Our 2024 Midlands, Wales & West regional winners are crowned Staff at garden centres across our Midlands, Wales & West region are celebrating after scooping awards during a presentation yesterday afternoon and evening at Melbicks Garden Centre (Tuesday, July 9, 2024). Garden Centres of the Year Our Garden Centre of the Year winners were Planters…
We’re partnering nation’s first Net Zero Business Census We’re an official partner of the nation’s first Net Zero Business Census being delivered by the UK Business Climate Hub partnering with Planet Mark (June 2024). This is the largest national research initiative of its kind and includes a coalition of business associations and large corporates. Our…
Regional award meetings first in new area format Our four newly created member areas will meet for their first regional awards next month (July) to find out who has come top in our 2024 annual inspections. At our conference in January this year we agreed to reduce the number of geographical regions we have from…
BoT May figures reveal small positive year-to-date increase despite weather Our Barometer of Trade (BoT) figures for May are out today (June 19, 2024) and reveal that despite the weather there was a small positive year-to-date increase of +3.72%. According to the data from our member garden centres, 11 of the 13 categories recorded were…
New health & safety courses launched on GROW Six new online courses covering health and safety have been unveiled this month on our Garden Retail Online Workshops (GROW) e-learning platform (June 2024). This is the third, and final, batch to be added to GROW on this topic in 12 months. It covers 16 e-Learning courses…
Free sustainability webinar for members Our members will hear from a trio of sustainability experts during a free webinar this month (June 2024). We’re hosting the online event on June 26 from 3-4.30pm and it will cover water conservation and how to navigate environmental policies and initiatives in what is potentially a ‘green minefield’. Expert…
We’ve launched a hunt for a new inspector We’re launching a search for a new inspector to help our members retain the very highest of standards in service and expertise (May 2024). This follows an announcement earlier in the year from our inspector Gordon Emslie that he is retiring from his GCA role. Big shoes…
Clothing & catering style it out and serve up good BoT figures in April Our Barometer of Trade (BoT) for April is out today (May 21, 2024) and shows clothing and catering leading the way when compared to the same month last year. There was also a positive, 3.77%, year-to-date variance, but 10 of our…
Hedgehog Awareness Week The British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) is hosting its annual Hedgehog Awareness Week from May 5-11 this year to highlight the problems hedgehogs face and how we can help them. This year the charity is asking people to welcome wildlife by creating space for it in their own gardens or green spaces…
Our Garden Retail Online Workshops (GROW) e-Learning platform was presented with a ‘Highly Commended’ at the recent Totara Awards (April 2024). GROW received the accolade in the ‘Best Extended Enterprise Solution’ category and was given a special mention during the awards ceremony too. ‘Extremely proud’ GROW’s Instructional Designer, Antony Snow says: “These awards recognise the…