Calendar of forthcoming events released until the end of February!!

Hi everyone! Am so pleased to release the final version of the Logo I will be using to advertise the Supper Club from now on and am absolutely delighted with the designs by Paul Nimmo from PN Design (clever cookie).

I have been playing around with a lot of social media this week, getting things set up, saving images for facebook posts, collecting menus and generally booking events to take us up to the end of February and into March.

The evening dates have not been so popular with everyone and if you are anything like me, money will be tight following the recent Festive Season. I have now taken the time to think about what we can do as a Club for the rest of the year, and have put together a budget for it. I have taken the liberty of adding a number of dates to the Calendar - so far, most of which include my favorite festivals that I tend to take the children to every year. I am open to other suggestions please?

There are two ladies in the Club who have a minibus licence, which means that we can start organising daytrips from April onwards. I will be sure to give everyone advance notice so that you can buy tickets from me, and pay for these in full in advance of the day. Some of these will include free entry to the event, and will only require payment for bus travel only.

The advertising on Facebook has been great in terms of raising our profile in the community, and at this stage I am very happy with the results from them. This just goes to show that you don't need to spend a lot of money to get good value from something very simple, yet cost-effective and I have spent less than £20.00 in total so far.

Now that the Calendar for the next month is available, I would still like to encourage you to show me events that you would like to suggest to the Club Members. The only condition at this stage is that it has to be a Pay-as-you-Go event as these are easy to book, and no-one is let down at the last minute if people do not attend. It's the simplest method of growing our membership numbers and getting to know each other over a wee meal, without having to spend a great deal of money to come along.

I am still working away in the background on my ideas for the national club, but will wait until this one is better established before launching anything further to do with that.

If anyone would like to contact me by private message to arrange a tea/coffee date just on our own, or with a small group of new friends you have made, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Tamara :)

From Such Humble Beginnings!

What an incredible week this has been !

There have been lots of ups and downs getting things established and trying to get our name out to the general public. I have started running some basic advertisements on Facebook and Gumtree which are trickling along nicely. On Facebook I set a budget of only £1.00 per day just for a start to see how it performs and I am quite happy with it so far. On Gumtree I spent £5.00 to get our listing into the Clubs & Associations page. I will be constantly updating and changing my layouts on the social media and blogs etc until I get something that I am 100%  happy with, and then will just set myself a schedule in the diary that I will follow religiously every week. I have now created this new blog which will just be for Kilmarnock Group - the other one I originally showed you will be used for the National Company going forwards which I have not registered yet as the name is still being finalised with domain companies for internet hosting. 

I have now registered three websites altogether under my name and will be developing two new companies at the same time, while also having my own business running along in the background which has been doing very little. I have put in requests for another three website addresses and all of them will eventually feed into the major membership website which I haven't started developing yet!

On the upside the interest in our product on Twitter has been taking off, and we have had some excellent feedback and retweets from people who like our product when we have followed them!

I only moved house only two months ago, and haven't had a great deal of time to get organised since we moved in. However, now that I am working full-time on getting the Kilmarnock Supper Club set up, I am able to stay home during the daytimes when the kids are at school, and I have been unpacking boxes and finding places for our belongings to go! I managed to get some great office equipment from another business owner on Gumtree who was closing down and moving back to Australia of all places would you believe - and so now I have a lovely new desk, filing cabinets, loads of stationary and a fantastic Brother Colour Printer ! I finally have trays to put things in, and am finally getting back to some sense of normality and into my daily routine of checking my tasks off in my diary as I complete them. I like to be an organised person.

My mind is still racing all the time with new ideas and slogans and guidelines that that I want to put into place for this new venture. It has been really hard to drag myself away from the computer at times - especially at night-time which is when I am usually at my best. I have never been this excited about a new venture in my entire life before because I am finally helping people to live a better life, and am just so eager to share it with them.

This house is quite a bit bigger than the last one that we were in, so I have converted the dining room into my office and took some pictures to keep on file. It isn't much just yet, and I am sharing it with my two cats who sleep in here at night-time with a Cat Tower next to my desk which I can not bear to do away with.

Last week I registered the Company Name with Companies House as a Limited Company by Guarantee and I am a Director. Received all of the paperwork in the mail this week, and now have to write up an official Articles of Association from the template. That should be interesting.

This is rather challenging altogether and is an enormous learning curve for me - not to mention sometimes a little frustrating. I am doing all of the marketing and social media myself and probably struggle with the templates for design the most. I tend to know the basics of most of the social media outlets as have been blogging on and off for about ten years now. and have used some of them but certainly not all of them and there are new things all the time. I started on Twitter for the first time a couple of years ago and it is fantastic for marketing and promoting products, but not enjoyable for personal use. Have set up accounts for Pinterest and Instagram, and enrolled with some courses being held to expand my knowledge of digital media - and know a few really clever people in the area that I can turn to for advice.

