Nigel's Blog
Hi, I'm Nigel the Chief Executive of Retail Trust.
The coming year will be a time of growth and change for Retail Trust. The charity will be working more closely than ever with organisations in the retail sector as we cement ourselves as the charity committed to the well-being of employees in the retail industry.
Part of working more closely with the industry is communication. Technology allows me to communicate with you through this blog – spelling mistakes and all! So please feel free to email me on the Contact page with feedback, ideas, or just to swap stories about our blogs. Enjoy!
You can read my biography on our Trustees and Chief Executive page.
Nigel J L Rothband
Chief Executive
Read Nigel's Blog
06 September 2010 : Top of the Pops
A huge thank you to Mike and Carol Clare for a magnificent party at their estate on Saturday night. Mike is a very generous supporter of Retail Trust and makes a point of inviting some of the key charities he supports along with his friends and family. The 1960's Pop Festival theme was brilliant with everyone making a huge effort with their outfits. On the bill were tribute bands covering The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Shirley Bassey and The Beatles.
Great work girls - Well done.
03 September 2010 : Best Job In Retail?
What a delight and pleasure to welcome Kim Morton, Chairman of the Fashion Retail Academy (FRA), to Mill Hill yesterday.
Kim and I worked together 100 years ago and have kept in touch since.
Retail Trust and FRA are now working in partnership, with us providing the Employee Assistance Programme for all students. As the new students start their new term we will be setting up a stand to promote what we can offer and all students will get a Helpline card and other information about Retail Trust and particularly the Helpline 0808 801 0808.
In addition I have been asked to conduct a master class (infact two masterclasses, as there are too many students for just one sittting) in a couple of weeks time.
What a great opportunity to promote "retail's best kept secret" to all those new recruits to the world of retail. Kim is also keen that I talk about the opportunities that retail operations bring. I understand that most of the students believe that the best retail jobs are in buying and merchandising.........how wrong they are!
Have a great weekend.
01 September 2010 : Retail's Best Kept Secret
Just back from a weeks holiday and we are on a roll.
An excellent meeting today with Rob Templeman, CEO of Debenhams. Rob and his team are great supporters of Retail Trust and continue to work closely with us across many fronts. We discussed a whole host of issues including our London Ball, Retail Trust Search For A Star, Great Northern Ball, Scottish Ball and the workshop we held with Debenhams staff to gain their feedback on our services.
Rob is fully engaged and described us as "retail's best kept secret", a phrase I often use myself.
This afternoon I agreed the design brief for our Impact Report and started the process of holding Performance Reviews with my direct reports. Today was with my F.D. Rob Mansell.
Tomorrow we will be distributing our Board pack to Trustees in preparation for next weeks Board meeting.
We continue to support an increasing number of people across the whole of the retail sector. One moving story that crossed my desk today is as follows:-
Ms Z was born into a troubled and dysfunctional family. Both her parents were alcoholics and Ms Z and her sister were often left to fend for themselves without the usual parental support. Despite this she developed a strong work ethic and started work at sixteen and has remained in employment all her life. She bought her ex-council house bedsit with a small loan which she has now paid off. She began a programme of renovation works to up-date the flat and to improve the bathroom. In February this year she was diagnosed with a grade 2 breast tumour and has since undergone a mastectomy. She has just started a course of chemotherapy to be followed by hormone therapy and radiotherapy; she has just been informed that it may be necessary for her to undergo a second mastectomy. She has been off sick since the surgery receiving SSP only and it unlikely that she will be able to work again this year. CAB will help her apply for DLA but will be unable to do this until October. Miss Z has two needs; assistance to complete the renovation works on her flat. The bathroom has no working shower as it needs an electrician and plumber to wire and plumb it in, and someone to repair the wall to the bathroom which is incomplete; she has no privacy in the bathroom and has to pour water over herself in order to wash. She also has a shortfall of income to meet day to day living costs which have now increased due to travelling costs for treatment and hospital appointments. CAB are asking us to help with the cost of getting the bathroom into a useable condition.We were able to assist with a grant towards bathroom repairs and another for living expenses until she is able to claim DLA.
18 August 2010 : Making a Difference
In the past few days I have been made aware of a couple of fabulous stories about people we have helped.
The first are a married couple who live on one of our retirement estates. Let's call them Rob and Kathy (not their real names).
Kathy sent us a note recently that read as follows:-
When Rob and I moved to Retail Trust, to us it was like winning the lottery. The kindness and consideration we receive from all the staff is amazing. Unfortunately, my husband has dementia and disability, I myself is very restricted in what I can do, but with the help and support of your staff we can attend some of the social functions. The staff always make sure we enjoy the friendship of all the residents. The security is excellent and our medical necessities are also attended to.
Kathy went on to say:-
We sincerely hope to enjoy many years of being a resident at Retail Trust. With grateful thanks to all concerned. Rob and Kathy.
The other involved a young man we have helped through the Retail Trust Helpline 0808 801 0808.
"John" first contacted us in 2003 when he was in an open prison when we helped him with a grant for some clothing to help him when he was out on day release.
Since his release from prison we have supported John in a couple of areas allowing him to gain qualifications and, despite a number of setbacks, paid employment.
John regularly writes to us to let us know how he is getting on.
Most importantly he has not re-offended. This is down to John's own determination, support from his probation team and I think he would say that Retail Trust's support has been important too.
Well done John!
I am delighted that our work really is making a difference.
12 August 2010 : Annual Review or Impact Report?
I have been exercising my brain over the last couple of days on our glossy annual review. In the past this has been a comprehensive review of all that has been done by the charity. Last year it ran to 18 pages of A4.
