We’ve been quietly celebrating our win of the Telstra Small Business category in the 2015 South Australian Regional Awards. We were also finalists for the Premium Food and Wine from our Clean Environment – Food Award as well. We feel very blessed to have been so supported by the Community in our leap of faith with BCR, and to those who have nominated us not only this year, but every year for the past five years we thank you. We have previously not followed through with the Award Submission; Small children and a new business didnt leave much time for awards submission writing, so at the time we declined in the name of sanity and sleep. However this year, all a little older, time opened up and we decided we’d enter.
We’re so proud to have won the Small Business Award based on our values and core philosophies that have kept us on track to a sustainable and enjoyable pace of growth for BCR, as well as our children, our lifestyle and our other personal interests and goals. The judges commented to us on the night how our philosophy stood out, and for us, to receive an award for this, when so many times we have had to turn down certain business opportunities in the name of staying true to the small, intimate and sustainable nature of our brand was golden in its most shiny form!
A huge thank you to the Barossa Farmers Market where we launched five and a half years ago and remain as a weekly stall holder; an incubator for brave ideas and a warm pool for dipping toes in before diving into the unknown waters of business. Thank goodness for the good sense and curiosities of those who started the Market with a hay bale and a dream for the community all those years ago.
Thank you to our customers who are more like friends and who enjoy the banter across the trestle each Saturday morning. Thank you also to the customers we don’t know or get to meet. The thought of people out there taking a larger than normal sigh after a sip of BCR is what sends shivers down our spines! Thank you for choosing our coffee each week!
Thank you to our wholesale customers who for many, took a chance on a smaller brand over the big guys. We value our relationship and applaud your loyalty to a local brand and your commitment to a great coffee experience.
Thank you to our Parents for their support, without which we would not be able to do what we do. Paul thanked our Mums in his speech at the Awards dinner, and it’s so true that without Janice and Lynn spending time with their grandchildren each week we would not have the capacity to pursue this dream. Mind you they’re pretty happy with the deal too :).
Finally thank you to BCR. We used to believe that we were ‘growing the business’, which yes, that is true. However we’ve come to realise that really, ‘our business has grown us’. It has held us in its warm philosophy, which has leached it’s way into our everyday lifestyle in so many big ways that were not amplified before. It has provided us with an opportunity to live and work towards a world we want to see. An opportunity to be a thread in a truely wonderful community. An opportunity to live bravely and instinctively and to model to our children that you can follow curiosities and dreams whilst staying true to who you are and that the world needs your uniqueness. An opportunity to move through the inevitable challenges that come with any pursuit in life, and to decide each time that we love this enough to put up with the not so inspirational aspects of running a business. Thank goodness for that first cup of the day! Sipping on our own roast kind of seals the deal each and every day!