Promoting Chobham Businesses

Did you know that there are at least three hundred businesses based in Chobham?

You might think of the local shops, tradesmen, professional services, and businesses such as Fairoaks Airport and Alpha 319 (Chobham Business Park). But did you know that you also have construction companies, marketing agencies, security companies, IT specialists, metal workers, architects, investors, video services, furniture makers, marketing consultants, and many more services … all on your doorstep? In fact, almost any product or service that you might need is probably available from someone in the village, less than a mile from where you live. The challenge is – How do you find them?

The “yellow pages” in the Chobham Parish magazine is an excellent start and will help you with many of the services that you are looking for, but what if the service you want isn’t listed? The traditional Yellow Pages can be pretty hit-and-miss, and does not include all local businesses. Wouldn’t it be great if you could find the service you wanted easily on the internet, particularly if they were in the next road, and you knew the proprietor (but didn’t know that he provided the service you were looking for)? Well this new project – Network Chobham – aims to help you do just that.

The Parish Plan (ChobQuest) gave the first clue that there were so many businesses in the village. For the last year, a team of villagers interested in the community, including Chobham Business Club, has assembled one single database of businesses from a variety of different sources. Information on some businesses is very good, while that on others is very poor. There are probably many more businesses that we have yet to discover. Thanks to sponsorship from the Carnival Association and Chobham Business Club the project has now raised enough money to write to all of the businesses in our database to fill in the missing information. It also has enough money to start to build the website that will make this information available to you, free of charge, via the internet.

The web Directory will promote business-to-business services (e.g. IT support & event organising), as well as business-to-resident (e.g. gardening, tradesmen & shops). It will also be used to support existing directories, such as the one in this magazine.

If you run a business in Chobham and receive a letter from us, please respond. We can then promote you on the website, free of charge. We will encourage villagers and other businesses to use local services, rather than another supplier who could be many miles away. Customers of local businesses will be promoting vitality in the community – and probably save money too!

ChobQuest also told us that there are over 80 clubs & societies in the village! The group is working on a separate directory to identify these, too – to encourage new members and to attract volunteers to help with their organisation.

This is another innovative ChobQuest project with great potential to help the community in many ways. Please support it, and watch this space for more information. If you want to know more, or don’t receive a questionnaire from us by mid-October, please email Network@Chobham.net.