Organic Fortnight is almost here – it runs from the 3rd of September till the 17th and is organised by the Soil Association. It aims to publicise the ways in which you can help the environment and support organic produce.

Food which is farmed organically is more friendly to wildlife and means herbicides and pesticides are not released into the environment. I’ve been an Abel and Cole customer for years, I enjoy cooking and like having local, seasonal veg and fruit (their new recipe cards are great as well).

I have also grown herbs, potatoes, strawberries, rocket and tomatoes in my own garden, although I will admit to not being super green fingered! Growing your own is fun and healthy. It’s on of the suggestions from the Soil Association about how to go organic without breaking the bank!

Finally, if you want to celebrate Organic Fortnight and are looking for organic gifts for a baby or child, mimimyne has a wide range of rganic baby gifts, organic baby clothes and organic kids clothes. Conventionally produced cotton involves intensive use of pesticides and some believe it triggers skin allergies in children. If you would like to buy Fair Trade as well, try the Animal Tails range.

Tower Hamlets Mums Business Club Networking and Coffee Morning for Mumpreneurs and Businesswomen

URL: http://towerhamlets.mumsbusinessclub.com

Category: Business

Description:
Tabitha Potts, owner of Mimimyne (http://www.mimimyne.com), the online store for kids, is now Tower Hamlets Representative for Mums Business Club (http://towerhamlets.mumsbusinessclub.com). The first Mums Business Club Tower Hamlets Networking and Coffee Morning for mumpreneurs, start-up entrepreneurs and business people in Tower Hamlets will be held in the gorgeous venue of Ping Pong Dim Sum in Appold Street, near Liverpool Street Station, on Tuesday 14th September from 10am to 12noon.

There is a £4 entry fee per visitor and Ping Pong Dim Sum are providing free tea and coffee while the networking meeting and expert speaker sessions go on. The first confirmed expert speaker will be Leanne Dal Santo of Smartbags (http://www.smartbags.co.uk) who will talk about how she started up her eco friendly company and combines it with working from home and taking care of her two young children. Attendees will be able to learn about how to set up a small business, work from home and be their own boss while still managing to have a family life. Men are welcome too!

Ping Pong Dim Sum has a baby buggy parking area, a toilet with baby changing facilities and a lift to the Private Dining Room on the first floor where we will be meeting. Children are welcome but are parents’ responsibility! Each guest who chooses to stay on and buy a delicious lunch at Ping Pong Dim Sum after the networking session will be offered a complimentary cocktail, alcoholic or non-alcoholic.

Address :
Ping Pong Dim Sum Appold Street
3 Appold Street
London
EC2A 2AF
Tel: 020 7422 0780
Tuesday 14th September from 10am to 12noon

Contact Name: Tabitha Potts

Contact E-mail: towerhamlets@mumsbusinessclub.com

Contact Phone: 0208 133 0961

Tickets: http://mumsbusinessclubtowerhamlets.eventbrite.com/

ENDS

Tower Hamlets Mums Business Club

I have also just found out that I made it to the Finals in the Babyworld Parentpreneur Category in the 2010 Remote Worker Awards run by Paula Wynne. The awards ceremony for this is at the Grand Connaught Rooms, 61-65 Great Queen Street, London, WC2B 5DA on the 1st September and I will also have a stand giving away some Mimimyne Smartbags at the event.

Finally, I’ve also been shortlisted for The Best Online Business Award, sponsored by Create.net, at The Mumpreneur Awards 2010. There were 302 entrants for this so I am very pleased to have made it through to the final 6. The Awards ceremony is at the Mumpreneur Conference 2010 on September the 18th.

Nominated in Best Online Business Category for Mumpreneur Awards

It’s a massive recognition for the business and a huge confidence booster for me to have got this far. I started Mimimyne only two years ago and have run it single handedly most of that time. There’s no denying that it’s been tough at times, so it’s wonderful to have this recognition. I hope the facts that I always put my customers first, have a fantastic range of designers working with me and have worked hard to create an ethical business that also celebrates great design for children will help me to win one of these awards!

