loss in the value of the assets which the beneficiaries will not be pleased about. Sadly, this scenario happens too often and adds to the pressure on your own family at a difficult time and someone else’s.
There are of course exceptions to the rule if you have already appointed a substitute executor, but are they really a good alternative?
Together, let’s make sure your Will includes well-appointed executors, says what you want it to say and covers all of the other essential elements. We look forward to helping you soon.
For more information or advice on the above or Lasting Powers of Attorney, please contact a member of Battens Private Client Team, Sally Manning sally.manning@battens.battens.co.uk 01963 407060.
Christmas market at Wincanton Sports Ground – see poster below for full details.
Please see below the schedule for Santa in the Gillingham and Shaftesbury area. we are looking for helpers in each town in the evenings around 5.30 till 8.30 also weekends to help us make this happen. So if you have any spare time and would like to helpus raise money for lots of worthwhile causes, please contact us via our Facebook page or website. Thank you.
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“I’m absolutely over the moon.”
The reaction of Rosie Mead, Founder of Blandford-based Musica Music and Wellbeing CIC, after hearing she had been named a Woman of Inspiration in this year’s top 100 WISE (Women in Social Enterprise) list.
WISE 2020, held by Pioneers Post in partnership with NatWest, focused this year on how stars of the social enterprise world had adapted to Covid and showed it ‘who’s boss’.
Musica Music and Wellbeing CIC is a not for profit organisation specialising in dementia care.
Rosie, and the team at Musica, looked at innovative ways to support caregivers during the pandemic to use music in the daily lives of people living with dementia.
In August the company launched a free online introduction to music and dementia.
Already 250 people have signed up to the course worldwide.
Rosie, who is the Chief Executive of Musica, said: “I’m absolutely over the moon to be included in the top 100.
“We’ve worked really hard this year to change what we’re doing to support people living with dementia during Covid.
“Being recognised for those efforts is a big boost for the whole team.”
Megan Peat, CEO, NatWest Social & Community Capital, said: “The stories of these leaders who have shown agility, resilience and adaptability over the last few months will inspire many on their path towards rebuild and recovery.”
Musica’s free online introduction to music in dementia course is made up of videos, podcasts and handouts around the power of music in dementia care.
It takes around one hour to complete.
In addition to this, each learner receives an email series of ten tips for using music in dementia care.
They also receive access to Musica’s online community where they can connect and engage with other caregivers to share ideas, successes and challenges.
Musica was established in 2010 to improve dementia care through the use of responsive, musical activities designed to improve the wellbeing and quality of life for both those living with dementia and their carers.
The company has gone on to provide support to healthcare professionals and family carers by offering guidance on how music can be embedded into daily care routines.
Rosie said: “The benefits of music in dementia care are significant.
“The use of meaningful music can help to strengthen connections between the individual living with dementia and their caregivers, reducing social isolation as well as improving overall wellbeing and quality of life.
“I want to bridge the gap between research and practice by supporting caregivers to have an understanding of the research behind why music benefits people living with dementia as well as how they can put this understanding into practice as part of their relationship-centred dementia care.”
Musica is considered one of the leading music and health organisations and is on the SE100 index for 2020, listing the top 100 performing social enterprises in the UK.
The organisation operates across the UK delivering online support, training, coaching and meaningful music activities for healthcare providers and family caregivers to support relationship-centred dementia care.
To sign up to Musica’s free introduction to music and dementia care, please click here.musica-music.co.uk
By: Andrew Diprose Dorset Biz News
It was North Dorset’s worst day of the Second World War, yet it was also a case of mistaken identity.
When 37 Heinkel He.111 bombers flew over Yeovil just before 4pm on September 30, 1940, their intended target was the Westland Aircraft factory and aerodrome.
But 90 per cent cloud cover at 20,000 feet obscured the Somerset town and Sherborne copped it instead.
Estimates of the number of bombs that fell on the Abbey town in three disastrous minutes vary wildly from 60 to 300.
But other statistics of the destruction are more certain.
Eighteen people died and 31 needed hospital treatment. The names of the dead are recorded alongside the war memorial in Half Moon Street.
More than 680 buildings were damaged and 86 destroyed, mostly houses or shops.
Foster’s Infants School in Newland took a direct hit but thankfully its pupils had left for the day 15 minutes earlier.
Amazingly, the Abbey and its historic precincts survived virtually unscathed as bombs rained all around.
The most detailed account of the events that autumn afternoon came from Edward J. Freeman, clerk to Sherborne UDC and the district air raid precautions controller.
It happened to be Mr Freeman’s birthday and he had taken a rare day off and was queuing for the cinema in Yeovil when he heard the ‘thud of bombs’ to the east and saw the pall of black smoke.
It could only be Sherborne and he drove straight back and picked his way through the debris to the council offices.
The raid had cut off all water, gas, electricity and telephone services and blocked the sewers and all roads out of Sherborne.
The telephone exchange took a direct hit and its supervisor, Miss Maud Steele, became a heroine after organising the relaying of urgent messages to the outside world by road.
For her dedication to duty, she became one of the first recipients of the new George Cross, known as the ‘civilians’ VC’.
There were several strange incidents.
In The Avenue, a Miss Billinger reputedly climbed from her bath into the open air after much of her house was blown away.
The cemetery also took a direct hit and a coffin, buried just a week earlier, was blown out of the ground.
In Horescastles, bombs landed on both sides of a terrace causing outhouses to implode away from the main buildings due to a bellows effect.
At a bakery next to the Picture Palace in Newland, a hoard of silver coins was thrown on to the cinema roof and retrieved by an ARP warden.
At least six bombs were delayed action and went off 12 hours after the raid.
Like most crises and disasters, the raid brought out the community spirit.
After learning that 10 council houses in Lenthay had been destroyed and most of the remaining 108 houses badly damaged, Mr Freeman sent his billeting officer to organise rehousing.
But by the time he arrived, all the homeless had already been offered alternative shelter by other townsfolk.
‘It was quite extraordinary what happened there, and it happened all over the town,’ Mr Freeman told my late colleague Rodney Legg in an interview for Dorset County Magazine in 1984.
‘If ever I have admired the people of Sherborne as a whole, it was after the raid.
‘I had told the schools they might have to put people up that night, but in the event it wasn’t necessary.’
Roger Guttridge
