One year on…
It’s our business birthday!!! Time to celebrate and reflect.
This time last year we started Suffolk Campers!! We got a logo, an instagram, Facebook and twitter page, an email address and a website (Thanks Steve)
We started to answer the phone ‘hello Suffolk campers’ and to begin with it was usually just my Mum or sister who found it highly amusing.????
We were so full of optimism we talked about camper vans constantly and started seeing them EVERYWHERE!!!
We got our first gig!! And then our second customers actually knocked on the front door on the off chance we might convert camper vans!! Thank you universe!! And we got busier and busier and when it wasn’t even possible…busier!! 
We set some intentions for where we wanted our little baby business to go…
1. (The first and most important) To get Bruce home!! When it all began Bruce was working away in Berkshire! He’d leave on Saturday night and get home on Wednesday. Then he would spend Thursday, Friday and Saturday doing any camper work we had.
2. To introduce a hire van and get people to actually hire it!
3. More Freedom, as a home educating family with 2 children we enjoy lots of flexibility in our lives the only bit that could do with a tad more flexibility is Bruce’s work/life balance.
4. Pay back Frazer who kindly lent us some money to get up and running
Here we are a year later and Bruce no longer works away!! Hurrah???? it’s great to have him Home! Him working away became unmanageable! The busier Suffolk campers became the harder it got. 3 days at home wasn’t enough to fit in being a Daddy, a husband and a camper converter never mind anytime off to sail, play guitar or mountain bike (just a slight few of his many hobbies that feel like a distant memory).He handed his notice in and in July started a new job!! Intention number 1 ✅
We bought and Converted Dougal (VW T5) to a lovely shiny new four berth Camper complete with Pop top, luxury bedding and anything else you might need for an adventure! We waved off lots of lovely people and a few dogs too! Intention number 2 ✅
Hmmmm….intention number 3 ❌. More freedom? Who was I kidding? What we have experienced over this last year has pushed us to our very limits, and once we got there it pushed a little harder!! Our own Van Pickles was off the road for the majority of the year with us just managing a little trip at the end of August! But it’s cool in pushing us to the max we have been forced to look at what is important to us as a family, what our values are and how we can get these into alignment with our business values! So moving forward into our second year we bring with us this intention and hopefully next year there will be a big fat tick next to it.
To pay Frazer (Bruce’s brother) back Almost, almost almost…like by the end of this month!! ???? We made a decision to sell Dougal the hire van in order to achieve this! It felt hard to choose this…we put so much love and effort into the hire part of our business and selling up felt like giving up…but it’s not it’s moving forward in the best way we can. We fully intend to enter the world of camper hire again we just don’t know exactly when this will be. So for now we are going to focus on conversions and celebrate being free of debt which we feel is a huge step in the right direction for where we want to go. Intention number 4 ✅ (almost)
Intentions for the year to come…
1. Take each day as it comes…chose freedom…grow organically.
2. Save up for travelling
3. Complete the pickles remodel
4. Enter the world of quirky campers and alternative camper van conversions
5. Continue to meet awesome customers and convert their vans in the way that meets their needs, hopes and dreams
Peace, Love, and a life full of adventures
Annie
✌️❤️????????
