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
04 March 2009 : Tesco call us in
We take lots of calls from Tesco employees on the Retail Trust Helpline and give more away in grants to Tesco than any other retailer. I guess the fact they employ around 250,000 employees explains a lot.
They are considering a trial that will involve us supporting them and the original meeting was due to take place when the whole country ground to a halt during the heavy snow falls a few weeks ago. The meeting today went well and there was a clear meeting of minds and we wait for them to come back to us in the next few weeks. I'll let you know how we get on and how things develop.
Our tie ups with Morrison's, Iceland, Waitrose and our ongoing conversations with the Co Op, Asda coupled with our meetings with Tesco and Sainsbury's in the last couple of days demonstrates we are now positioned as the principal charity of the retail sector and have shrugged off our image of being there for the drapery trade only.
It's brilliant to see how our ReWork programme is developing with more calls to the Retail Trust Helpline asking for help. Click the link and check out how we are helping middle managers who need our help.
Great to hear from Linda Davis the MD of our Housing business who was in Salford today for the handover of the brand new community centre. I understand she spent the day supporting the team unloading the lories with new desks, chairs and furniture!
03 March 2009 : Sainsbury's try something different
Great meeting at Sainsbury's head office with Erica Zimmer from Justin King's office. We connect with Sainsbury's in so many different ways and Erica has agreed to arrange a meeting with all the interested parties to ensure we all pull together in one dirrection.
Delighted to see 8,700 jobs saved as Mosaic Fashions morphs into Aurora. We have a good parnership with Mosaic and I am sure it will continue with Aurora.
Had a chance to review the number of companies who have signed up to Retail Trust Week. One thing is for sure there are going to be a lot of retail staff having fun, raising awareness and raising money for Retail Trust during w/c May 11th.
27 February 2009 : Cartoon Capers
Patrick Blower's cartoon in today's Retail Week has a Picnmix theme! I have spoken to Pat and he is kindly letting us have the original water colour for our archives. Thanks Pat.
The rest of the day will be spent in meetings. Maxine Benson from Every Woman visited Mill Hill to discuss possibly tie ups with the Everywoman in Retail Awards Ceremony.
Tilly Allen from the London Apprenticeship Company is keen to pick my brains this afternoon. I couldn't think of a more pleasant way to end the working week!
26 February 2009 : Marketing with Passion
The day started with a breakfast meeting with Kate Hardcastle from Passion Marketing. I have known Kate for a while and she is keen to support us, particularly in the North. I have put her in touch with Penny, our Northern Development Manager to see what she can do to help. There are a couple of events coming up that Kate might want to get involved with Harvey Nics in Manchester and our Northern Party) and she has a project she is working on that might benefit Retail Trust.
In the past two days, I have had two separate conversations with retail managers who are being consulted with about possible redundancy. In both cases their companies have promoted the Retail Trust ReWork programme service as part of their package - the message is getting out there.
25 February 2009 : Deja vu
The announcement of the proposed merger between BHS and Arcadia Group is hardly a suprise. Certain departments will disapear as roles are combined and there will be redundancies. The Retail Trust Helpline 0808 801 0808 and particularly our Outplacement service are there for any staff who need our help.
I have a feeling of deja vu thinking back to my days as Retail Director of the BrandMax project at Arcadia Group all those years ago.
My thoughts and prayers are with David Cameron and his wife Samantha on the sad death of their young son Ivan.
22 February 2009 : Front Page News
The Picnmix story has certainly captured the imagination!
We were featured in EVERY National Sunday newspaper today. We have also been on Sky News, Radio 4 and all the regional media. In fact, we have received around 440 press cuttings so far!
For the record we were in:
Front page - Telegraph
Page 9 - Mirror
Page 36 - Mail
Page 8 - Express
Page 12 - News of the World
Page 5 - Observer
Page 19 - Independant
Page 6 - People
Page 17 - Star
Page 2 - Times
Well done to the team for getting our message out there.
21 February 2009 : Sweet Charity
The last bag of Woolworths Picnmix we were selling on eBay has just closed on an amazing £14,500.10 - What a fantastic result!
There has been loads of media interest in the story and we hope to gain lots more exposure over the weekend.
Well done to the team who have worked so hard at responding to queries, updating everyone and keeping the story going.
I spent the day talking to our PR team and journalists from a number of newspapers and it ended with a live interview from Mill Hill for the BBC News. Click on the link to see the interview.
20 February 2009 : What a Liberty
Well done and thank you to Tim Danaher and the team at Retail Week for a fantastic 21st Party at Liberty last night. The location, food, atmosphere and company were all superb. It was great to catch up with some old mates including; Vanessa and Rachael from CVUK, Giffi Fields from Coppernob, Ian McGarrigle from EMAP, Stephen Robertson and Geoff Mulcahy from BRC, John King from House of Fraser, Justin Li
nger from Barracuda, Derek Lovelock from Mosaic and Nick Robertson from ASOS.
I also met a number of new contacts who had facinating businesses and were interested in hearing about Retail Trust. Barbara Wiggins has a great business and was a lot of fun, so too was Jonathan Boston from Denison Boston and his partner Deborah Simpson from Forward PR - Great to meet you and I look forward to cathching up soon.
I mentioned the Pic N Mix to Trevor Bish Jones, the former CEO of Woolworths, I'm not sure if he is going to bid although it's up to almost £350 with just over a day to go!19 February 2009 : Happy 21st Retail Week
Third Sector are running an article on the economic downturn and how it is affecting helplines. Emily interviewed me about the increase in calls to The Retail Trust Helpline (0808 801 0808). The sort of calls we are taking and what sort of practical help we are giving. I talked about the £1m in grants that we will give away this year, the new Outplacement service together with the free legal advice and free counselling.
This evening is Retail Week's 21st Birthday party at Liberty's in London. I understand there will be around 300 retailers partying the night away. I'm off to prepare myself mentally and physically!
18 February 2009 : Happy Birthday Harry
My youngest son Harry is 14 today. Special time with a special boy.
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