The more I think about it, we need to say less. We should keep it brief and focus on the impact we have made.
Describe the problem, explain the solution and celebrate the impact. Talking of impact, I have seen today the results from our Helpline 0808 801 0808 for the past three months compared to the same period last year. The results look like this:-
TOTAL CALLS TO THE HELPLINE HAVE INCREASED BY 25%
Calls regarding debt soared by 77%
Calls requesting counselling shot up by 87%
Requests for financial assistance rose by 34%
Surprisingly, calls regarding redundancy fell by 22%
The number of callers requesting legal advice increased by 41%
Calls regarding sick pay have risen by 120%
What impact will that have had? Wait to see this year's Impact Report to find out!
10 August 2010 : Why Are We All Here?
First thing this morning I asked the support team on our Mill Hill estate "How is Miss Hyder"?
Hilda Hyder is 101 today.
The answer "No idea, she has already gone off to do her shopping on the bus, no stick, no support just Hilda on her own. She will be back later".
What an amazing lady - Happy 101st Birthday Hilda.
Last night we put on a BBQ for our Mill Hill residents and we had around 90 people to serve. Well done to John McDermott, our Development Director, and his team who did all the planning and preparation.
As I prepare to induct another of our new Trustees is is so important to remember why we are here. It is not just for our 500 residents across five estates it's also for the three million we offer support to who work in the retail industry.
I am passionate about what we do and I don't think we do a good enough job; sharing, celebrating and discussing the case studies of who we have helped.
For the past couple of weeks, we have started our Exec team meeting by sharing and discussing case studies that have come to our attention over the past seven days. I plan to extend that do our Board meetings too. So the case studies will no longer be put at the back of the Board pack, just before AOB, they will be at the front and we will start the meeting reminding ourselves of why we are all here.
Hilda is one of the reasons we are here!
06 August 2010 : How Many Degrees?
One of those today that was back to back meetings.
It started with Laura Chesters B. Sc .(Hons), M.A. who is news editor of Property Week. Even though Laura only has two degrees the meeting was thought provoking and interesting. Laura covers retail and so we had much to talk about and I look forward to an amazing amount of coverage on Retail Trust in Property Week for many weeks to come.
As I came out of the meeting I turned my phone on to see a message from my wife - we have three degrees between us - she was on Vanessa's show on BBC Radio London talking about Harrow school meals. Sorry I missed it!!
Interesting that Vicki Day, on the back page of today's Retail Week, picked up on the M & S outsize school clothing issue. I agree with you Vicki - as they say in the North ....They can't do right for doing wrong!
I met Tim Lawler, CEO of Sport Aid, at the Brighthouse conference earlier this year. It is always good to meet with fellow "Third Sector" colleagues. We have similar objectives and similar challenges.
After that it was a heady mix of HR and finance with two members of my team wrapping up a fun day/week!
03 August 2010 : Phew Grants
Support the Retail Trust Helpline 0808 801 0808 is giving to our industry is increasing at an outstanding rate.
Calls to our Helpline last month were up 36% on last year.
If we look at the number of calls as little as five years ago, we are now running at 10 times that number!
I have to pay tribute to all our Helpline advisors who continue to do an outstanding job.
Many of the calls end up being refered to the Grant & Services Committee who met this afternoon. Thanks to the team at Sainsbury's who hosted the meeting at their Holburn Head Office. The committee is made up of Trustees, HR executives from the retail community and other volunteers.
We discussed and ratified around 100 grants to people in our industry who are in need. In total we give away about £1,000,000 in grants each year.
I cannot go into individual cases, however, the sort of help we signed off today was for household furniture, disability equipment, carpets, fridge freezers and respite breaks. In addition we awarded education grants to individuals who wish to develop their skills within our industry.
All round a rewarding day and I look forward to even more grants to deserving cases over many years to come.
30 July 2010 : A Week To Remember
It really has been an amazing fundraising week for Retail Trust.
I do not want to pick out individuals because I believe true success always come from a team effort. What a fabulous week that looks something like this.....................London Ball - Attendees up to 491. This is the highest we have ever been at this stage in July.
Great Northern Ball – Now with over 300 confirmed places vs. 250 at the event last year. New Look - £40k new Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) sign up. Gap - £25k EAP renewal. H&M £20k new EAP sign up.Cushman & Wakefield £20k new sponsor for London Ball.
Netto confirmed £16k of fundraising for Retail Trust Week.
Even more entries received for this year's Retail Trust Search For A Star competition.
Have a great weekend.
26 July 2010 : "Triumph and Disaster"
I took a couple of days holiday at the end of last week to play a bit of cricket and help prepare for my in-laws 60th wedding anniversary celebrations.
It was a mix of "triumph and disaster", fortunately the 60th wedding anniversary was the "triumph" and the cricket was the "disaster".
We should have presented my Mother-in-law with several medals!
It was a wonderfull family occasion and I know both Maurice and Estelle enjoyed having their four children, their spouses, their nine grand children and one great grandaughter around them for the weekend.
The lunch, on Sunday, took place at the community centre at Retail Trust, Mill Hill.
Yes, I paid the same as everyone else for hiring the venue!
It is a fabulous space to hire for a lunch, supper quiz or any type of celebration. Hire details can be sought by ringing Amanda on 020 8201 0110.
Just before I went off I had a great meeting with the inspirational Dan Barber from Standout Communications. Dan and his team have helped our Contour Ball Committee with promotional support.
Not only does Dan run a very succesful agency, he also set up Boomerang which encourages employers to take on young people who have not had the best start in life. Brilliant!
Dan I look forward to catching up soon.
