Happy New Year!
We hope you all survived the challenges and pleasures of Christmas and the New Year. Thanks to all of you who did some of your Christmas shopping in our village shop.
In the last few weeks there have been a few staff and volunteer changes to tell you about. Just to remind you first, as a not for profit community shop we depend on a team of local volunteers for a lot of what we do. But despite the hard work of our volunteers, the size of the team has reduced and we need to appoint staff as well to make sure we can stay open at all times. Before Christmas we appointed a new day time shop supervisor, Serena Coventry. If you have not met her yet she is in every day from 9.15am, following Karen Elliott, our early morning supervisor. Serena is keen to ensure that we stock what people want, so if you have any ideas of items that we could introduce please speak to her.
In addition Sue Scott, who has worked in the PO for many years, retired at the end of December. Thank you to those of you who donated to her retirement present and attended her leaving presentation. We are interviewing for a replacement for Sue’s hours during January and hope we will have a new PO Assistant by February.
Finally, Diane Crook has been delivering papers each weekday for the community shop and for the original shop on Ashford Hill Road for 15 years. She has done a great job, facing whatever the weather throws at her early each morning. Sadly she is retiring at the end of January. She will be replaced by a new member of staff from Thatcham, Andy Bodker.
Serena’s appointment means that some of our long standing hard working volunteer supervisors do not have to work in the shop so many hours. As always we are very grateful for all the work of all our volunteers.
As a reminder, our Post Office is an important service that we provide for the community and it is well used. The Post Office service does not pay well, so our PO is subsidised by takings from the shop. If the shop closes due to insufficient business then the PO closes as well. If you use the PO please can we ask you to also use the shop at the same time? Anything you buy will contribute to the PO subsidy and therefore help us to keep both the shop and the PO open.
Tickets are on sale in the shop for Call My Bluff on 3 February. If you have not been before, and you enjoy wine and a bit of fun, please consider getting tickets. It’s to be held in Headley Village Hall. Hurry, time is running out for this great evening out.