Selco News

Many parents were busy dressing their children as characters from Harry Potter or Horrid Henry for World Book Day this morning – but one six-year-old took his inspiration from our Trade Catalogue!

Flynn Sands, who wants to become a tradesperson in later chapters in his life, selected a builder from the Selco catalogue when asked to choose his favourite character from a book.

The Bristol schoolboy is a regular visitor to the Bristol Filton branch of Selco, based on Taurus Road off Gipsy Patch Lane.

The youngster’s mother Charlotte Sands said: “Flynn is absolutely obsessed with builders, people who work in the trade and Selco.

“Most weekends he is in Selco Bristol with my dad who is a builder and he loves the place. He genuinely thinks he works at Selco!

“He is so determined to become a builder or tradesperson in his future career, he uses his pocket money to buy wood just so he can drill some holes.

“His request to dress up as the builder from the Selco catalogue actually came as no surprise to me but I’m sure it raised a few eyebrows amongst his teachers and friends!”

Carine Jessamine, marketing director of Selco, said: “Flynn is an absolute star and the picture is the talk of the whole team.

“We know our Trade Catalogues are popular with our customers and all professional tradespeople but it’s brilliant to hear the next generation are finding it a real page-turner too.

“We wish Flynn every success in his long-term career.”

Selco has a second branch in Bristol based on Cater Road in Bishopsworth.

We are marking National Apprenticeship Week by revealing plans to invest in the development of more than 150 colleagues in 2021.

We are continuing to ramp up our commitment to offer career development opportunities for colleagues working across the business.

Our Rising Stars initiative – which helps colleagues in our 69-strong branch network upskill and progress to the next level – already has over 100 people enrolled and working through the nationally recognised Level Two qualification, with plans to increase that number on the scheme later this year.

In addition, more than 30 colleagues are due to complete the Selco Driver Academy in the early part of this year by passing their Level 2 LGV Apprenticeship, qualifying them as HGV drivers. A new Driver Academy cohort is also planned for later in 2021.

Marc Lucock, HR director, said: “We are committed to giving colleagues the chance to create a genuine career path and providing them with the skills, techniques and self-development to do that.

“The logistics behind the programmes have been made harder due to Covid-19 but we have remained on track with timings and are getting a lot of positive feedback from colleagues thrilled to be given the opportunities to progress their career.

“We are using our Apprenticeship Levy contributions to help fund the programmes and they are making a real difference to colleagues across the business. It’s a major success story of career development programmes.”

The Rising Star courses run for between 12 and 18 months and focus on 16 key areas, including customer, financial, leadership, technology, team performance and the environment.

The bronze programme – which is currently running – has been open for colleagues who aspire to progress to become a supervisor.

Forthcoming schemes due to start later this year are silver - for colleagues holding a supervisory position who wish to have the opportunity to become a duty manager - and gold, which offers duty and deputy managers the chance to enhance their skills and further develop their knowledge relevant to become qualified branch managers.

We have taken further steps to enhance the customer experience in our branches by introducing the widespread use of headsets for colleagues.

We have carried out a successful pilot in six branches – Walthamstow, Reading, Kingston, Orpington, Tyseley and Croydon – and will now introduce them across all 69 stores.

The trials found the headsets, provided by retail communication specialists VoCoVo, enabled customer queries to be answered instantly, producing substantial time savings each day.

We will use an average of 30 lightweight wireless voice-command headsets per branch.

Ian Kennedy, operations director, said: “In the trials using the VoCoVo headsets, colleagues have felt safer, more efficient and better connected to the team, while there is no doubt it has also improved our ability to deliver premium customer service.

“Our colleagues wearing the devices are able to easily communicate at the push of a button and the headsets are lightweight, durable, comfortable to wear and easy to clean.”

Martyn Jones, director at VoCoVo, said: “It’s great to see another rapidly growing national retailer enhancing its in-store operations and customer service through two-way instant communication technology that will vastly improve the experience for customers and colleagues alike.”

Our famous darts shirts have become sought-after possessions at Professional Darts Corporation events – and a treat to mark the new season gives you the chance to get your hands on one this Friday.

As an official partner of the PDC, we had a presence at all the major tournaments before the coronavirus pandemic arrived.

The snazzy darts shirts were given away as prizes in special Selco Darts Challenges at events – and they proved extremely popular!

To mark the start of The Masters in Milton Keynes, 10 darts shirts will be available to eagle eyed darts fans and will be hidden at virtual locations on our website from 9am on Friday. All people have to do to win is find one of the 10 pages on the website with a shirt. It literally is a case of hide and seek!

Carine Jessamine, marketing director at Selco, said: “Our darts shirts have become real hits with fans at events and people made it their mission to win one.

“In these troubling times, we wanted to bring a smile to the faces of darts fans and give them the chance to add a Selco shirt to their wardrobe.

“We will hide the darts shirts around the website from 9am on Friday and it will be a case of whoever finds them first, will win the coveted prize of a Selco darts shirt.

