Discover Ripon Hub #DiscoverRipon

“Discover Ripon Hub” is aiming to imaginatively promote the city in a unified and professional way, making the best use of shared resources and joined-up thinking.

What is “Discover Ripon Hub”?

The “Hub” is comprised of a group of Ripon’s support organisations, working in partnership, across the city to promote Ripon’s businesses, culture, events, tourism and its natural environment for the benefit of everyone who lives, works or visits Ripon. Ripon has always been acclaimed for its rich programme of events and festivals but traditionally many organisations have worked hard to market these events, largely in isolation, resulting in the production of numerous leaflets, most of which have relied largely on volunteer time and limited resources, restricting their ability to maximise their potential audience.
One of the main objectives that Angela Harris, the current Ripon City Development Manager, identified when setting up “The Hub” as part of the infrastructure to improve the marketing and re-generation of Ripon for was for it to encourage these organisations to work closer together for their mutual benefit, to maximise the use of shared resources and to “Professionalise Ripon” The Hub is endorsed and supported by Ripon City Council, led by the City Development Manager and relies largely on the professional administrative support of Suzanne Bowyer and others. Its steering group is in many ways similar to a “town team” and whilst it is initially relying on financial support from the City Council and other partners it is envisaged that it will become a commercially self sufficient operation in due course. Hopefully, as services develop, all Ripon’s businesses and residents will start to benefit directly – and visitors will receive comprehensive and accessible information from what will effectively be a “one stop shop – physically & virtually”

What has the Hub done?

The Hub is proud of its initial production of the “Discover Ripon“ video, achieved in collaboration with Lightwater Valley and produced by Simon Edward. It is available on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikJkz87UWbU and for freely embedding into any other website. The video has had over 1,000 views from the main YouTube sites and countless more from the web sites of other organisations.

In October a Twitter workshop was been provided by The Hub, led by Nick Morgan, representing Ripon Cathedral, to demonstrate to local businesses how to tweet in order to promote their business. Its success led to the launch of the #DiscoverRipon hour which now takes place every Tuesday between 8-9pm – everyone is encouraged to join in to help raise the profile of both their own business and also of Ripon. Ripon Hour is becoming increasingly popular as confidence in the simplicity and benefits of professional tweeting grows. Additional Twitter workshops are planned in the New Year, anyone interested in taking part should contact Suzanne Bowyer, the “Discover Ripon” administrator on 01765 604097.

The Hub is currently “won” the opportunity to work with the Association of Market Towns to undertake a benchmarking project which will involves gathering data to give Ripon some baseline information on its performance in relation to that of similar towns across the country. This data will come with practical advice about actions that should be taken and can also be utilised to provide a basis from which future developments can be measured.

Going forward …...”Discover Ripon Hub” is committed to having a physical presence in the centre of the town to provide information and services to residents, visitors & businesses, as well as having an active on line presence - with a new interactive, up to date “Discover Ripon” web site being planned for launch in February 2013. It will also continue to utilise social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube & Twitter.

Any organisation or business that would like to know more about how you can work closer with “The Hub” and benefit from its services, as it develops, should contact Angela Harris on 07788253547 up until the end of November, after which please contact Suzanne Bowyer on 01765 604097

Discover Ripon steering group partners include: Ripon Ring, Ripon Festivals, Ripon City Council, Ripon Chamber of Trade, Ripon Cathedral, Ripon CVS, Ripon Civic Society, Lightwater Valley, Fountain’s Abbey, GRIP, Harrogate Borough Council, Ripon Museums Trust