We’re having a stand at Glee so that existing members and those interested in finding out more about us can come and see us for a chat. We’ll be at the event at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham in Hall 8, Stand 8C70-D71 from June 27 until 29. Face-to-face catch up Peter Burks,…
Our Barometer of Trade (BoT) figures for last month (April 2023) have revealed food hall/farm shop and catering continued to perform well while other categories also saw encouraging increases too. Across our member garden centres, our BoT recorded that catering sales were up 21.63% when compared to April 2022 and food hall/farm shop sales remained…
The dates for our summer regional award meetings when members find out who has come top in our annual inspections for 2023 are out now. Garden centres are encouraged to attend the event in their area and to bring as many of their team members along as possible. Inspections coming to a close Another round…
The Garden Centre Association (GCA) Trust has selected Louise Kemp from Coolings Wych Cross Garden Centre and Ashley Bains from Barton Grange to attend this year’s International Garden Centre Association (IGCA) Congress (2023). The two candidates will receive a sponsored place at the IGCA Congress in September as part of the Dick Allen Scholarship Award…
Twelve candidates from this year’s Glee Talent Store have been selected to showcase their designs at Glee (April 2023). Visual merchandising training day They were selected from 24 garden centre staff members, who took part in a visual merchandising training day and submitted ideas for a pop-up store concept based on either houseplants or outdoor…
We have recently introduced a new module on till security through our Garden Retail Online Workshops (GROW) e-Learning platform. The new ‘Till Security’ module will help our members prevent losses at the tills. Delighted to be offering this module Antony Snow, our Instructional Designer for GROW, says: “We’re delighted to be offering this new Till…
The trustees were thrilled to receive so many applicants for The GCA Trust, IGCA delegate places and after much deliberation, two candidates were carefully selected for this year’s congress study tour to Italy, in September. The trustees would like to take this opportunity to thank all the applicants and assure them that it was a…
Peter Burks, our CEO, says: “Following the Government’s announcement on March 23, that all retail sales of peat would cease at the end of 2024, and that nurseries are to no longer use peat after 2026, we have been discussing with our members and have two concerns. “Firstly, we believe there needs to be government…
Twenty-four staff members from garden centres across the country took part in a training day at Millbrook Garden Centre Gravesend recently with expert mentors as part of this year’s Glee Talent Store (March 2023). The Glee Talent Store, in collaboration with us, aims to nurture and encourage the next up-and-coming stars of horticultural visual merchandising.…
A healthy heart is a healthy life, for most cases at least. Keeping a healthy heart should not be difficult for anyone. There are a lot of activities that we can do to reduce our risk of getting any heart related diseases. It goes without saying that doing cardiovascular exercises promote a healthy heart but…