Cheltenham Park Nursery Opens & Too Good to Go Food Waste App

Our new Cheltenham Park Nursery

Beginning with an exclusive ribbon-cutting open evening last Thursday, I was joined by Deputy Mayor of Cheltenham, Sandra Holliday and Society President, Helen Wiseman to set the tone for a successful opening of the incredible new site. Sandra was really excited to hear about our Society plans and what’s in store for our Childcare business with the grand opening of the Emersons Green site early next year on 4^th January 2022 and Warwick Gates site in September 2022.

Opening the nursery along with Little Pioneers Charlie and Ella, (Left to right) Helen Wiseman, Society President, Sandra Holliday, Deputy Mayor of Cheltenham, Emma Powell, Nursery Manager and Sally Bonnar, Chief Operating Officer Childcare

To give our parents a chance to see first-hand what the nursery and pre-school can offer, we welcomed over 70 families to the Family Fun Day on Saturday. This gave the parents of Cheltenham, including local businesses and parenting groups a sneak preview; as well as welcoming the new starters for Monday’s big opening day.

Colleagues ready to welcome families and parents for the Family Fun Day

The nursery itself marks the childcare group’s 46^th site and being an £800k investment by the Society, offers our families the very best individual experience for their Little Pioneers. From an airy indoor space to the adventure garden and nutritious meals from the in-house chef, the new nursery managed by Emma Powell offers the highest standard of care. I wish Emma and our new colleagues all the best at the new site and if you as a parent are interested in joining the nursery click here.

Staying on the topic of Childcare, as part of a strategic project that focuses on increasing the number of males in the childcare sector (currently at 2%), we have the ambitious target to reach 20% of our workforce as males by 2025. On Wednesday, I took part in an exclusive Q&A session with 2 of our male practitioners, Nuwan, from Maidavale Nursery and Daniel from the new Cheltenham Nursery - look out for the interview on Colleagues Connect in the coming weeks!

Too Good to Go – Food Waste app launches

With many people struggling to afford to eat, Food waste is a growing issue in the UK with tonnes of good food wasted each year [Fareshare].  In our fight against Food waste, we have the ambition of tackling it through a new partnership with the free food waste app, Too Good To Go. Launched this week across our Food stores, it lists nearby businesses with unsold food so customers can pick up a ‘magic bag’ of discounted food that may have otherwise gone to waste. As part of our sustainable future, the app is already established in the market with over 5 million existing customers, alongside partnerships with high street brands such as Starbucks, Costa and other Co-operatives. So, we really hope this encourages members to sign up in reducing food waste and provide the opportunity to customers, who either have low disposable income or are passionate about reducing food waste. Click here to watch a video from our Store Manager, Danny Maddox from Franche Road Food store who tells us a little more about the app and if you would like to find out more click here.

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Regional Community (RC) Community Litter Picks

It was great to see so many of our Regional Communities (RC) and active members supporting our local areas during the launch of the Litter picks last week. I was surprised to hear that over 200 bags of litter were collected, and it just shows that if we pull together in our communities we can make a big difference to the planet.

All 20 of our Regional Communities took part in the litter picks

A big well done to all the colleagues who took part and like in many of quotes highlighted, members of the pubic got involved too. I look forward to the launch of the monthly litter picks next month where more colleagues and members can take part. Don’t forget to log those colleague volunteering hours if you took part. Click here to read more.

Franche Road Food visit for a Long Service – Gail Guest

This week I was honoured to be invited to Franche Road Supermarket to celebrate an incredible 40 years of service with colleague Gail Guest. In the room there was already over 300 years of service to the Midcounties, which is fantastic in itself. So, I added to the celebrations and gave a well done and congratulations to Gail for her hard work and dedication to the Society. It was great to hear some of Gail’s stories over the years and hope to hear many more in the future. During the visit I also caught up with colleague Caroline Hubble who has recently redeployed temporarily from Franche Travel to France Road Food. She’s been part of the Food team for 2 weeks now and her colleagues can’t talk more highly of her since the change. Thoroughly enjoying the change, Caroline couldn’t deny her heart still lies with travel. Keep it up Caroline and thanks for all your hard work.

Colleague Pulse Surveys – Last chance

Your views matter in our Colleague Pulse surveys and I encourage you all to take part in this month’s survey. Helping to shape some of the decisions we have taken to make us improve as a Society, I can’t stress enough that we need to hear from as many colleagues as possible to get a true representation of your views while at Midcounties. Can I ask that you please help spread the message to fellow colleagues if you can? Plus, don’t forget if you take part, you are automatically entered into a prize draw to win one of five £20 store vouchers.

Complete this month’s pulse survey here.

If you are not signed into Colleagues Connect already, this link will ask you to do so first and will remain open until 4 October.

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