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The best shop in the Midlands

And so it was for my sins that this weekend work again forced me to visit Derbyshire.

Not to Derby itself but to Chesterfield, the place, much to the chagrain of my childish anti-Derbyshire-ism, that has the best performing Save the Children store in the region.

Once I’d completed my duties for work I quickly found the shop, just along from the town’s famous crocked spire.

Seeing an opportunity to scare the nice lady who was taking on the Saturday volunteering duties I briskly shook her hand and informed her that I was James, I was a Nottingham volunteer and could I look around.

To give the lady full credit she didn’t unleash the Save the Children security dogs on me and happily let me look round the shop.

I was left impressed and heartened by what I saw.

Impressed because it was clearly a well run, organised and clean shop, I would have happily had a picnic on that shop floor without putting a rug down. I am informed this is partly down to a very well organised and capable manager.

Heartened because I don’t believe the Nottingham shop needs to change much to reach those standards. However it seems hard to see how we can achieve those standards without a shop leader.

This weekend was the ‘Midlands Volunteers Meeting’ in Kinoulton, Leicestershire.

I hope this was an opportunity for all volunteers to reinforce the importance of the high standards of shop maintenance and management that we should all aspire to.

The success of Save the Children Retail and the projects it finances relies on it.

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