Pennells Garden Centre would like to Congratulate Trevor on his 65th birthday and thank him for all his hard work. At the end of this month Trevor will have completed 49 years with the company, and though the company has changed drastically since he started work in 1963 Trevor's professionalism, plant knowledge and customer service has remained constant. Trevor will be continuing to work for the company but on a part time basis.

Cleethorpes Garden Centre had it's own late shopping evening in aid of Charity. Due to the hard work put in by Louise, and the rest of the team on the night, the event was a success. It featured two choirs, a face painter, a tasting session with Mrs Bridges and even Santa was in his grotto helping with the raffle.

Over £1000 was raised to be split between the local MIND and the local Motor Neurone Disease charities.

MIND is a charity that aims to help people "take control of their mental health" They do this through information and advice as well as campaigning on mental health issues. Motor Neurone Disease is a disease which causes weakness in muscles leading to reduced mobility and difficulty with speech, breath and swallowing.

In aid of Children in Need and the Shelterbox Charity Pennells Garden Centre in Lincoln held a late shopping evening. As well as 10% discount on all items in store (excluding concessions and gift vouchers) there was a grand raffle and demonstrations through to 8pm.

Children in Need is the annual charity evening organized by the BBC which aims to relieve the plight of children in Britain and throughout the world, since it began it has helped raise over £500million for this cause. Shelterbox is an international disaster relief charity that delivers emergency shelter, warmth and dignity to people affected by disaster worldwide.

Pictured left is David standing with the Raffle prizes, which ranged from gardening gloves, plants, or a clock right up to a table set.

With your help Pennells Garden Centre was able to raise £820.63, £800 of which will be going to Children in Need and the excess to our continued efforts to raise money for the Shelterbox charity.

Today we have been visited by the inspector from the Garden Centre Association.

Each year we are inspected by the GCA to ensure that we are of a high enough standard to stay as a member. We aren't told when the inspector is going to call - and he's here at Lincoln today and was at Cleethorpes yesterday. We wont know how well we have done for a couple of weeks. The reports help us to focus on areas where we can improve the centres.

We are always looking at ways of improving the centres so if you have any comments on things we do, good or bad do please let us know. 

Pennells Garden Centres recently marked the long service of the Senior General Manager of their Lincoln Garden Centre, Mr Steve Robinson, with a presentation.

Mr Robinson who had previously worked widely in the industry was appointed as garden centre manager in March 1986. He has been very much involved in the development of the garden centre over the last twenty five years from a relatively small plant centre to today's centre with over its wide range of products including gifts, pet products, crafts in addition to its traditional gardening range. Mr Robinson was presented with a clock from the company and a cake made in the restaurant by Mrs Jackie Parker, the restaurant manager.

At Pennells we are looking to make a real commitment to becoming a greener, more environmentally friendly company. We already do our best to recycle everything we can as well as offering to recycle our customer's plant pots but we felt that we could be more efficient with our energy consumption. As a plant retailer we are fortunate that our primary product is not just carbon neutral but actually has a positive impact on the environment, however as a responsible business we understand that we should still do everything we can to reduce our energy use and carbon output

Throughout 2011 we are aiming to achieve an overall 15% reduction in our energy usage, through a combination of investment in greener and more efficient technologies, increased monitoring, changing how we use our energy and increased vigilance by our staff. All this should be possible with no interruption or negative effect to our customers, and hopefully may even improve our general efficiency.

Some of the specific areas we hope to improve upon include:

• Increased training of our staff to ensure all equipment is unplugged and turned off when not being used.
• Monitoring our energy consumption more closely and having it divided between the different sections so we can identify patterns and waste quicker.
• Utilize existing power saving options in our current equipment, such as setting computers to enter standby mode or shut off entirely if not used for prolonged periods.
• Replacing lighting fittings and their bulbs or tubes with more energy efficient versions, without compromising on light levels within the store.
• Make energy efficiency an important concern when buying any new equipment or any building works in the future.
• Try to obtain our energy from more sustainable sources

If you have any concerns or ideas to help us in our aim please feel free to contact us.

Work has now been completed at our Cleethorpes centre.

The new layout will make it much easier to shop. We've expanded the restaurant and introduced a new craft section.

The gift section has also been expanded.

At the start of March we had a double celebration with staff completing 50 years and 25 years service.

Mr Roy Cousins celebrated fifty years working for the company. Roy stepped down as manager of the centre at the end of last year but continues to work part time at the centre. He first started working for the company aged 16 at the companies Scartho nursery in Grimsby. When the garden centre first opened at Humberston Road, Cleethorpes he became assistant manager before becoming its manager in the late 1970’s. Over the years he has seen many changes and extensions to the centre. Roy was presented with the Royal Horticultural Society’s long service medal with bar in recognition of his 50 years service to the company and the industry.

Mr Mark Smith received a presentation from the company to mark twenty five years service. Mark started work at the centre in 1985. His key roles include customer service and advice, as well as managing the centres warehouse. He was presented with a laptop computer and a camera by the company.

In January our Lincoln won the Most Improved Garden Centre Award at the Garden Centre Association Conference