Community Partner visits & Fairtrade Hamper giveaway!

Community Partner visits

This week I helped Midcounties colleagues to load parcels into vans at the Walsall Academy Foodbank Collection point, for distribution to families in need in the run-up to Christmas.

The Academy is the partner school of Walsall Regional Community and the project has now been running for 2 years. All the parcels go to Street Teams (another charity partner) and the Ablewell Food Bank.

Meeting Andy & Helen from Street Teams and packing food items at Walsall Academy

I was really impressed by the Walsall student’s commitment to the Foodbank project with many having donated products weekly from the first week after half term. Last year over 4,000 items were donated, and this year we are hoping to distribute even more parcels.

I also attended a wonderful Christmas carol concert in London in support of Grocery Aid and a children’s Christmas party organised by the Wyre Forest Regional Community team, on behalf of Home-Start Wyre Forest.

They have been supporting families in the local area since 1995 and now have over 400 children and 200 families on their books. Over 100 people enjoyed a visit from Santa, party games, disco and a fish and chip supper, which was a real treat as many of the families are reliant on Food Bank donations. At the end of the party, every child was given a selection box and a Christmas hamper donated by us.

Christmas Carol concert in London in support of Grocery Aid

 

12 Days of Christmas

Please watch out over the next week for our 12 Days of Christmas feature on Colleagues Connect. Every day we will showcase a different community partner across our trading area ranging from charities to school partnerships. The aim of the series is to demonstrate how important our donations, work and volunteering are to these partners.

 

Poppy Factory

Left to right Alice Barrett – Partnership Manager at Poppy Factory, Jason Timms Sector Manager South - Funeral, Mark Brumfitt – Sector Manager North – Funeral, Mark Adams Chief Operating Officer Funeral &  Amanda Shepherd – Fundraising Manager at Poppy Factory.

I was humbled to hear that as part of our ongoing support for the Poppy Appeal, some of our senior members of Funeralcare team visited the Poppy Factory last week. The Poppy Factory is based in Richmond, Surrey and is the country’s leading employment charity for veterans with physical and mental health conditions. They also make poppies, wreaths & Remembrance symbols. They made their first Remembrance poppy for The Royal British Legion in 1922 and millions of poppies later, are still proudly continuing this important tradition. You can find out more about them by clicking here.

 

20% Colleague Discount

Your 20% colleague discount in all our Food Stores starts tomorrow and continues until Christmas Eve, so please don’t forget to take advantage of it by stocking up for Christmas at your nearest store. All colleagues who are eligible should by now have received their colleague vouchers so why not use those over the next couple of weeks and get your discount on top? Click here to see your Christmas showcase range for discounted offers.

 

Post Office Incentive

Post Office Limited have been running a Mails Incentive for all the Co-operatives where branches could win between £100 - £500 vouchers for achieving their targets. The targets included a 10% increase on top of their actual year on year performance.

After the 1st round of the incentive, Midcounties had 7 winners overall – Cherry Orchard, Stanford in the Vale, Cherwell Heights, Headington, Reddicap Heath, Brewood and Oakengates. All winning sites were invited to Warwick to be presented with their vouchers by senior members of the Food and Post Office teams.

 

Littlehampton nursery

I would like to say a big congratulations to our Littlepioneers, Childcare Body Shop nursery in Littlehampton, Sussex, which has received an outstanding OFSTED report. I’m sure you will all agree that this is a brilliant achievement by the Childcare Team. The report praised our work on nutrition and said “Children demonstrate exceedingly positive attitudes towards trying new nutritious foods and understand exactly how exercise affects their bodies. They have planned mealtimes meticulously to help children understand where their food comes from. Older children explore the raw versions of the vegetables that are in their dinner and discuss them enthusiastically as they taste their meals excitedly.”

 

Fairtrade Hamper giveaway

As you all know we launched our Fairtrade Hamper giveaway last week and I am pleased to say it generated a fantastic response with over 200 colleagues entering! Thank you to everyone who took part. The answer which nearly every one got correct was B, the Fairtrade logo is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year. The winner was Lisa Robertson, the Nursery Manager of our new Tavistock nursery near Sunderland. Congratulations to her, the hamper is on its way!

This week I have another Hamper to giveaway, so please do enter again for your chance to win this fantastic prize with a bottle of Prosecco, Keepr’s British Honey, Cotswold Fudge and from our Co-op Irresistible range Salted Caramel Truffles and an 18-month matured Christmas Pudding.

All you have to do is nominate a colleague below in a comment and say in less than 100 words why they deserve it. The closing date for entries is Monday 16 December at 11.00am with the winner announced in my final blog of the year next week.

That's all for this week, if you have any comments on my blog, don't hesitate to let me know by signing in below!