December 30, 2016 7.30 am This story is over 86 months old

Reflections 2016: Nic Dakin – Looking back on the positive events in Scunthorpe

With Christmas and the New Year fast approaching, I have been reflecting on the positive events that have happened in the past year. Now even though there are many to choose from, I believe that the recent Small Business Saturday competition held in the constituency has been a particular highlight. The engagement and enthusiasm from…

With Christmas and the New Year fast approaching, I have been reflecting on the positive events that have happened in the past year.

Now even though there are many to choose from, I believe that the recent Small Business Saturday competition held in the constituency has been a particular highlight.

The engagement and enthusiasm from constituents has been absolutely outstanding. At first, I wasn’t sure if there would be much involvement at all; I didn’t know whether word of the competition would spread far enough, but I was proved very wrong!

It was wonderful seeing the nominations flooding in for the initial votes, with over 1,000 nominations for over 100 small businesses in the constituency.

The diversity of these businesses shows how lucky we are to have such a variety of businesses in our area. The nominations varied from florists to nurseries to photographers to martial arts schools!

I hope that by sharing all the nominated businesses on Facebook, this will encourage people to visit these different businesses in the constituency now they know the variety that there is to offer.

The high quality of our local businesses was highlighted by the reasons for the nominations.

They showed that the products/services were of a high quality and that often, owners would go out of their way for their customers, even though they didn’t have to. This made choosing the final shortlisted businesses an especially difficult endeavour.

After finally choosing our shortlisted businesses, we held the final poll. Once again, I was blown away by amount of votes coming in, with over 700 votes for the Champion Small Business award and over 1,000 for the Customer Service award.

Courtesy of the Admin Centre, they were kind enough in offering their premises to hold an awards ceremony to announce the winners of each category.

It was great to be able to meet the employees and the owners of these fantastic businesses, as they are the ones who make them the places that people wish to visit.

The winner for the Champion Small Business award was The Crows Nest Barbers, and the Customer Service award went to Taylor’s Family Butchers. A massive congratulations to both.

The winners received an award and a bottle of the House of Commons champagne, with all of those shortlisted receiving a booklet with a list of nominations.

I know that 2016 has been an incredibly challenging year for the UK and worldwide. However, sometimes we need to take a step back from these negative events and appreciate the positive.

New Year’s resolutions

My New Year’s resolutions are to continue to champion the issues of concern to people of the Scunthorpe area and to find more time and space for family and friends.

Nic Dakin is the Labour Member of Parliament for Scunthorpe