For the past several weeks, I have been working to improve the web development and digital marketing strategy of Mimimyne, this has included adding new features such as e-coupons, reviews, SEO, and affiliate e-commerce integration.  Working with Mimimyne’s director, Tabitha, we have updated product listings and have taken search terms into account to ensure our customers can find the products they desire.  The first Sunday of my internship, we worked a stall at Old Spitalfields Market, it was pretty fun interacting with the customers!  I have also had the benefit of networking with various entrepreneurs, consultants, and other professionals in the green sector – it’s been a great run.

Online retail is becoming more competitive as new players enter the market, and for an eco-friendly company such as Mimimyne, all of the right factors need to be taken into account.  ”Right factors?”  For a company with a sustainable message, these include the way products are marketed.  It could be as simple as describing the product in a way consumers will understand “that’s progressive, that’s eco-friendly, that’s green,” and Mimimyne currently takes this into account by providing labels that consumers know and trust, such as FSC, Soil Association, and others detailed in its environmental policy.  Our product listings make use of bold, green copywriting as well as ethical standard seals to emphasize some of the ethical standards in adherence – see one of our new kids wallpaper listings for an example with just copywriting, and this funky baby romper suit for an example with an ethical standard seal.

About a week ago, I attended an Idea Shop East session with Tabitha, and the brand message was emphasized – “Growing Up Green” – and it makes sense, Mimimyne promotes the idea of families growing up green because not only does doing so benefit economic practices that are concerned with society and the environment, growing up green also builds a cultural understanding in those families – it is very much a grassroots process.  We will continue to improve our brand by leading the way forward for sustainable communities.

Today, I attended the Fishburn Hedges event, What’s Next… for sustainability: is the message getting through? Although there is great cynicism as to whether the sustainability message is getting across today, companies across the developed world are hitting progressive milestones. One way to get the message across to the consumer is through the various sustainable labels and accreditations available in the marketplace.  Another is through participation in customer rewards programs for ethical trading companies like Mimimyne.  The hope is that such practices will flourish with implementation in the developing world, as it would be ideal if society in developing markets could enjoy a similar lifestyle as developed ones do.  I enjoyed asking some of the panelists questions – their insight is rather invaluable at a time when sustainability is the best progressive economic practice a company could consider.  When it’s done right, it cuts costs, allows for accelerated distribution, and improves societal development through efficient management of resources.

Alan Knight commented on sustainability as a “supply chain challenge,” and there are a few ways to look at this.  On a smaller scale, as Mimimyne retails in the UK, we focus on sourcing our items to be made by local designers and to be shipped by our suppliers within the UK, reducing our carbon footprint.  Regarding getting the sustainability message across, he noted that good retailing provides the consumer with the smallest possible choice, meaning that if there is too wide a selection and too much to think about, consumers will get confused.  Depending on the scale in which a business operates, supply chain management can either be relatively simple or quite complex, but the further sustainable practices are implemented, the more efficient large scale management can become.  We are taking this message on board by succinctly describing our products and making their ethical standard labels more clear, and as we continue to develop, we aim to distribute to locations outside of the UK.

Doug Johnston emphasized that failures in business strategy towards sustainability lack vision.  Companies’ strategic objectives do not properly incorporate sustainability, and as a result, instead of sustainability flourishing, there is confusion.  That is just the picture internally, that key stakeholders in the company must care about how sustainability drives the strategic objectives.  We focus on sustainability through promoting eco-friendly consumption, that is part and parcel of our objective.

Harry Wallop explained that media, marketing, and PR has its role in promoting sustainability, but the message has to be worth writing about – if no one will read about it, why write it?  In general, given that the message of sustainability does not resonate as well as we would hope in our society, companies have to work towards communicating a definable sustainable difference about their products and services to the consumer.  While we have a sustainable vision, we have more work to do in order to inspire consumers that sustainability is the economical way forward.  It is one objective to capture the market, but it is another to introduce consumers into that market.

As Mimimyne continues to grow, we will work to consider the best practices in sustainability, helping get the message across that growing up green is not only great for families, but also great for society, the environment, and the economy, too.  I’d love to read your feedback!

Tabitha Potts with some products from Mimimyne

By Louise Hale

21 June 2010

A budding entrepreneur is flying the flag for Stepney after securing her place in a national competition that rewards brilliant business ideas with free trading space at local markets.

Tabitha Potts, 39, was shortlisted to the semi-finals after her business www.mimimyne.com – an ethical online store for families who want to grow up green, wowed the judges.

