About Me
How a city girl found her niche creating sales messages for rural enterprises.
Brought up in the city of Worcester, in the Midlands, I'm now lucky enough to live on a small 20 acre farm in West Wales in the UK. It's very beautiful and peaceful here. The perfect place for a copywriter to write, farm and study.
It is because of two rural enterprises and the belief and support of friends, family, staff and customers that we are lucky enough to have this place, to look after……..for a while. We, being my husband Steve and our 3 children.
Our two rural businesses were: an organic table bird enterprise, S&J Organics, set up in 2002 and an organic vegetable box scheme S&J Organic Growers, run out of a walled garden in Wiltshire from 1996. It is still being run by a good friend and former employee who bought the business from us in 2002.
In both cases my role was marketing for our small business which I learnt on the job. We had a clear vision about producing high quality food and developing the land. Our vision included a particular lifestyle, a set of strong views about sustainable production and a passion for what we did. It didn't include making pots of money but it did include buying and building our own sustainable mixed farm.
Finding and developing new markets was my job, which I did with gusto. Ever more creative ideas for value added products like duck and apricot pies and three bird roasts were inspired by our customers in farmers markets and food fairs. We reared, slaughtered, processed, cooked and sold our award winning poultry to butchers in London, households all over Wales and UK, and before that delivered boxes of vegetables to over 200 households per week in the Bath area.
I loved the selling and the customers. I found an endlessly stimulating, creative outlet developing publicity material and newsletters, organising open days, planning how to dress the stall and creating labels for our produce.
As time progressed and our 3 small children were no longer babies, but little people I was ready for a different direction. One that could still help us develop our farm but would not take me away to events every weekend.
I studied for a diploma in copywriting and took the plunge offering my creative and copywriting skills to other rural businesses in 2006. Helping people get their message across is hugely satisfying. I have had the priveledge of working with many passionate and visionary people who have a belief in what they are doing. Many are not driven solely by profit and that means they may be working long hours for small reward. When I increase their sales or transfer skills to help those businesses market themselves better, I feel immense satisfaction.
The poultry business has also evolved into The Welsh Poultry Centre. This is now an information resource for outdoor commercial poultry producers all over the world. You'll find an excellent library of articles and advice there, on production, processing and marketing eggs and table birds.
Growing up, I was always on the look out for adventure, taking the path less travelled. I feel enormously grateful to all the people I have shared that adventure with along the way and look forward to meeting those whose paths I haven't yet crossed.
Where to now?
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