Coverage in Nantwich Chronicle, Wednesday 27 May 2009.

Coverage in Nantwich Chronicle, Wednesday 20 May 2009

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, Sainsbury’s celebrated its 140th birthday, and to mark the occasion Sainsbury’s Nantwich hosted an oldie world day. Throughout the day vintage lorries, vans, and tractors were parked next to the store*, a wind-up organ was played, and numerous employees at the store were dressed in Victorian clothing.

To help to store get the celebrations under way former Crewe Alexandra FC Manager Dario Gradi – a long-time customer at the local branch – and 15 of the store’s longest serving colleagues accepted the invitation to cut the store’s 140th birthday cake, before lucky customers got the chance to help themselves to a slice.

Sainsbury’s Nantwich also managed to raise just over £1300 for Macmillan Cancer Support over the weekend, by raffling off a 40 inch, HD Ready, Samsung TV worth £700**, and holding a tombola at the front of the store.

Simon Leadbetter, Store Duty Manager says: “We would like to thank Dario Gradi for helping us to celebrate our 140 years, and also send a special thank you to our customers who helped us to raise £1300 for Macmillan Cancer Support.”

As part of the company’s 140th celebrations, Sainsbury’s Nantwich is currently looking for a local charity to partner with. Nomination forms are still available in store at the customer service desk until Friday 29th May, for customers to put forward their suggestions for who they think would be an ideal charity for the store’s official local charity of the year.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Heather Roberts (Store PR Ambassador)
Email: heather.roberts1987@googlemail.com
Mobile: 07738085045

NOTES TO EDITORS
* Vehicles were kindly provided by Geoff Newsome Haulage of Nantwich
** The raffle for the Samsung TV will take place on June 7th, and tickets are still available at the store’s customer service desk at £1 per ticket, and all proceeds will go to Macmillan Cancer Care.

EVENT PHOTOS

Dario Gradi and Simon Leadbetter cut 140th birthday cake

Dario Gradi cuts 140th birthday cake with Sainsbury's Nantwich longest serving employees

This May Sainsbury’s turns 140-years-old, and as part of the company-wide festivities, Sainsbury’s Nantwich, and Crewe Alex Manager Dario Gradi, will be marking the occasion on Saturday 23rd May.

Mr. Gradi, a long-time customer at the local Sainsbury’s branch, and has accepted an invitation to cut the store’s 140th Birthday Cake at 11:30am, and lucky customers will get a free piece of the special cake.

Throughout the day vintage vans and lorries will be parked in the stores car park for visitors to come look at, and traditional party games, like Hoop-a-Duck and Pin Dropping, will be hosted in store. Any children visiting the store at the time of the cake cutting celebration will receive free party bags.

Pete Jones, Store Manager says: “We are very pleased that Dario Gradi has accepted our invitation, and I would like to take this chance to extend an invitation to all our customers to come celebrate with us on Saturday.”

As part of the company’s 140th celebrations, Sainsbury’s Nantwich is currently looking for a local charity to partner with. Nomination forms will be available on Saturday for customers to put forward their suggestions for who they think would be an ideal charity for the store’s official local charity of the year.

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NOTES TO EDITORS
If you wish to attend the celebrations on Saturday please contact either Heather Roberts or Simon Leadbetter.

For further information on Sainsbury’s 140th birthday please visit: http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk/English/Collections/CollectionsOnline/SainsburyArchive

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Heather Roberts (Store PR Ambassador)
Email: heather.roberts1987@googlemail.com

Over the years individual employees at Sainsbury’s Nantwich have been involved in fundraising activities for St. Luke’s Hospice. Over the 2008 Christmas and New Year period employee’s at the Nantwich store combined their efforts to raise £3,500 for the charity.

In addition to raising over £2,000 in charity bucket donations at the end of the checkouts, members of staff held raffles and charity auctions, while the store management team hosted a fancy dress Christmas lunch.

Sainsbury’s Nantwich would like to congratulate all those who helped reach this total, and also send a special thank you to our customers for their kind generosity.

- ENDS -

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Heather Roberts (Store PR Ambassador)
Email: heather.roberts1987@googlemail.com

THE SEARCH IS ON
Sainsbury’s Nantwich looks for a local charity partner.

This month Sainsbury’s Nantwich is inviting customers and colleagues in the Crewe and Nantwich area to nominate local charities to become their official local charity of the year partner.

The successful charity will benefit from the partnership through colleagues organising fundraising activities (such as charity collections and fun days) or volunteering to help in a variety of other ways.

Local people can nominate their chosen charity (or charities) between Wednesday 6th May and Saturday 30th May by submitting a nomination form at the customer service desk. Sainsbury’s will then draw up a short list from all nominations submitted and will announce the shortlist on Wednesday 3rd June. Representatives from the top three short listed charities will then be invited to visit the Nantwich store and talk with colleagues about what they do and how the Sainsbury’s team could help. Finally, the colleagues at Sainsbury’s Nantwich will have the opportunity to vote for one of the short listed charities.

