John Lewis Event 2021

The day did not start off well, as when we opened up the Community Room within John Lewis we were confronted with water leaking from the ceiling together with pieces of the ceiling on the floor resulting in the room being unusable for the event.

A quick walk around the store with Samantha Bowden, our manager for the day, revealed no free floor space due to it being their ‘Black Weekend’ sale with all floor space taken up with the sale.

An ingenious solution was provided with us being allowed to take over Kitchen display area on the first floor, suitable adjusted to allow a display area for the event, on the kitchen tables (which we had to allow a prospective purchaser to have a closer look at on one occasion) and country dressers.

My grateful thanks to the 12 or so Coordinators who attended throughout the day and helped out with the reduced table display, the handing out of ‘flyers’ at the entrance to the store, and to the promoting of forensic marking as an excellent crime prevention method in the I.T. and surrounding departments as well as providing advice etc. on Neighbourhood Watch and the running of schemes. It was noted that the amended location actually provided a much greater footfall for the event which allowed interaction with the customers from far and wild, not only locally in Cheltenham and Gloucestershire but also from Birmingham, Essex and Cheshire with Neighbourhood Watch being promoted there as well.

The Crime Commissioner – Mr Chris Nelson and M.P. - Mr Alex Chalk, were in attendance and due to the amended location no actual speeches were made but there was an excellent opportunity to speak to both individually by those present. Mr John Hall, the store General Manager, was also in attendance and provided great support for the event.

As a result of this event we had three new schemes started on the day as well as providing information on Neighbourhood Watch schemes and crime prevention quiries.

An offer was made on behalf of John Lewis, that later on in the year, should we wish to hold a similar event, then an area in the shop used for ‘Pop Up Shops’ would be made available to the Association. This will be brought to the Committee meeting at the January committee meeting on the 17^th Jan.

Here is a montage of the photographs taken during the event:-