Hello, Stoke & Staffordshire

Good news in the first ever issue of The Knot.

Mar 04, 2024

What’s On/Things To Do ✅
Emma Bridgewater at CreaTech, Ceramic Makers Market and Little Dumpling King goes Korean.
Spotlight 🔦
Simon Davies and the Teapot Factory.
Good News 🎉
S-O-T & Staffordshire Institute of Technology opens and £420m transport funding for Stoke & Staffordshire.
Food Highlight 🥢
Little Dumpling King.
Jobs 💸
~~”there are no jobs here”~~
Property 🏡
£400k for an old Bank.
Knot Having It ❌
Scandalous gossip about crisps and their use-by dates.

📰 READ NOW: Introducing The Knot

I’m launching an independent news outlet for Stoke and Staffordshire that champions our region and is a positive force for good. It’s called; The Knot. Here’s why I’m doing it… (Read full article)

Initially, The Knot is going to focus on Culture, Community and Things to Do. In a recent poll, 76% of you asked me to focus on these topics, with Current Affairs, Politics and Food & Drink receiving the rest of the votes.

You’ll receive weekly issues of The Knot at the same time every week, Monday morning at 8am. Thought-pieces and opinion posts will land in your inbox intermittently, no more than once per week.

WHAT’S ON/THINGS TO DO ✅

KNOT TO MISS

🎉 CreaTech Event. 7th March, 6.30pm at The Quarter at Potbank. The last event had 100+ attendees and this is due to be the best yet with guest speaker Emma Bridgewater.

The good news is that the networking is described as “not poo” and it’s free to attend, you just need to be associated with the creative industries. There’s an exciting network of creative businesses already at Spode in Stoke with iCreation, VCCP Stoke and Lesniak Swann all coming together to galvanise the creative industry in Stoke-on-Trent.

🏺 Ceramic Makers Market. 23rd March, 11am-4pm at Gladstone Pottery in Longton. Browse hand produced ceramics from local and national makers. World class Potters from The Great Pottery Thrown Down will be there and you can buy some excellent art and wares. If it’s anything like a visit to Clay College, you’ll be blown away by the ceramics skills retained in Stoke.

🍱 Little Dumpling King goes Korean. Sunday 24th March. More on this belter of a Japanese restaurant in Hanley below. Until then. Four plates of Korean scran, Soju (a korean drink I just googled) and K-pop (Korean music, also googled). By the looks of the response on Instagram, it may already be sold out, be quick the food and vibe here is incredible.

Want to head to any of these events with a friend? Share this with them.

Spotlight 🔦

Simon Davies is on a on a mission to redevelop Stoke through counter culture. The Knot is completely behind him and fully supportive of every move he’s making.

He’s getting people to connect to our old, often dilapidated buildings and sharing a vision of what the future could look like. He’s an example of how an individual can have an impact, how one person can make a difference. It’s a gold star from us.

🫖 Teapot Tour The mission is to redevelop the listed Price & Kensington site in North Staffordshire and turn it into a space for food, music and counter culture (think Custard Factory in Birmingham). Follow and connect with Simon on LinkedIn to get your name on the list for his next walking event on 21st March. This is what BBC News wrote about Simon’s mission to reincarnate the Teapot Factory back in June ‘23. Watch his vision for the future in this video 👇🏼

Good News 🎉

Construction is underway on the new Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire Institute of Technology. (Keele University)
Stoke-on-Trent ranked second in the country for apprenticeships take up (Daily Focus)
Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire to receive combined £420m transport funding (GOV UK)
Staffordshire is the first UK Location to join leading “Place Marketing” Community, City Nation Place. New Zealand, Western Cape South Africa, Pittsburgh and.. Staffordshire. (We Are Staffordshire)

Food Highlight - Little Dumpling King, Hanley 🥢

A key part of Hanley’s culinary resurgence, “LDK” is a great Japanese spot on Piccadilly. Chef and Owner has a brilliant tone on Instagram and seems to love nothing more than proving the local “rag” (SOT Live) wrong about Hanley and getting “hurt” or “packed out” by punters. The food is fresh, tasty and if you head down on a Tuesday or Thursday it’s 2 for 1 on Bao. Natural Wines are a speciality.

littledumplingking

A post shared by @littledumplingking

Walk-ins only currently and the good food is accompanied by indie/rock music and waiters/waitresses that make you realise you’re not as cool as they are (in a good way).

Try; salt and pepper hash browns, panko aubergine w/rice, salt and pepper chicken wings, all dumplings, all Bao. Actually all of it. Go twice.

Park on the Potteries Centre for peanuts after 4pm or on big Tesco (free for 3 hours or extend for ~£2 on an app). Please no moaning about parking.

JOBS 💸

~~“there’s no jobs round here”~~

I continue to hear about the lack of roles and career opportunities in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire that lead young people to have to leave the area. I feel there’s a hint of defeatism in this and I want to challenge that. In five minutes of digging I found twelve well paying roles across three excellent Stoke & Staffordshire based businesses. I’m sure there’s much more here than meets the eye.

Associate Director of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion - Keele University. ~£57k pa.
Marketing Manager Europe - JCB
10 Roles (inc Customer Success, Product Management, Software Engineering and Learning and Development) - GivEnergy

PROPERTY 🏡

A beautiful old bank on Tunstall High Street for £400,000.

Our heritage assets are being dismantled, are decaying or are used by private owners as dumping grounds. These buildings are vitally important, they connect us to our history, are beautiful works of art and have huge potential. Our governments and local authorities can only do so much, and whilst we may want them to do more, we must re-imagine our spaces and places ourselves.

KNOT HAVING IT ❌

According to BottleCraft in Hanley, crisps always go out of date on a Saturday. We’re knot having that, it can’t be true. Or can it?

bottlecraftstoke

A post shared by @bottlecraftstoke

That’s a wrap, thank you for reading the first issue of The Knot. We’ll be back again at the same time next week with more things to do, more spotlights, more good news and more scandalous stories (maybe knot).

Please share this issue with friends, family and colleagues, so that we can reach more people with good news about our wonderful home.

Cheers,

James Routledge, Editor of The Knot.

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FRIENDS OF THE KNOT 👋🏼

Thank you to support from our friends.

Less than 50 words from the Editor

It’s nerve wracking creating something new. Especially in a place where not many do. Always found it hard to express myself here. Had to go to London to learn how to do that. If there’s one thing I hope we change, it’s that.