Colleagues at Sainsbury’s Nantwich have already been involved in a lot of great causes from raising money for Oxfam Unwrapped to helping local Scout and Guide groups. Members of staff at Sainsbury’s are continually seeking to actively make a difference to the lives and well-being of those in our local community.

Store Manager, Pete Jones said, “We are keen to find a local charity that is close to the hearts of our customers and colleagues. We want to make a positive difference to our local community and by supporting a local charity we can pull out all the stops to achieve something special for them.”

The successful charity will be announced on Wednesday 17th June, prior to the first nationwide Make the Difference Day on Sunday 21st June.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

*Whilst Sainsbury’s welcomes nominations from any kind of charity there some restrictions, and unfortunately Sainsbury’s will be unable to accept charity nominations from the following types of charities:

1. Organisations or groups involved with political groups or causes
2. Organisations that discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or disability
3. Animal related charities
4. Profit making organisations
5. Individual Cause

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Heather Roberts (Store PR Ambassador)
Email: heather.roberts1987@googlemail.com

Pete Jones (Store Manager)
Phone: 01270 629664

As the saying goes… when in Rome do as the Romans do. So whilst in Australia I’ve decided to do just that and learn to surf. On my last trip to Australia, I had an introductory lesson at Lets Go Surfing - Bondi, but this time I decided I wanted to learn somewhere a little quieter than the world famous beach. After having researched into several surf camps, I chose Waves Surf School. The surf school is a 3 to 4 hour drive up the coast, at a place called Seal Rocks in Myall Lake National Park. The camp was great, I got to meet some pretty cool people from various places across the world – Spain, Columbia, Australia and Austria.

Surfing at Seal Rocks was awesome, got a bit bashed about by the current – the cyclone like weather from the days before had something to do with that! But this wasn’t too bad, as it meant there was a lot of white wash for us to use to learn how to surf on during our first few lessons. Although, with the strong current it took us all a while to be able to get far out enough from the sand bank. Yet, as soon as this was achieved, I was quickly catching the waves, and standing quickly.

Afterwards, we started learning how to move around the board, but unfortunately the tide was too strong for us to go out to the unbroken waves behind the white wash, so didn’t progress as much as hoped, but still had an amazing time.

As well as learning to surf, our surfing instructor took us on a couple of Bush Walks so we could see more of the beautiful Myall Lake National Park. The walks around the headland allowed us to see just how beautiful the area was, and we also wandered to the second most easterly point in Australia – Sugarloaf Lighthouse. It was great to get the chance to not only surf in this area, but also explore it… something I wouldn’t have been able to do at Bondi.

Back at camp… a good half hour drive from the beach, the accommodation was adequate, but then again you are only staying over for a couple of nights, and a good bed is all you really need, so this need not put people off. Also, one of the great attractions to Waves is that the 100 acre camp is home to some of Australia’s famous wild animals – kangaroos and wallabies.

I would recommend Waves to anyone who is looking to learn to surf. And the amazing coast line that Seal Rocks has to offer has to be the greatest advantage that Waves has over any other surf school in the area.

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From the Crewe and Nantwich Chronicle, 18th March 2009.

Store Manager, Pete Jones, along with managers Richard Clarke and Brendan Dodd raised approximately £450 by eating a variety of gruesome critters in a “Bush Tucker Trial” event. Customers and other members of staff were also adventurous in eating some of these delights which included fisheyes, giant ants and oven baked tarantulas.

Additionally, Duty Manager, Simon Leadbetter, managed to raise some £100 by spending the day lying in a bathtub of beans; and Pete Jones also managed to raise a similar amount by sitting in the stocks and having a variety of items thrown at him by employees at the store.

But the success stories of Red Nose Day have to be Kath Broomhall’s staff raffle which raised £1300 and the generous donations from customers, which totalled just over £1100.

Pete Jones has said: “Support for this year’s Comic Relief has been outstanding. We had hoped to raise something in the region of £3000, so we are delighted to have beaten this target with our efforts this year. Our employees have been up for everything that we have thrown at them this year for Comic Relief.

Also, the amount we managed to raise through bucket donations was well over £1000 demonstrating how our customers have been very generous in their donations in these hard times, so we would like to send out a special thank you to them.”

Everyone at Sainsbury’s Nantwich would like to thank everyone who came out to support the activities that the store held on Red Nose Day.

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NOTES TO EDITORS:
* A breakdown of what was raised at Sainsbury’s Nantwich (excluding the sale of Red Nose Day memorabilia):
- Kath Broomhall’s staff raffle: £1300
- Bush Tucker Trial: £450
- Bath of Beans: £100
- Stocks: £95
- Other staff activities (including fastest through the till sweepstake and name the teddy): £255
- Bucket Donations: £1100 (with donations still coming in over the weekend)
** This year Sainsbury’s raised a total of: £9,363,849

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Heather Roberts (Store PR Ambassador)
Email: heather.roberts1987@googlemail.com

Pete Jones (Store Manager)
Phone: 01270 629664