The new logo is being done by Paul Nimmo from PN Design and his work is really fantastic. He sent me through a few ideas for us to begin with this week, and the majority of members liked the one on the top left! 

Have been working away at booking events for the next 2-3 weeks, however, we are not in a position to pre-purchase tickets for seated events just yet. I believe that 100% trust is needed before sending out invoices to people and asking them to pay in advance over the internet and will not do that until I have earned their trust completely. 

My background over the years in Australia has been a mix of hospitality, events and tourism, and real estate, and I worked with the Sydney Convention & Visitors Bureau for four years (which is now called Business Sydney). My major expertise was creating events, and showcasing products, and packaging experiences together into a 3-5 day tour of Sydney, and then I would act as their tour leader. Since then my career has struggled a bit, and I am so happy to finally be in a position to be my own boss for a change, and to be able to market my own company and to be able to do things the way I know they are meant to be done.

The numbers for our first dinner club (Burns Supper) tonight are not as good as they were for last week, but I am really looking forward to dressing up and going out and getting to know everyone a little better over a more intimate setting!

We have the first of our regular meetups happening at the Clubhouse tomorrow afternoon, from 2:00 - 4:00 pm at the Black Cat Cafe in Kilmarnock. We will have a hot cuppa and a freshly-baked scone or cake waiting for anyone who is able to join us. Here is the map for you...

We have some great events coming up, with an Early Bird Menu at the Longhouse on the 3rd February, and some theme nights at the new Ayrshire College in March which sound like great fun and will give us a chance to dress up in costume perhaps!

Look forward to speaking with you, and meeting up in person if we have not already! Please let me know if you ever need anything.

Warmest regards always,

Tamara :)

Welcome to the new 'Clubhoose'!

Hello everyone! 

Some of the members visited the Black Cat Cafe today to take photographs of our new 'Clubhoose' and to go over arrangements for our Saturday afternoons in Kilmarnock!

I am delighted to say that there is plenty of parking right on the front door, and these photos will show you the fees applicable as it is not always free (just be careful)!  

There is wifi on the premises, so we can go online and get you up and running with your social media. A very big thanks to the owners for allowing us to use this beautiful space. Also, the hut is available for private night-time events if anyone would like to hire it out for a small function with friends. 

I will book this as a venue for us to get together on a casual basis once a month, and it will be a BYO plate affair and a cheap night out for everyone.

Tamara Campbell

The Kilmarnock Supper Club

@thekksupperclub

Our inaugural event was a huge success!!

  

The first meeting of the Kilmarnock Supper Club was held on Saturday, 14th January at the Franklin & Sloane Restaurant and it could not have gone better ! 

Fifteen people in all showed up for this inaugural event, and it was a fantastic afternoon! Everyone was really happy to be there on the day and had been looking forward to it all week, but there had been more than a few nerves all round.

We had a really nice mix of ages - with 13 ladies and two men! Wherever possible in the future I will always try to have communal dining tables where everyone sits in one big long row, but for the purposes of this group we were broken into smaller tables - all of which gelled with each other extremely well. These are some of the comments from people who had RSVP'd on Facebook before coming to the event:

I'm also very nervous about today and was for cancelling but I'm not going to and am sure I'll be walking past a few times before I actually come in x

Every 2 mins I'm all for cancelling. But hard bit is stepping in and that's over with in a second xx

I am the same but telling myself it just the same as going into m/s costa etc and starting to chat to someone it's only going for a coffee etc not major surgery

Nothing to be nevous about gorgeous people. You all do braver things than this every single day. 

Can't wait to meet you all for this exciting new adventure. 

I believe this will change a lot of people's lives in respect of not feeling lonely and getting out more.

I think it will be good and there are a LOT of people all feeling the same and in need of a wee night/day out and make new friends xx

A few of the guests had arrived before me and I walked in at five minutes to two with my girls! I was mortified as had wanted to get there nice and early for everyone, but couldn't find any name labels in the house and tried to get them from Tesco enroute!

Anyway, I introduced myself to the group and paired everyone off with a buddy to work with straight away and handed out some worksheets. I gave them a pen and a card each and a list of icebreaker questions so that they could get to know each other. I told them that they were to fill in the Registration Cards for their buddies, and introduce that person to the group instead of talking about themselves. I know for a fact that there literally nothing worse than taking turns at standing up and introducing yourself to a roomful of complete strangers and it used to make me feel sick and went red every time.

