How do you showcase a new venue, bring a rural business community together and raise money for a local charity – all in one evening, without any of it feeling forced?
It started with a conversation...
The original plan was fairly simple: organise a business networking event at The Ripon Inn.
The Ripon Inn had recently installed its beautiful new tipi and wanted to introduce the space to businesses across Ripon and the surrounding North Yorkshire area. At the same time, we wanted to create another opportunity for local business owners to get out from behind their desks, meet one another and build relationships.
Because when you’re running a business in a rural area, those opportunities really do matter. There isn’t always a huge business community sitting on your doorstep, and many founders and small business owners are working independently, from home or as part of very small teams. Bringing people together in person can create connections, collaborations and opportunities that simply wouldn’t happen otherwise.
As we talked through the event, it became clear that we could make the evening about more than networking. We had a local venue to showcase, a business community to bring together and an opportunity to support something that mattered to Ripon too.
So we added a fundraising element for Ripon Walled Garden, a local charity supporting people within the community.
And suddenly the event had a much bigger purpose.
Fundraising - without hijacking the evening
One of the biggest challenges was working out how to fundraise without turning a relaxed business social into a fundraising event where everyone had to stop talking every ten minutes.
People were coming because they wanted to meet other local business owners, have conversations and enjoy the evening. I didn’t want to lose that.
So instead of a traditional raffle or auction, I introduced a silent auction.
It was something a little different for Ripon, and many guests hadn’t taken part in one before, so I created simple guides for both the organising team and attendees explaining exactly how it would work.
Guests could browse the prizes, place bids and support the charity throughout the evening, without interrupting conversations or changing the atmosphere in the room.
It meant the fundraising became part of the event rather than the event.
And importantly, many of the prizes came from local businesses themselves, turning it into another way of showcasing just how much talent, generosity and variety exists within our rural business community.
Getting the local business community involved
A big part of making the event work happened long before anyone arrived at The Ripon Inn.
I visited and contacted businesses around Ripon, inviting them along and asking whether they would consider donating something to the silent auction.
One of the things I particularly enjoy about working within a smaller community is that business development doesn’t have to mean anonymous emails disappearing into inboxes. It often happens through conversations, introductions and relationships. And the response was incredibly generous.
Independent businesses donated prizes, helped spread the word and supported the event – giving guests the chance to discover local businesses they may not previously have known about while raising money for a local organisation.
That sense of one local business supporting another became one of the loveliest parts of the whole evening.
Bringing all the moving parts together
Once the idea was in place, my job was to make sure everything worked as one event rather than several different ideas competing for attention.
I developed the marketing and event communications, coordinated with The Ripon Inn, managed enquiries from attendees and participating businesses, organised the silent auction and acted as the main point of contact throughout the planning.
Working alongside the team at The Ripon Inn, we also planned the space carefully so that the networking, catering and auction flowed naturally together.
The venue needed to feel welcoming rather than overly structured. People needed room to move around, find one another, look at auction prizes, grab a drink and have conversations without feeling as though they were being shepherded through an agenda.
As with most successful events, there were countless emails, conversations and tiny decisions happening behind the scenes. My role was to keep all of those pieces moving so that, on the evening itself, nobody else had to think about them.
A win for the venue, local businesses and the wider community
The event brought together more than 40 people from local businesses across Ripon and the surrounding area, introduced them to The Ripon Inn’s new event space and created a relaxed evening where people could make genuine new connections.
The silent auction also raised more than £600 for Ripon Walled Garden. But the result went beyond attendance numbers or the amount raised. The Ripon Inn was able to showcase what it could offer as a venue to potential local clients. Independent businesses gained visibility by donating prizes and taking part. Business owners who might otherwise spend much of their working week alone had the opportunity to meet people locally, share ideas and start new conversations.
And money was raised for an organisation doing valuable work within the same community.
For rural towns like Ripon, I think that kind of connection matters. A strong local economy isn’t built by businesses operating in isolation. It grows when venues, founders, independent businesses, community organisations and local people find ways to support one another – and sometimes an evening that begins as a networking event can help make that happen.
Sometimes an event can achieve much more than one thing
This project sums up a lot of what I enjoy about event and project work.
I’m rarely interested in simply putting an event in the diary and getting people through the door. I like looking at the bigger picture.
Could the event introduce people to a local venue they haven’t considered before? Could it showcase independent businesses? Could it create new relationships? Could it support a local organisation? Could it help strengthen the business community around it?
Sometimes that means coming up with a creative fundraising idea. Sometimes it means improving the guest experience. And sometimes it simply means making sure dozens of moving pieces quietly come together while everybody else gets to enjoy themselves.
If you’re planning a business event, fundraiser, networking evening, launch or celebration in North Yorkshire and want it to do something genuinely useful as well as look good on the night, I’d love to help you bring it together.
