Blythe Valley Food launches, Celebrating Apprentices & SEWA Update
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Published 11 Feb 2022 in Phil's blog
With current Covid restrictions around self-isolation due to expire on 24 March, it was encouraging to hear from the Government this week, that this rule could end later this month. With cases declining since the peak in January, the positive news comes at a time when many will be thinking of going away on holiday. Just last night, our Travel team in Walsall was featured on BBC Midlands Today speaking about the uplift in sales and bookings, as they continue a strong start to the year with last week like for like sales (pre-covid) at 128%. This ties in nicely with the travel restrictions being relaxed for fully vaccinated people coming to the UK who no longer need to take Covid tests. By no means back to ‘normal’ but very encouraging signs. Click here to watch the BBC Midlands Today travel feature.
Society Investments - Blythe Valley, Solihull Food store opens
As we continue our long-term Society investments in our core businesses, yesterday saw the opening of BlytheValley Food in Solihull. Helping to bring more services to more members, the store has created 20 new jobs for the local community and will be part of 5 new store openings over 5 weeks in February and March as part of our £5 million investments. This great news builds on the 7 stores launched last year and continues our growth in the Midlands area.
A warm welcome to Store Manager, Samantha Aldridge and our new colleagues. With a special thank you to the whole property team who manage these new investments from start to finish; they do a fantastic job every time. I look forward to visiting the new site very soon and good luck to the new team at Blythe Valley.
Meeting Amelia Crews & challenging member sustainability
It was my pleasure last Friday to welcome Amelia Crews to our Warwick Support Office. Amelia works in our Utilities business as Energy Innovation Co-ordinator and last year took up the fantastic opportunity to attend COP26 on behalf of the Society. This stimulated her to produce a video and send it to me to highlight the key insights she had gained from her time there, so I wanted to follow up on her thoughts and invite her to Warwick.
As someone who has recently graduated from University where she developed a considerable interest in sustainability activism, she was keen to challenge me on where the Society stands on a range of issues saying “We’re at a stage where if we truly want to be here for our members future, we can’t take a back seat. Therefore, my hope is that my video stimulates a wave of conversations with practical steps to achieve the visions I discuss. Whilst the Society is certainly heading in the right direction, I believe these insights can help us on our way.”
It was an absolute joy for me to meet someone with such a passion for what she believes in and I have committed to keeping a firm focus on what we do and increasing awareness through even more communication; this will include providing dedicated resources on Colleague Connect to provide you with more information on what the Society is doing to improve our sustainability credentials and to encourage you to get involved and to challenge the status quo more, in the way that Amelia is. Watch this space.
Amelia Crews, Energy Innovation Co-ordinator and me at Warwick Support Office
Celebrating our Apprentices – National Apprenticeship Week
This week we celebrated apprentices within Midcounties during National Apprenticeship Week. A pivotal part of our learning & development programme, I joined in and attended a special event as part of the week to help celebrate the 29 colleagues who achieved their apprenticeship qualifications in 2021. Effectively a graduation ceremony, we recognised colleagues for all their hard work, dedication and commitment despite the stumbling blocks of the pandemic once again.
I would like to wish all our graduating apprentices a big well done and to Sandi Matharu and the team for making it possible for our fantastic colleagues. If you would like to discuss your career opportunities and development, I encourage you all to schedule in a Colleague check-in with your line manager.
SEWA Co-operative Federation – Supporting 40 young women to develop sustainable livelihoods
As a co-operative, we support many communities and organisations whether nationally or internationally and are very proud of the difference it makes to people worldwide. One you may remember from last year; was the collective donation with Co-operatives UK towards the SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) Co-operative Federation in India.
Manufacturing in a Pharmacy
Youth Handcrafting
Youth Agriculture
Midcounties and our fellow co-operatives came together to donate £102,000 to help provide immediate Covid support in a time of need including masks and paracetamol, oxygen as well as information and guidance. £70,000 was donated last summer and now the International Working Group have agreed to release the remaining £32,000 to support two programmes aimed at helping young women in India form co-operatives and develop skills in digital communications and research. Have a watch of the video update here. It really showcases our co-operative difference and the further donation will go towards over 40 young women to develop sustainable livelihoods after the devastation.
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