After that the tea and coffee were made available in a corner of the room for us to help ourselves, and scones were served direct to the tables. I stood up and gave the group a really big welcome and told them how brave they were for coming along - along with a brief introduction about myself and my reasons for starting the Club, and then each of Club Members took turns at introducing their buddy. Every story we heard was just so interesting, and it was really great fun.

After that I brought out this little gimmick bear called a 'Worry Monster' that I had bought from The Range the previous day, and I got everyone to write down their biggest fear in coming along to the event. My two children were observing everything and remained quiet drinking their cups of tea in the background, but I wanted them to come along with me to learn about the lives of other people and so that I could teach them how to run events in the future. They thought that the Worry Monster was a little bit embarassing but I persevered with it nonetheless!

I started off first as my greatest fear for the day 'was that no-one would ever show up' as I have been stood up in the past and it is absolutely humiliating. But there were so many people there who made similar comments and so I read out all of the fears back to them so that they were able to realise that they were not the only ones who had had the same misgivings.

I have to give the staff at Franklin & Sloane a huge thankyou for allowing us to have the use of the library, and for looking after our group so well. The venue was absolutely perfect and we had the whole room to ourselves.

I took the children out for dinner at one of the wee pubs nearby, and we had a big debrief about how we felt that the meeting had turned out. 

All of the feedback so far has been extremely positive, and everyone is looking forward to meeting up again. Here are some of the comments made afterwards by the Supper Club Members on Facebook:

I had a lovely afternoon. Very glad I overcame the nerves and looking forward to the next time and getting to talk with more of you xx

Enjoyed meeting you ...felt like I already knew you....we knew a few people and share the same kind of job xxxxx (this was for another member of her table)

I felt our table just blended well - not only did I meet new people I got advice on a health matter - met someone who lives near bye that wants to go walking and urself - bet we could have great chats (for another member)

Was a HUGE success this afternoon .....I was MORE nervous in what the hell am I going to wear as it has been THAT long since I went out socializing that I am always just dressed in casual wear to go to work lol 

I can't remember the last time that I have had such a mentally fulfilling week!

Until next time, Tamara xx

Join us at The Kilmarnock Supper Club - a social dining club for the Over 40's!

Welcome to the Scottish Supper Club - an innovative new social dining club for the Over 40's in Ayrshire!

I started this group on Facebook in an effort to meet like-minded souls, and in the very first week since inception we have signed up nearly 100 members.

'The art of making new friends' has become almost obselete in this age of rapidly-advancing technology where dating websites have 'become the accepted norm' for thousands of people who go on-line looking for love. But having done the 'internet dating' thing and written numerous versions of humiliating profiles on-line for myself, I still had not found what I was truly looking for - a group of friends who understood and accepted me for who I am.

Since emigrating to Scotland from Australia ten years ago with my two girls, and as a single mother who did not drink or party very much, I have found it difficult to make new friends here. I was often the one to make the first move, or was too shy or too much of a 'loner', and eventually after several disastrous attempts I gave up altogether!

So anyway, this year was a brand new year for me - it was 2017 and time to get my life in order at long last! And so, after yet another night sitting alone on my couch eating chocolate and making things worse, I decided to be brave, and to take that first gut-wrenching step towards a new life for my family and started the Kilmarnock Supper Club as a group on Facebook.

Unbeknownst to me, I have discovered that there are literally hundreds of people out there who - through no fault of their own - have found themselves alone again, and feel like they are the only ones. Just like me they are looking to make new friends and share fun times with people their own age - mix with a group of friends who share similar interests, and now - I am delighted to say - that we have all of us found each other! and what a change there is going to be!!

Some of our members have divorced or separated, others have children who have grown up and moved out of home, some of us have lost partners who passed away far too young, and others work shifts - but all of us know what it is like to feel alone, not really knowing what to do or where to start again...

This group has been modelled on the dining clubs I knew from Australia - where complete strangers can get together for a sumptuous dining experience at communal tables on a regular basis! We will be organising regular events, with a particular focus on enjoying the very best Scottish food and wine that this country has to offer! In addition to this, we will be organising daytrips to music concerts, markets and arts events, and food/wine festivals throughout the whole of Scotland and are putting a calendar of events together as I speak!

Membership is free for anyone who wants to join us, and is open to locals and visitors alike! The Scottish Supper Club will always be like that - and I believe that you should never put a price on offering friendships to anyone - or take advantage of those who need them most.

So when will YOU make the decision to join our Social Dining Club - what have you got to lose? Please don't be shy - we have all had to take that very first step - just join up now and come along to one of our events with an open mind - and see what happens next!!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/TheKilmarnockSupperClub/

http://twitter.com/thekksupperclub

or email thekilmarnocksupperclub@outlook.com.

May I wish you all the best of luck! Tamara ;)