National Food Bank Day, Society Election Voting Open & Pulse Survey

As many children return to school this week and workplaces begin to reopen, it is a welcome return to a little more normality.

Today, is National Food Bank day and with food bank usage on the up, in April 2020 the first full month after lockdown, food banks provided an additional 81% of food parcels compared to 2019, it is sadly more relevant than ever.

We have and will continue to support our food bank partners and I am proud of the work we do, including our Food Bank fund initiative, which raised over £40,000 and enabled us to help those that are helping others by providing urgent and immediate support for our existing food bank partners so that they could continue to put food on the table of the most vulnerable members of our local communities.

Having volunteered with the Warwickshire and Leamington Food Bank last December, I have seen first-hand all the hard work and dedication that both the volunteers and organisations do and thank all our colleagues, members and customers for their continued support and generous donations. You can read more about our support of food banks here. 

 

Retail Crime Update

As I mentioned last week we continue to campaign on issues, putting our values into action and doing what we believe is fair and right for our colleagues and members.  

Following on from highlighting and joining the call to protect retail workers from abuse, threats, and violence, working with and supporting Usdaw’s #Freedomfromfear campaign and getting behind the petition here, this week I have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister, along with other CEO’s of major retailers in united and collective action, calling on the Government to support legislative change.

 

Local sales hit £10 million

During the first months of the pandemic, a huge strain was placed on the whole food supply chain, we did not escape this pressure and were hit significantly across many different categories. Where we do have a strong advantage is the relationships we have built with our local suppliers. This allowed us the agility to act quickly and work collaboratively with our local suppliers to get stock into our stores. It also allowed us to build new relationships with suppliers who had overnight lost up to 80% of their revenue due to Covid-19.

As a result of this hard work, I am pleased to say that this week we achieved a record-breaking £10 Million in local sales for the year, with the main festive trading period still to come, which is fantastic.

We are now looking forward to how we hold on to all these new customers who have enjoyed being able to purchase local products from our stores and support the communities in which they live.

 

The Society Election, voting is open.

As a Values-driven Society, members can vote and democratically elect their board representatives and in this year’s election, there are six vacancies for our Board of directors.

As members, I encourage you all to vote and have your say on who you want to lead your society. Voting closes on 2nd October at 5.00 pm. For more information on how to vote click here.

 

Looking forward to Cal Major’s River Severn Expedition

On the horizon for next week, our Environmental Ambassador, Cal Major, embarks on an expedition on the River Severn from 9th– 16th September exploring the course of plastic from source to sea and the relationship between our lives inland and the oceans. Members and colleagues will be able to follow Cal’s journey through social media and colleagues connect and there will be an exclusive colleague competition. Look out for more details on this and how you can get involved.   

 

Pulse Survey – last day

Finally, today is the last day of the current pulse survey. These regular surveys help to inform the business and shape future decisions and so it's important that we hear from as many colleagues as possible to give us a broad range of views. So, if you haven't yet taken the opportunity to give us your view then I would encourage you to do so.

You can complete this round’s pulse survey here. 

If you are not signed into Colleagues Connect already, the survey link will ask you to do so first.

 

As always, let me have your thoughts by commenting below.