Tabitha noticed a lack of online stores selling eco-friendly organic baby clothes so decided to set up her own.

Now she has won ten days free trading at Old Spitalfields Market as part of the competition Make Your Mark in the Markets, in which she was one of 71 shortlisted traders in the UK.

“This competition is a fantastic opportunity for me and the business, and could help propel it to the next level,” she said.

Tabitha’s success puts her in with a chance of winning the overall prize of six months’ free trading, and the support needed to set up their business.

During trading, she will be visited by the competition judges who will assess all aspects of the business.

Eric Graham, manager for Old Spitalfields Market, said: “Tabitha demonstrated that she has what it takes to turn an idea into reality.”

With the help and support from East London Small Business Centre, Tabitha won a start-up loan from Deutsche Bank to build her website.

Mimimyne has also been nominated for several business awards, including the Thames Gateway Business Awards, the Archant Enviromental Award 2009 and Women on their Way 2010 and will soon feature as a British Library Business and IP Centre success story.

Read the article in East End Life

Kids enjoying themselves at the Just So Festival

This summer sees the launch of the first ever camping festival devoted entirely to families.

The ‘Just So Festival’ is the dream child of two couples who’ve spent years visiting traditional festivals with their children and finding much of the entertainment to be off-limits… so they’ve set up a camping weekend in 65 acres of unspoilt Staffordshire woodland where everything – from traditional fairground to artificial beach, from gypsy bands to top name authors – is aimed at giving children and their parents a fantastic and magical experience.

Highlights from the programme will include a visit from the Royal Armories team with their ‘Never Mind the Pollocks’ action-art event, Parkour training sessions from some of the UK’s top free-runners, following the Fairy Queen trail with the Fairyland Trust, and one of our favourites, a party with the Moomins.

According to festival director Rowan Hoban, “families will be able to go on this amazing journey of the imagination, participating in a medley of art, craft, music and theatre within a beautiful natural landscape”.

The experience of families going along to the Just So Festival will be a far cry from your average festival. Camping is in small woodland glades, where families can request to be sited near friends. There will be an bedtime noise curfew (though the local rabbits and hedgehogs may not comply), and a large and comfy nappy changing area with changing mats and wipes laid on. The loos will, of course, be lovely.

The Just So Festival will take place from 20th-22nd August and will play host to up to 3,000 people. Tickets are now on sale.

Just So Festival Community Interest Company is a not-for-profit organisation.

For more information visit the website at Just So Festival

You might want to take note of the fact that Twisted Twee’s perennially popular Pint and Half Pint T shirts are now available in Mint Choc Chip – yum! The Pint T shirt for Dad is in tasty chocolate with mint lettering and the Half Pint T shirt for Baby is in refreshing mint with chocolate lettering in 100% organic cotton, suitable for a boy or girl. These gorgeous T shirts are perfect for a trip to the pub, park or just hanging around at home for Dad and Baby and both are printed in organic inks in the UK (the Baby T shirt is also 100% organic cotton). Also a great gift for a new dad and baby!

Half Pint T Shirt Set in Mint Choc Chip

The 39-year-old won the 10 days in a national enterprise contest after setting up her own ‘ethical’ online business for families who want their kids to ‘grow up green.’

She noticed a lack of suppliers on the Worldwide Web selling eco-friendly organic baby clothes.

“I can’t wait to get going,” she said, just as she set up her stall in Spitalfields Market today. “Markets are great test grounds for people like me to get real feedback from the public.”

Read the rest of the original article here

The fabulous Green Eyed Monster have created this ‘Footie 10′ World Cup 2010 organic cotton child’s t shirt. This bright red t-shirt pays homage to our national team in support for them but is such a great design that it will be a firm favourite long after the World Cup final has been played. So strike to win with your child and make this t-shirt top choice to avoid being shown the red card! This organic cotton World Cup 2010 football T shirt is available in sizes up to 10 years.

Organic Cotton Footie 10 World Cup 2010 Football Kids T Shirt

Secondly, Twisted Twee have created a fabulous range of “Eng-er-land” themed Bear T Shirts which make perfect “Toddlerwear for the Terraces”. These funky World Cup 2010 Toddler T shirts in 100% organic cotton would make a great gift for any toddler football fans!

Eng-er-land Football World Cup 2010 Toddler Organic Cotton T Shirt