00:00Hi, I'm Mark. I am the owner of our handmade collective in Horsmouth. I run the shop with my wife, Claire.
00:07The shop opened about 13 years ago. It was opened by my wife Claire and her friend Natalie.
00:13So they started this in Leeds City Centre in the Grand Arcade.
00:17I joined during lockdown when life changed for a lot of people.
00:21And our partner Natalie, she left at that point to do another venture with herself and her brother.
00:26And I've been here ever since as a full time member of staff.
00:29We have the work of about 120 different makers. We try to keep it as Yorkshire based as possible.
00:36However, some of our makers do come elsewhere, but they're mainly Yorkshire based.
00:39To be involved in the local community is fantastic. A lot of our makers are actually from Horsforth.
00:44We've picked a lot up since we've been in the actual town itself.
00:48We try to keep it as local as possible.
00:52And we really enjoy being part of a community, especially in Horsforth itself.
00:58We have very close ties with some of the other businesses in town.
01:01And we often run events which are joined between all our little businesses working together to do as best as we can.
01:08A day in the life for our business is different every single day.
01:12We tend to try and find as many new makers as we possibly can if we've got the room.
01:17So a typical day would start off with me coming in, coming nice and early.
01:21Always need a coffee first to get the day started.
01:24Then open up about 10 o'clock in case of we do a little bit of cleaning first thing in the morning.
01:28First customers tend to come in normally 5 past 10ish.
01:32Tends to be fairly busy the first couple of hours.
01:34We also make sure that we are fully restocked as well.
01:37So anything that needs doing will do.
01:39Then go through our online orders.
01:41So we will have online orders coming in during the night.
01:44So they will be picked, they will be put to one side and they will be posted tomorrow morning.
01:48As the day goes on we tend to find we have another rush.
01:51Normally when the schools are in service we tend to find that we get another rush in just after school finishes.
01:58And then we close about 5 o'clock, restock and then home.
02:02It is always a full time job.
02:05When we are not here we are also doing other things.
02:07There is a lot of social media to do.
02:09So we try to do as much as we can on social media.
02:12We are always on the view out for new makers, new products.
02:16If we think we are missing something we will look online to see if we can find something to fill that little gap that we have got that we think we need to fill.
02:25So that tends to be done at night as well.
02:27Our initial hour workers is very, very good.
02:29Some have been with us for a very long time, almost since we opened.
02:33There is one or two who are brand new, but the majority of our makers stay for a long period of time.
02:38Our highlights would be we once won the Leeds Love Affair, which is an independent award for independent shops in Leeds.
02:44I think a big highlight for us is actually staying open for 13 years in the current environment that we are in at the moment.
02:52That's a real bonus for us and we hope to carry on and do extra things and do greater things as well.
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