“We wish everyone luck in their quest to find the shirts.”

To win a Selco darts shirt, people should comment on the post on Selco’s Facebook or Twitter pages with a link to a webpage with a shirt on.

Only one shirt can be won by any one person and the first to comment of the location of each shirt will win it.

Given the current national lockdown, we have taken the difficult decision to call a temporary halt to our Selco Stars initiative.

The campaign invites charities and community groups from across the UK to submit applications for the chance to win £500 worth of building materials.

The 12 winners – selected over a six-month period – were then due to go before a public vote to be held in February for the chance to win £5,000 cash, with £1,250 up for grabs for the runner-up.

That public vote has now been delayed until after the national lockdown to give each finalist a fair chance of success.

Carine Jessamine, Selco marketing director, said: “It was proving another very successful Selco Stars scheme but the national lockdown has given us no option but to temporarily suspend proceedings.

“We are producing special videos for each of the finalists to help showcase their work during the public vote and the national lockdown means we can’t continue with those at present. We will resume the campaign when we are able to film with the remaining finalists once again.

“All 12 finalists have now received their £500 credit to enable them to carry out the project they are working on.

“We look forward to staging the public vote as soon as lockdown restrictions enable us to film the remaining videos.”

A Manchester based veterans’ charity is a step closer to opening a fully functioning smokehouse restaurant – thanks to a generous donation from Selco.

Veterans’ Garage, based at City Airport in Eccles, is hoping to extend its range of service to allow past military personnel to work in a fully-functioning restaurant.

That dream came a step closer to reality after the organisation won £500 worth of building materials in our Selco Stars scheme.

Each month, Selco – which has four branches in Manchester at Salford, Ardwick, Baguley and Ashton Moss - is donating £500 of building materials to two groups across the UK, with the 12 finalists going forward for a public vote for the chance to win £5,000 in cash. A second prize of £1,250 is also available to mark Selco’s 125th anniversary.

Veterans’ Garage has revamped the terminal building at the airport to create a hub for former members of the military and emergency services.

As well as creating a fully functional hub and offering counselling sessions, aviation, bike and car events are regularly staged.

More than 2,000 people have benefitted from the charity since it was formed three years ago.

Craig Monaghan, director of Veterans’ Garage, said: “It can be extremely difficult for veterans to rehabilitate back into society and our aim is to bridge that gap from military life to the day-to-day civilian world.

“We offer a range of services and our next step is to enhance the employability of the veterans we support.

“There is an alarming statistic that more than 75 per cent of veterans can’t cook so we are meeting that head on by opening a smokehouse restaurant.

“We will give all the veterans the necessary training and support for them to grow, prepare and cook the food and it’s an exciting project.

“We have a building on the airport site where the restaurant will open and Selco has supplied the timber and decking for us to complete the required renovations and allow us to provide disabled access.

“During what has been an extremely tough time for charities and fundraising in general, this donation from Selco is going to make a huge difference to the services we can offer our beneficiaries.”

Carine Jessamine, marketing director at Selco, said: "Veterans’ Garage do fantastic work in and around the Manchester area and their ambitious plans for the smokehouse are exciting.

“We are delighted to play a small part in bringing those plans to life and it’s another great example of how Selco Stars is making a big difference to communities across the UK.”

We are proud to have completed an incredible year of fundraising by donating £100,000 to charity in 2020 – despite the global pandemic.

We have raised the funds for Global’s Make Some Noise, our nominated charity.

Global’s Make Some Noise has traditionally helped small projects that support disadvantaged children and young people living with illness, disability, or lack of opportunity and their families, and has recently extended its focus to assist wider communities through the coronavirus pandemic.

Carine Jessamine, our marketing director, said: “We are thrilled to have made a very sizable donation to Global’s Make Some Noise in its first year as our official charity partner.

“It’s been an incredibly difficult year throughout society with the charity sector amongst the hardest hit.

“Virtually all of our normal large-scale fundraising events have been postponed so we have had to be creative and encourage customers, colleagues and suppliers to support smaller initiatives.

“We have had colleague baking competitions and raffles and encouraged customers and suppliers to offer their support at various times of the year - and the response has been phenomenal.

“We have a very long history of supporting charities and the communities in which we operate. But to raise £100,000 in this exceptionally difficult year has to be our proudest achievement and we are delighted the money is going to support excellent causes all across the country.

“We have already committed to supporting Global’s Make Some Noise throughout 2021 so hopefully we can return to a more normal programme of fundraising activity as the year goes on.”

Emma Bradley, Managing Director of Global Charities, said: “It’s a phenomenal effort for Selco to have raised such a substantial amount of money during a global pandemic and we thank all customers, colleagues and suppliers from the bottom of our hearts for their incredible generosity.

“The money will go towards supporting the most vulnerable members of the community and helping them through the pandemic.

“It’s our first year as Selco’s nominated charity and we are so grateful for their support. Selco were integral backers of our Christmas campaign and have been fantastic supporters throughout what has been a difficult 12 months for so many charities.”

