Store Visits & Strategic Leadership Group Conference

Visiting Stores with Debbie Robinson

Last week CEO of Central England Co-op, Debbie Robinson and I visited some of our branches, including; Funeralcare, Pharmacies, Travel, and Food Stores, across the Cotswolds regions; Upper Rissington, Bourton-on-the-Water and Chipping Norton.

As Central England Co-operative is our closest neighbour, we talked about how we can work together more collaboratively in the future and, support our respective organisations, by marketing our unique products and services to a collective membership base of over one million members.

Our final store visit of the day was to our Chipping Norton Food Store, which has been performing very well since the January opening of the Marks & Spencer store nearby. This is due to the valued community engagement programmes instore including the installation of a Reverse Vending machine and the Ecobrick project launch.

Also as some of you may know, last week was National Vegetarian Week, 13^th – 19^th May, which aims to raise awareness of the many benefits of a plant-based diet, for not only your health but also the environment. As vegetarianism and veganism have grown in popularity across the world, and with so many people adopting a ‘Meat-Free Monday’ lifestyle, so has the interest in creating vibrant, vegetarian recipes.

This is where we encountered Denise Blake, one of our instore chefs who works on the Deli counter. Denise made a Golden-glazed, Carrot, Mushroom and Hazelnut Tart, in honour of National Vegetarian Week, and it really was the tastiest vegetarian tart I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating! I have to say, it is very inspiring to see how colleagues like Denise have gone above and beyond, by not only researching recipes but also cooking and sharing them with us, so that we get to taste these culinary delights! Well done Denise. You can find the vegetarian recipe here.

Strategic Leadership Group Conference

This week we held our Strategic Leadership Group Conference at Ardencote, Warwickshire, covering Financial Governance and the medium-term approach. We also discussed Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Our central database for membership information will be used in the future to encourage more of our members to transact with more of our businesses. Currently, less than one in ten of our members trade with more than one of our Trading Groups.

Over the first day of the conference, we discussed effective management governance and how we can streamline activities. In essence, we want to spend less time “talking” and more time “doing”, and this one of the reasons why we have launched the Member First Programme.

Day two we talked about the Society’s digital online growth strategies across a number trading groups; Phone Co-op, Healthcare and Travel. I also delivered a presentation on the ‘Future of Food’ and Sally Mayer and her team addressed the growth plan for Childcare, spanning the next five years.

Regarding Childcare news, I am very proud to announce Sally Mayer, our Childcare Group Chief Operating Officer has been nominated as one of the Top 10 Most Influential People in Childcare, by Nursery Management Today magazine. This high accolade recognises individuals who are making a big difference in the early years' sector and demonstrates both the hard work Sally and the Childcare group are doing this year. Some of the great initiatives such as; achieving Millie’s Mark, the nutritional focus on menus for children, and also last year was our best ever for profitability. I’m sure you will all agree it is very well deserved! To support Sally, you can vote as a Colleague by clicking here – it takes three clicks and voting closes 12^th June.

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