Weston Chamber and Town Centre Management Team were proud to annouce the results and to thank Star FM for their involvement in the Victorian Evening and Winter Window Land competition. Please see www.star1077.co.uk for details.

The results for Weston-super-Mare's Victorian Evening, Window Dressing Competition held in December were:

Window Wonderland Results:

 Age Concern

This marvellous evening was a huge success thanks to the general publis for the ir warm enthusiasm and to the excellent collaboration between the Town Centre Management team, Weston-super-Mare and District Chamber of Trade and Commerce in co-organising the Victorian themed evening for one of this years late night openings.

In the above photo, Weston Chamber Vice President Chris Knight presents the award for the elected best display on the evening to Nicholla Maxwell of Age Concern Somerset.

This was an excellent opportunity to get a glimpse of how the townsfolk of the reknown Victorian Seaside town may have looked. Lots of shops participated, involving staff in dressing-up in period costume and opening late for the public to browse and buy.

Alongside this, Chamber were supporting the Town Centre Team in their Window dressing competition, which was huge success. The Best Dressed Window competition has been running for a number of years, and in this and future years, we are planning to combine both the popular late night shopping and Victorian Evening celebrating Weston's rich cultural and architectural heritage, and it's commercial focus.

The late night Theme is being supported by Liz Neathy and her team at the Weston Museum in Burlington Street and they are offering to help any traders to discover the history of their own premises and their own trade, giving tips on correct period costume and an in depth background into the Victorian Christmas. So thnak you to Liz and her team for their valued input and efforts.

It is hoped that as many traders as possible will continue to join in this historical event that brings all the traders and customer together to celebrate Weston's historical links and that they will take the opportunity to place an information board in their shops or windows and to have at least one member of staff dressed in period costume on the night.

We are aiming to achieve this on the midddle Thursday of December each year, which has been commonally indentified as the most approriate date.

The overall aim of this wonderful themed evening is to encourage shoppers to look a bit further and deeper into our town and discover some of the hidden gems amongst Weston's vibrant smaller shops and traders.

Even if you are not certain your particular business would benefit directly in extra trade from staying open late for one night, it has been suggested that by just opening up, it will allow browsers to find those shops they far too often miss on their usual rushed trips to the main commercial shops. In fact many shoppers return having 'discovered' certains shops and services that they had previous not been aware of.

Parking is generaly more relaxed and available and many people have come to enjoy the lights, only to spend a whole evening in the town and stay for dinner out.  

Our original aim was simply to draw more trade towards the smaller independents by encouraging the customers to the side streets and other less mainstream shopping areas, but we have found that the town as a whole has benefitted from the evening and we hope that by highlighting this with a special event evening, we hope to gain even more attention from local people.

So if you are a local business, we would love to see your involvement and if you are a visitor, we would love to share our proud heritage with you and give you a feeling for the good old days and not just the good new days!   

The Town Centre Managers Team can be reached by:

E-Mail: info@wsmtcp.co.uk

or by 'phone:  01934 642404

and Liz Neathy at the museum is on : 01934 621028

and at:

E-Mail: Museum.service@n_somerset.gov.uk

If you would like to have a chat with our Vice President Chris Knight about participating Chris can be reached on 01934 626326 or mobile 07793156200.

Chris is Manager of furnishings company Living Homes, who are very active in supporting this event and held a big preview night, with Mulled Wine and Victorian period costumes for their staff.  Thank you Chris for that excellent effort!