Global’s Make Some Noise was created by Global, the Media & Entertainment group.

With the help of Global’s radio brands – Heart, Capital, Smooth, Classic FM, LBC, Radio X, Capital XTRA and Gold which collectively reach more than 25 million listeners on the radio alone every week - Global’s Make Some Noise raises money and awareness for small charities that would otherwise struggle to be heard.

A community food hub in Manchester has a new ‘home’ for Christmas – thanks to the help of Selco.

Bideford Community Centre, based on Bideford Drive in Wythenshawe, has been operating a food collection service to residents since the coronavirus pandemic began in March.

The Baguley branch of Selco has now stepped in to provide timber and roofing materials to allow the centre’s management to create a wooden gazebo to host the food hub.

Centre coordinator Kirsty Taylor said: “Our community centre has been in operation for 10 years and, as well as hosting a range of events and services, we are always seeking different ways to meet the needs of residents.

“A community food hub has been on our agenda for quite some time and we decided to push ahead with it when the pandemic started.

“It’s very much done on a basis of trust. It’s open to anyone but we hope people use it in the right way and our motto is ‘take for need, not for greed’.

“We have donated the food from an outdoor location at the centre throughout the year but have been looking to create a gazebo-type structure to host the hub and we were delighted the Selco branch in Baguley stepped in to help.

“Not only have they provided materials but they also arranged for a professional tradesperson to construct the gazebo for us.

“It was all completed in just a few days and we couldn’t be more grateful – it’s a huge bonus for the whole community.”

Dave Rawlinson, manager of Selco Baguley, said: “It’s been an incredibly difficult year for everyone and we will always try and help and support the local communities in which we operate.

“Kirsty and the team at Bideford Centre do fantastic work and we hope our donation will enable them to continue to provide the outstanding food hub service into next year and beyond.”

Our vast new Bristol branch has opened - and produced a £3,000 boost to the local community.

We have opened our new site on Cater Road in Bishopsworth, ending our 25 year stay at our branch in Bedminster.

To mark the opening, we have made a £1,000 donation to Young Bristol, as well as pledging a further £2,000 to our nominated charity Global’s Make Some Noise to support small charities it works with in Bristol.

Mark Jones, branch manager, said: “We’re extremely excited to have opened in Bishopsworth, not least because it is the biggest of our 69 Selco branches in the UK.

“Supporting charities and community groups in the local areas in which we operate is an integral part of the Selco ethos and never more so this year with the coronavirus crisis, so we are delighted to mark the opening of our new branch with a £3,000 donation.

“Young Bristol is responsible for carrying out invaluable work amongst the next generation across the city, while Global’s Make Some Noise is our nominated charity and one that is close to the hearts of all Selco colleagues.”

Young Bristol provides a full range of services for those aged eight to 19 across the city, including eight community youth clubs, an outdoor activity centre in Hotwells and a full employment programme.

Lee Williams, chief executive of Young Bristol, said: “We are hugely grateful for the donation from Selco and it will make a significant difference to our offering to thousands of youngsters across the city.

“Our mission is to ensure that all young people have a range of opportunities and experiences and we will utilise the Selco donation to enhance our IT offering by purchasing computers, laptops and iPads to support our services.”

The move to Bishopsworth has seen us create 10 new jobs, as well as transferring all 30 existing colleagues from the old branch, while our other Bristol branch, based off Gipsy Patch Lane in Filton, will remain in operation.

Our Tyseley branch has helped create a new outdoor space in Birmingham for families from children’s charity Barnardo’s to enjoy.

The branch has donated all the materials to transform an allotment at Yardley District Children’s Centre, a site managed by Barnardo’s.

The project was overseen by youngsters aged between 16 and 25 who are part of the Prince’s Trust 12 Week Team Programme, supported by officers from Acocks Green Police Station.

The work on an allotment near Fox Hollies Children’s Centre has seen six raised beds and a sheltered area created, benches built and the shed on site painted.

PCSO Stephen McGrath, who led the team along with PCSO Poppy Merrick, said: “This is a real community project which will provide new attractions for an important facility and was carried out by an enthusiastic group of youngsters, supported by West Midlands Police.

“As soon as the Prince’s Trust team was made aware of the fact that their work would provide a new outside space for the families from Barnardo’s, they couldn’t wait to get to work.

“Funding has been difficult because we couldn’t stage our usual cake sales, shopping bag packing sessions and other fundraising activities due to coronavirus, but Selco Tyseley put its support behind the project and we couldn’t be more grateful. “There is now a fantastic outdoor space in place where families can grow, educate, learn and have fun together.”

David Wiseman, our Selco Tyseley manager, said: “We have had a long association with the Prince’s Trust and we were only too happy to lend our support in this latest project.

“It’s so important to create engaging outdoor spaces for families and the work carried out at Fox Hollies Children’s Centre is a real boost to the local community, especially at such a difficult time for everyone.”