My Christmas Message

This week I wanted to take the opportunity on behalf of myself and the Executive team to wish all colleagues a very Happy Christmas and to thank you for all your hard work over the last year. For many people Christmas comes as a welcome break marking the end of a busy year. However, within the Society the Christmas trading period is critical to our financial year end and many colleagues will be busier than ever. This applies not just to our food stores but across many of our trading businesses.

At Energy we will be working hard to meet the peak demand in gas and electricity which accompanies the Christmas period. At Healthcare colleagues will be busy dispensing prescriptions for everything from the common cold to more serious conditions like flu. Our Post Offices will be busier than ever dealing with the last minute Christmas rush posting letters and parcels.

In Childcare our colleagues will be using all their experience to keep over-excited toddlers calm and at the Phone Coop we’ll be ensuring family members can communicate with each over Christmas if they can’t be together and can use smart home technologies to watch favourite films. In Funeralcare we will be providing a round the clock service to ensure that we are there for people across the holiday period.

Travel will be dealing with the increase in bookings as people plan their holidays for next year. In Food all our colleagues will be particularly busy ensuring that families have everything they need to serve a really delicious Christmas meal from our locally sourced turkeys as part of our Best of Our Counties range to our Fairtrade chocolate desserts.

This week to show their support, the Executive team and I visited a number of Food stores within the rolling hills area of Gloucestershire. The store visits included Rissington, Burford, Charlbury, Bourton on the Water, Woodstock & Deddington. Afterwards we all visited the Chipping Norton store to discuss with colleagues there how they are gearing up for Christmas and responding to increasing competition in the town.

As well as celebrating with family and friends Christmas is also a time when we remember those less fortunate than ourselves. I’m particularly proud that as a Society this year we have supported over 500 charities and other good causes. We have been featuring a small number of these in our Twelve Days of Christmas posts so please take the opportunity to read up about those we have already featured from the Banburyshire Citizen Project to Cotswold Boatmobility, which you can find here. Today we are featuring Warwickshire Community & Voluntary Action, which you can read more about here.

Merry Christmas everyone!