Our Christmas Toy Appeal 2024

Blog written by Elaine Dean, President. 

Last year, our Society Toy Appeal visited 9 stores because many of our car parks were too small to take the huge lorry! As we sat sheltering in the lorry from a wild storm in Dodworth, Andy Peake, from our Executive team and I started discussing what we could do to make it a better project for the next year.

During our various visits travelling around the Society over the next 9 months we debated whether to hire a large van or even a mobile home which could be slept in by the driver. 

Eventually we settled for the largest van that didn’t require an HGV licence that we could brand with the Society Toy Appeal. 

Last year, Lol Laffer was able to drive the vehicle, but as he would be visiting Australia during November and December, we needed to find a new volunteer who could drive the van and have the right attitude, patience, energy and ability to dress up. Step forward recently retired Operations Manager and now part time Funeral driver Adrian Dunn. We were totally agreed on that ! For back-up we also insured Store Manager Carl Smitheman to drive it.

 We would need an administrator with access to our systems and a reputation for attention to detail. Step forward Executive Assistant Lesley Nolan.

 The three of us set to work and we asked the Member and Community Relations Officers which stores they would like us to visit - and when word got out that we planned a lot more visits then store managers started sending begging messages !

Andy Seddon, our Society Secretary and I did an Anglia tour in September and so many of the stores there have large car parks and were really keen to support the Toy Appeal.

Credit to MCRO Tami Evans who identified a number of stores in the Eastern Region – I’m pleased to say that we actually managed to fit them all in.

 We held a number of meetings to work out how we could plot a route which would see the Toy Appeal visit around 22 counties over 4 week, taking in 50 Society stores.

 So, who was going to volunteer and support the Appeal across the 50 stores ? I began to think that the 3 of us would be going out on the van because we would never get enough helpers!

We should not have worried, we had over 150 volunteers in the end to cover the 50 visits with a fair number of people putting in 3 or 4 or more shifts.

Plans began to be made to dress up for the visits and fancy dress costumes were ordered and tried. I will not forget the sight of a retired CEO, former Chair of  the Co-op Group dressed up as Santa and ho ho ho-ing around stores in the Eastern Region.

 The first week started off fairly quietly and unfortunately the brand-new van broke down twice – once way over on the East coast, but a new battery resolved this and no further problems occurred.

We collected a lot of toys in the first week but things really started to pick up at Mulbarton where our mystery Santa first appeared ringing his bell. In all over the period of 4 weeks Mulbarton collected 21 green trays of toys, an incredible feat.

 Week 2 started off with Littleover where the Derby Retired Employees were having their Christmas lunch next door – and they brought many toys along with them showing that combining the visit with a nearby event works well. Colleagues here dressed as elves and we even had a Christmas tree costume.

We also had the van at the Support Centre in Lichfield for the arrival of guests for our Men's Voices event. Again, combining with an event worked wonders and we collected lots of toys. There were more visits to  stores in South Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire and as always a lively well planned visit to Ibstock who always pull out all the stops and turn the whole visit into a community event – needless to say many toys were donated here as the entire village knew the van was coming thanks to the incorrigible Julie Marlow who is a top Christmas lover !

Our driver Adrian Dunn was growing more and more into the role with different outfits and taking photos and videos of every stop to promote the Appeal across social media channels.

 There was a great visit to Tuxford in week 3 where colleague Board director Becci Britland had everything planned out and we then proceeded to one of our newest stores at Scunthorpe.

 A highlight of the week was a visit on the Saturday to Thrapston Fair where we had a late finish but came away having collected very many toys.

Monday of the week 4, our final week, saw many toys collected in Ripley - where the local REA were having their Christmas lunch - and Belper and then the van headed off to the Northwest to Lancashire and the Wirral and crossed over to Yorkshire for the next day where many toys were collected at Lane Head and Dodworth.

I think most of us could have gone on another week ! We are hoping to visit many more stores next year, and all Food stores and Funeral homes will be provided with a collection point bin so that all stores can support the Appeal and then  share the donated toys with  local charities, Food banks or the nearest store having a van visit.

EVERYONE has entered into the spirit of this Appeal, every store made huge efforts and colleagues really enjoyed the fun. We have collected over 3,000 toys – maybe more because they were coming in after the actual campaign closed - but all the toys have gone to local charities working with disadvantaged people. The toys donated have gone to local families so that right across our 22 counties many more children will receive a toy when they would undoubtedly have gone without.

The Appeal has taken a lot of organising and working out routes for shops as near to each other as possible in any given day. It really has been worth all the hours spent on this because the outcome has been rewarding and simply overwhelming. It is also a very co-oppy thing to do to bring joy to colleagues, members, customers and communities as well as to all the young recipients.

I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped even if only in a small way,  in particular to our fantastic Membership and Community Councils, as well as the  support from the Board and Executive and colleague teams in stores – special mention to a number of Operations Managers who dressed up in Christmas jumpers and joined in the fun.

 Have a wonderful Christmas yourselves all of you and we will be working to improve how we run this Appeal next year.

 Elaine Dean (President) on behalf of the Organising Team of Andy Peake, Lesley Nolan, Adrian Dunn, Simon Plunkett and myself.